I just picked up an HO “Toby” to run on my club’s modules for the upcoming season. I was surprised to find him wired up with a circuit board containing two resistors and a couple of diodes, and even after a short run one time back & forth on the 3’ track, the resistors get too hot to touch (this cannot be right). This circuit board doesn’t appear to be for interference suppression, and Toby has no lights, so I can only guess that this is a circuit to drop the voltage going to the motor, but given the heat it’s generating, it can’t be long before it melts the surrounding plastic or burns itself out. I checked the Bachmann parts list and photo of this circuit board on the Bachmann website, and the resistors seem to have the same color code value (red-green-black-gold).
Bill in FtL
If it's of any help, a few years ago, my Bachmann Edward's motor burnt out, and I was able to send it back to Bachmann, who were able to replace the motor. It was much cheaper than the alternative (buying a new one). I'm not sure where you got your Toby from, but if you got it recently, and have your receipt, perhaps you could ask whatever store you picked it up from, if they could fix or replace the model for you? Or alternatively, if you got it from Bachmann, perhaps you could mail it to them, for replacement, or fixing, and they may send it back.
As for the slowness issue, Toby is by design slower than the other engines. However if this comment about Toby's speed is accurate:
I see Toby is very slow, he can barely crawl along, even at full throttle. Thomas, James, and Percy are three to four times as fast at the same power setting.
And if we presume the figures given by Really Called Thomas are accurate, then the Thomas, Percy, and James models should not be 3-4 times as quick. Like with before, I would advise seeking help with this issue. If however you're unable to get a refund or replacement, or mail Toby to Bachmann and get him back working, within the time frame you're hoping for, I'd suggest placing Toby on a siding as a static model.
My old model railway club used to have some Thomas and Duck models (though they were quite old - and by a different company), to run a little mine section of the layout, they were big crowd pleasers and halfway through an exhibition, our Duck models were struck by a series of motor issues. Not being able to do anything about this in the middle of an exhibition, we parked a Duck on a siding as a static model. Not an ideal situation, as we had to replace him with a Jinty, but we were able to fix our Duck models after up afterwards. Sorry, I know this isn't an ideal answer or situation, but I still hope this helps in some capacity.
-Alex
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