Thanks Bill,

I got it all reassembled (except for the headlight wires because I'm waiting for my soldering iron to come in) but everything is working perfectly and the train looks great!  As it turns out, the shell fits right over the additional plug in the back so I did not need to cut a second hole for the additional plug.  I tried to attach a picture of the locomotive with the new chassis but it kept on saying that the file was too large (even though it was only 67kb)  Thanks for all of your help and advice!

Last year I posted some questions about the 4-6-0 Red Comet I had.  I finally ordered the new chassis and have almost everything disassembled and I have a few questions.

1) The new chassis has two switches where the old chassis only had one.  I was going to just replace the smoke box cover with one that had slots for both switches but they are out of stock.  Would it be a problem to only install the one switch for the smoke unit and leave the direction switch loose inside?  I only plan on running it on the oval track that it came with so its not like I'm going to be doing anything fancy with it.

2) Is there a way to avoid re-soldering the wires for the light besides just cutting and leaving them loose?

3) The back of the new chassis has two plugs.  The tender only has one cord for the sound.  Why do the new ones have two and what is the best way to modify the shell to accommodate the second plug?

Thanks,

Mark Sumner

Sorry for the lenghty time to reply but my wife made me put the train away for a while.  I got it back out and set it up for Christmas and continued to troubleshoot my problem.  Power is fine and it looks like the issue is with the drive gear.  When the glue dried, it expanded in the crack causing the gap between two of the teeth to widen.  This is where the motor was getting hung up where it "seemed to lose power".  So it looks like I'll be replacing the chassis which seems pretty simple and straightforward.  It looks like most of the anniversary chassis come with two switches so unless there is a way to just not use the direction switch, I can just go ahead and get a new boiler door assembly to accept the two switches.

After reading through the other posts, I was really hoping you would reply.  The multi-meter sounds like it would really help narrow down the problem between track, power supply, and locomotive.  I may just end up replacing the chassis anyway because the guide rails are broken on the existing chassis and Bachmann does not know when those parts will be available.  I was looking at some of the 4-6-0 Anniversary chassis because of the more intricate drives.  Would I be able to use one of those or do I have to get a standard 4-6-0 chassis?

Hello,

I recently picked up a Red Comet on Facebook Marketplace.  I had one as a kid and was really excited when I found this one.  After wiping the track and wheels, I found that the gear on the drive axle was cracked and the axle was just spinning inside the gear.  After fixing that with a little JB Weld,  I find that it is still sluggish especially in the turns, and will randomly stop as if it lost connection.  With a small push, it will start again.  The problem seems to be power related but I cannot seem to narrow it down.  The motor runs well especially when it is not actually driving the train (put front wheels to track with drive wheels suspended).  Now even though I did clean the track and wheels with rubbing alcohol and goo gone, there is still a significant amount of black stuff on them as they are pretty old.  I guess I just need to know whether to look into replacing the chassis, track, or power supply. 

Thanks,

Mark