I have one of the early Climax units.  I love it dearly but would like to upgrade it to DCC and Sound.  Now that Bachman offers such a unit, can mine be upgraded by you?

Hi,
   I have an early model Spectrum 2-8-0.  It never ran great like some I have seen but after 10 hours of breakin, it loosened up a good bit.  Lately it acts as if it has dirty wheels.  Unless it is run at half speed, it dies.  Also it had a Soundtrax sound unit installed several years ago, the one made for this loco.

   I have cleaned the wheels but no help.  I don't know what to expect looking at the wipers.  Most of them do not touch the back of the wheels.  Are they all supposed to?  If they don't and are supposed to, how do I fix that?

  Thanks

I just received a Spectrum 2-8-0 Consolidation with DCC & Sound On-Board.  Although it included a CD and lots of programming information, it included nothing about putting the tender and loco together.

  They use very small connectors and I don't know how to run the oversized cables.  The tender is lifted off the track by the cables.  I compared it against an older model unit which had the cables routed on each side of the drawbar.  This one had the drawbar right through the middle of the cable.  I removed the drawbar and changed it to the way the older one was.  It seems with oversized cables they need to bend out sideways.

   Right now the larger cable drags along the ties while the shorter cable tries to lift the tender.  It derails on one of my Walthers turnouts that has been in place for many years.  Possibly one of the trucks is not gauged correctly.

   Any help on what we are supposed to do with this?