I am seeing an occasional Bachmann Gorre & Daphetid item on ebay. So far I've seen an 0-6-0 and a bobber caboose. Thees appear to be factory painted and not somebody's custom work. Are these the only G&D items Bachmann has made? If there are others, what else is out there? WHen approximately were these produced?

I noticed that the newest release of the 0-6-0 includes a working front coupler. Will the necessary parts to retrofit older locomotives be available in the parts store? Due to the design of this locomotive it is difficult to add a working coupler to an existing locomotive without major surgery. It would be nice if we could get the replacement parts to add this feature.

Looking through the Bachmann store to-day I noticed the PCC cars are recommended 15" minimum radius. That seems pretty wide for a streetcar. Has anybody tried the new versions on sharper curves? How tight can they go? !2"? 8"? Dare i hope for 6" radius?

I have been looking at both the Bachmann ez app page and that of partner bluerail trains and I don't see anything about running locomotives in a consist.

could you please post instructions on how to do this?

as was mentioned in a previous thread it is possible to do this in a little larger than a 4x8 area. the images below show how it is done in scarm. minimum radius is 18r, all switches are #5. there are two areas on the plan where I used flex track, because of slight mismatches when sectional track was used. in real life, the track is more forgiving of these discrepancies than it is on a computer, so it would be possible to build this plan using only standard ez track components.

I have been looking through the parts lists and wondered why you can't buy the truck sideframes as separate items? there are plenty of locomotives which were built with trucks off trade in locomotives. examples would be the gp30s and gp35s of soo line, frisco, southern and gm&o, all of which used trucks from traded in alco fa's instead of the standard emd trucks. the b23-7s for conrail also used alco trucks, and the ones for seaboard coast line used trucks from old emd gp7s. if I want to accurately model any of these, I have to buy a whole set of replacement trucks when all I need id the sideframes.

would selling the sideframes as separate items, for those of us who want to model specific locomotives be something Bachmann will consider in the future?

i came across this the other day.....

a while back there was a thread on 4x8 layouts. some complained about the limits of what can be done and i remarked that sometimes you have to think vertically, the layout below illustrates what is possible in HO in a 4x8 space when you think outside the box, or in this case, inside the box.

Just thought I'd post this video I found showing how a Bachmann gp30 compares to lifelike and kato. what I find interesting is how well a gp30 with no flywheel stacks up against a flywheel equipped loco. the video locos are running on dc, so there is no electronic compensation done to smooth things out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BeHhmPf_cek

In looking through the parts diagrams it appears that most 4 axle Bachmann diesels use a similar truck assembly, with different sideframes as appropriate. since these would be interchangeable, why not use the appropriate sideframes for a particular locomotive. an example would be the b23-7, which comes with the floating boltster style of sideframes. b24-7s built for family lines/csx used trucks from emd trade ins, so a simple swap of a blomberg sideframe would make a more accurate model. the same with the conrail b23-7, which used the type b sideframe used under the rs3 and fa2. other examples would be gp30s and gp35s built for a variety of lines using trucks from traded in alco fa's.

at the very least, please make the sideframes only available from parts & service. it doesn't make sense to have to buy the entire truck assembly when all you want are the sideframes.

does anybody know what happened to Jim Banner? he was such a great source of info on this board but he hasn't posted here in quite a while.

One of the biggest mistakes people new to the hobby, and even some old heads, make when designing a layout is in the use of s curves. these can creep into a plan unless you are careful to recognize them and eliminate them. I have alluded to the s curve problem many times in previous posts, here I will attempt to illustrate the problem and the solution.....

the problem with s curves is that on cars and locomotives with body mounted couplers, the ends of the cars swing out. on an s curve, they swing in opposite directions. This is not a problem unless the limits of the coupler swing are exceeded, then you have a derailment as the couplers inability to swing further forces one or both cars off the rails. using a section of straight track between curves of opposite direction will bring the coupler swing problem down to manageable levels. The rule of thumb here is to use a straight at least as long as your longest car. On a practical matter, a 9" straight should be sufficient. and if you run cars no longer than 50 (scale) feet 6" will do.

The problem can sneak in when using track switches as crossovers between track. The numbered switches such as #4 or $6 have a section of straight track beyond the frogs, so their use in a crossover poses no problem. But the standard 18r switch included in some train sets, and in the track expander packs, are designed to be a drop in replacement for a standard 18r curve. Thus, the rails curve the whole way through the switch, and using two of them as a crossover gives you an 18r s curve. inserting the straight track between the switches alters track spacing, so a better solution must be found.


In the illustrations below are a typical crossover arrangement, and steps that can be taken to eliminate problems.



