I will need to check all of those items.  it will be a good start.

I appreciate all the positive feedback.  Thanks all!  Hey plas man any experience with the turnouts?  I bought a couple with my new set getting ready for expansion and the loco continually gets stuck at the frog.  The frog is now live but still does not work.  Been doing a lot of research on line but nothing seems conclusive other than there are a lot of issues with the Bachmann switches.

awesome!

Thanks lilleyen I am happy to hear that.  I have read that but necessarily did not want to believe it.  I am glad you confirmed it. My locomotive has very little running time on it and won't really get any until I complete my setup.  Before I received your response I bought a used loco and ran it on a simple oval and it was definitely faster than my new unit which made me a little more concerned.  I am looking foreword to getting some running time on it now and much relieved by your response.  Thanks!

Did you ever get this resolved?  Sounds like I have the exact problem.  Brand new track and brand new switches.  I have to nudge the loco to get through the switch.  I followed Bachmann's directions to wire for a "live frog"  that did not seem to do it.  Tried different locos same issue on same switch.  Researching this it looks like a lot of people have experienced this problem for a long time and yet the problem continues.  It just don't seem right to have to do all this trouble shooting on a $40 switch that should work as expected right out of the package.  Not what I was expecting when I bought new.  Anyone have some simple suggestions?

Thanks for the responses.  It looks like the speed of the locomotive is OK.  I was just expecting it to almost fly off the track at full throttle.  Good memories of HO race cars.  I am looking foreword to expanding, Happy Modeling!

My new out of the box thunder valley N scale train set appears to be running slower than I expected.  I am not sure if it is fine or just how it is with N scale.  Does anyone have an idea of how long it should take to make a 24 inch loop.  Of course the 24 inch loop is what comes with the set.