Forney type and size locomotives have always been my favorite.

P.S.I am nearing retirement and will not be able to afford them, lol.

Hello people.

 I have had good luck with ebay and want an HO scale GE 70ton Diesel for my Pere Marquette in Allegan Michigan. Which box color should I avoid and which box or phase have people had good luck with? I am asking about the gear issues, not debate or discuss, just which I might have good luck with.

Thank you.
P.S. I know that older 70 ton had two motors. The black boxes are Spectrum which I believe are single motor and may have gear issues from what I have read. Does this make the blue boxes be the most recent run? Have people had good luck with these?

P.S. Again. People are using the 44ton and 70ton chassis and drives for retrofit MDC Roundhouse Diesel and Climax. Yet there still is the question rather the most recent run of these is the most reliable. Does not help to acquire a donor drive if it is relegated to the scrap line.

Quote from: Yard Master on January 27, 2026, 09:49:02 AMHi Awesometrain,

I was told that the licensor at the time (HiT) told Bachmann that we were not allowed to make models of these characters, I believe due to a potential legal issue. I don't think any prototypes were made or still exist.

Sorry for the late response but thank you so much . I was wondering about these two for a while in regards to their cancellation .

I think the easy quick answer to this question is, the right number of industries on any layout is the kind that allows some room for scenery of any kind around them. That will depend on the kind of industry, of course.

In a few short years, I'm going to be in a situation where all I'll be able to have will be 4 x 8 at best, it will be a big disappointment after having a 50 foot long point to point with four communities on it.  But I've been looking at 4x8 plans for a while and the best ones seem to be the ones that have a passing track on either side, acting as a point A and point B since real railroads deliver people or products from Point A to Point B.  That is, if you want to approach prototypical operation.  After studying umpteen 4x8 plans trying to envision some kind of operation on them, I've come to the conclusion that for my purposes point A needs to be basically an interchange with a main line receiving cars. The other side becomes point B, essentially the end of a branch line.  Then the best you seem to be able to get is two customers at either point.  That is, if scenery means anything to you.  You keep the oval because everyone at some point just feels like mindlessly watching a train run, I am no exception.

It's going to be a big painful downsize.  The best that the layout this size can handle is probably two engines and maybe 10 or 12 cars.

If the industrial area can be seen from both sides, one option is to use bacground scene buildings that are only an inch or so deep mounted back-to-back. This would give the appearnce of two different industries serving sidings running more or less parallel to each other.

Len

Hello all,
I have a SC 44 Charger, that was running then just quit. There is no sound, no lights, nothing
Touch power to the +/- side of the motor and it spins but no sounds or lights.

I tried to put power the wheels as well and nothing at all. I am thinking the problem lies between the Trucks and motor.
However, I cannot find a diagram showing how to tear the trucks apart to check.

Any help on what I need to do would be great.

tengland1970

Definitely worth the watch if you guys haven't seen it already. DCC Sodor goes into great detail about the sound and quality of each of the engines. Although I paid more than I would have liked for these engines, I'd say they're worth picking up if you have DCC on your layout or club layout with DCC already installed.

I do hope Bachmann addresses the issue someday regarding sounds being available for other engines, either by introducing a separate sound module in HO like they did with large scale or, at the very least, by adding more engines with DCC and sound in the future. Considering the sales that DCC Thomas and Percy have had, it's clear the market for HO DCC Thomas models is there. It would easily be worth the investment for them, especially if they introduce modules, as sales for those would likely skyrocket and help more people get into that aspect of the hobby.

I bought Anyrail also. Even though I have my layout now, I still like playing with Anyrail and coming up with different layout designs just for the fun of it.

Hey everyone! Back again to share my latest video on the DCC and Sound Thomas and Percy, Chaz was very kind to lend me his models (which I installed lights in for him).  Let me know your thoughts either here or on YouTube!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpgDPhjCCLs

Thank you!

I started my original N-scale layout using the Anyrail free-trial version. The program contains a great library of Bachmann EZ-Track as well as quite a few others (Kato and Atlas come to mind). Anyrail will let you print out a list of all the track sections used in your layout, including turnouts. After a while I found the 50 track section limit too confining, so I purchased the software and have never looked back. That was about 2008-2010 and I still use it today for my On30 layout. Hope this helps.