Quote from: jward on July 29, 2013, 09:33:28 PMbtw, in the 11980s, GE modified a diesel  locomotive to run on a coal and water mix. combustion was not a problem, scouring of the cylinder linings was, and the project was quietly discontinued without the locomotive entering mainline service.

Pretty precient 10,000-year peek into the future there, jward! 

Quote from: jonathan on July 10, 2013, 06:07:54 PM
Since The Bach-Man hasn't posted, I'm guessing my assessment may be wrong.

Maybe not. "No" answers are easy to provide. "Yes" answers may be withheld due to non-disclosure agreements with the studio. Or maybe he doesn't know the answer yet and is looking into it.

Quote from: nichbuhler16754 on May 21, 2013, 11:54:02 PM
Ohhhhhhhhhhh and Doneldon thank you for your tip, it's just the engine I want is very cool it's the 0-6-0 #4443 union pacific, I thought it would be a perfect engine to begin with, and I got last summer but when I put it down stairs in a case and what happend was we were going fore willing and I came back and it was on the ground broken in I believe 10- 20 peaces, I was devistared my first engine distoyed, one train wreck I will never forget. I really want to get it again but.....................  I don't know, you know???

Before you take up model railroding seriously, you might want to rectify the problem that permits models in glass cases to be destroyed while you're gone. Whatever can damage something that was in a glass case and leave it on the floor  (cat, pet monkey, little brother, bitter exes, etc.) can have a field day with whatever will be out on your layout.

Quote from: rogertra on May 01, 2013, 10:50:56 PM

The overall length of the tender and engine is completely irrelevant.  It's the overall length of the wheelbase that is important.  Measure that, not the overall length of engine and tender.

I don't think you can say that it is completely irrelevant. Some turntable pits have handrails surrounding the portions of the pits that have no tracks; a tender or locomotive with sufficient overhang would contact those handrails.

The photo posted to this thread, of the Berkshire on a turntable, shows just such handrails.

Regards,
Manuel

Quote from: Mike C on March 29, 2013, 12:44:29 PM
I'd probably take one too since its an Eastern engine.

I'm modeling the C&O late steam era in WV (Gauley River, Hawk's nest)...but I'm flexible enough that I could find myself calling it a "WV railroad" and hosting the big B&O engine.

Heck...I'd even go for an N&W Class A!

But of course would favor an Allegheny.

mdaskalos

Quote from: rube125 on February 28, 2013, 07:30:52 PM
I JUST RECEIVED A NEW 28 TON SHAY TRAIN WITH SOUND. ... I TRIED RUNNING THE NEW TRAIN AND IT GOES BUT NOT FAST...

rube125,

Have you ever seen a real Shay run?

Slow probably means it's running right. I would be more worried if it did run fast.

mdaskalos

Thank you both for your replies. I had already seen the spookshow review; it was what prompted me to ask.

I'll probably go with the Richmond Controls hardware. Not much time to roll my own.

Bought the double turnout (sorry, forget exact product name) -two left-hand turnoust on parallel pieces of straight track allowing for crossover between lines. Anyway:

I had expected the two parallel sides to be electrically isolated, so that two lines sharing this piece for crossover purposes could be independently controlled. The dealer I bought from asserted this was indeed the case, and pointed out two small gaps in the rails in the crossover area that he thought would accomplish this purpose.

Well, not so. When hooking this up into my budding young layout, either transformer powered both lines. The direction setting for the switches made no difference in this regard. I tried powering/depowering the frogs to see if that made a difference, to no avail. Tried to see if I could unscrew and disassemble it to get one turnout of to replace the metal joiners in the center with plastic joiners. Found that the switches were in more firmly and connected to the guts of the switch, than I wished to mess with. Buttoned it up, and in the end decided to literally break out the metal joiners in the center. I was of course, unable to replace them with anything, but did find it necessary to use a few small dabs of Epoxy on one of the midsection rails that loosened up during my breaking efforts.

Is this performance of this fifty-dollar piece of track what is to be expected? I would have thought that isolation between the two sides would be almost universally preferred.

Last week, I purchased the Empire builder N set for my sons' and my use.

Question 1: Is the Santa Fe Northern that ships with this set the same model as that which  is sold separately? (not the N&W J-Class) I have read the Northern body shell review elsewhere in this forum, and observe some differences; e.g; that there is no power from the tender, etc.

Qustion 2. Is it possible to use the tender wheels to draw power? Is this reasonably feasible? ( I am more skilled than the average joe, having done some industiral electronics repair in times past, but since I did it for hire, I have no soldering/desoldering gun nor miniature soldering equipment; only a conventional soldering iron. If this is doable with less than heroic effort, can someone explain the procedure and parts needed?

Question 3. If the separately sold unit is different than the one in the set, does it draw power from any tender wheels? My unit stops or stutters a lot on joints in the EZ-track that came with the set; I would think that an additional power draw from the tender wheels would help with this.

Question 4. Does/has anyone else had the issue with the trailing truck (and fixed it)? The outer frame for the truck hangs so low that two downward projections at the extreme front and rear of the truck fram actually hang below track level. This catches and makes the lcomotive hang at the frogs of turnouts. Initially, I noticed that the  front of the trailing truck rode high, so that the front wheel pair wasn't really touching the track. I loosened the screw at the front of the tuck to get the front lower, hoping it also might raise the rear of the truck, since the aforementioned projection overhangs past the rear wheels. Alas, it did get the front wheel pair onto the rails, but now I have projections hanging below the track bo that the front AND rear of the trailing truck.

In summary, I guess I see that the latest generation of the Northern has, in the past, been considered a good unit, but I find this starter set unit problematic, and I wonder if if Bachmann makes better, or if it can be made better,

Count me amomg the Allegheny seekers.