Here we have a crossover coming out of a curve. I have seen this in many plans including ones published in print. This configuration includes a wicked double s curve, referenced at X and Y.





By flipping the direction of the crossover, we are able to eliminate one of the s curves, but the other still remains, referenced at X.






Moving the crossover back into the curve eliminates both s curves, as well as keeping the crossover in the same direction as the original.


I hope these illustrations will help others avoid potential problems with their layouts.

you might find this link interesting.      i did.

http://www.csrail.org/

many gp30 and gp35 units were built with alco style trucks from traded in fa's. now that we have a bachmann fa on the market, has anybody tried using the trucks from one under a gp30 or gp35? if so, does the whole truck need to be changed or just the sideframes?

i have a couple of old boxcars from the 1960s with hotco stamped in the underframe. i can find nothing on this manufacturer. i guess it could be short for ho train co but i can't find anything on them either. can anybody shed some light on these cars?

just got my sound equipped fa2. just wanted to say i am in alco heaven. it is like being in the yard at elkins, wva in 1975, with rs3s idling away. thanks for putting out an affordable locomotive that sounds just like the real ones did.

can we maybe expect in the future to see sound equipped rs3s as well?

evidently, in celebration of ns's 30th anniversary next year, ns has been taking publicity photos of gp30s from it's 3 predecessor roads. there is one each from conrail, n&w and southern. the photos have been posted on norfolk southern's facebook page. with norfolk southern's renewed interest in steam, and their nod to their heritage using classic diesels, it is good to see a railroad celebrating its past instead of hiding from it.

Just curious if anybody on here has a working signal system on their layout. i am not talking about wiring a signal up to indicate the position of a switch, but a working signal system that detects the presence of trains.

how did you do it? what method of detection did you use? what do you like and dislike about it? what would you do differently next time?

if you can. post a few photos as well......

thanks in advance.

as promised a while back, here is my pictorial on installing a decoder in thomas.

the decoder i chose was a digitrax dz125, a z scale decoder with enough current capacity for HO locomotives. there isn't alot of room inside thomas for a decoder, and this one is one of the smallest on the market.



first, turn thomas over on his side. remove the 4 screws the red lines point to. two are in thomas's chassis under the cab. the other two sit on the gearbox cover between the drive wheels.



remove the drive wheels from the chassis to uncover another screw which holds thomas's boiler to the chassis. remove it as well.




remove the chassis from the boiler. inside the boiler are two screws, marked in red in the photo, that hold the motor inside the boiler. remove these and the motor too.





fully disassembled, thomas is dcc ready. the two motor leads, orange and brown, are isolated from the wheels, red and black leads. by the circuit board. unsolder the board and discard it.





thomas, with the circuit board removed. the dz125 decoder sits in the foreground. its size is perfect for thomas.




connect the decoder wires to thomas's wires. red to red, black to black, orange to orange, the only mismatched colours should be the grey decoder wire connected to the brown motor lead. i used short pieces of heat shrink inserted each of thomas's leads before the wire connections were made.

solder the wire connections together and fold back the bare wires along the insulated wires.




slip the heat shrink tubing over the wire connections and heat them with the soldering iron until they shrink around the connections. trim the bare wire ends off the decoder's white, yellow and blue leads. these will be unused.  tuck the decoder into thomas's coal bunker, and the excess wires into thomas's cab. reassemble thomas, taking care  when installing the motor. inside the boiler there is a little pin which moves thomas's eyes, this must be aligned into a slot in the motor housing or the motor won't seat properly.

everything will go back together the same way you took it apart, except that the original circuit board and the two screws which held it in place will be discarded. take extra care to make sure the two screws between the drive wheels are tightened until snug, or else thomas will slip his gears.  test run thomas, then reprogram the address and anything else you want. the dz125 has back emf, a sort of cruise control for model trains. by programming this and cv2 (start voltage) you can make thomas run much smoother than he ever did on dc.....

first, thanks you for making affordable sound equipped diesels. the alco fa2 and s4 are both appreciated.

i have one question concerning the s4. mrc had made a sound decoder for the atlas s4 which used the sounds for an alco 244 engine, not the 539 used in the s4. as such it was more appropriate for the rs3 or fa2 than the rs3. the difference in the sound of the 539 and 244 was quite pronounced, with the alco s4 having a distinctive whitsling chug.

will the bachmann  s4 have the correct sound of the 539 and not the 244? if the answer is yes i am in love......

thought i'd pass on this link to a topic on the atlas forum regarding the rs3.

http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=63847

overwhelmingly positive comments regarding your efforts in this area. others who have dissed bachmann for many years are finally waking up to the improvements in quality we on this forum have known about for years.

great job, i think you've raised the bar on this one......