I bought 3 Bachman Spectrum Heavyweights–a coach, a combine, and a business class. They are lit, and I painted the interiors and added passengers. they look really cool behind my Broadway E7. But I have a couple questions.
The couplers are really sloppy and come unhooked at the slightest bump in the track. They rotate in sync with the trucks but are connected by linkage on the inside. My first thought was to shim under the linkage on the inside of the cab, but I doubt that will inhibit the rocking of the exterior linkage, where the main problem seems to lie. What have others done? (I know this came up fairly recently, but I can’t find it.)
Are there other lit heavyweights out there that: a) look as good, b) work better; c) match the color of the Bachman; d) cost relatively similar?
I ended up removing the linkage bars inside and cutting off the pin from the coupler pocket and glued the whole coupler pocket to the underside of the car.
Taking shims and careful close coupling and radius measurements in mind.
They work really well now, and if you still have trouble, you can always replace the whole coupler pocket with Kadees.
As for the colors, I don’t know, I have never had to match em with another manufacturer.
Walthers car are better, however the paint is off on the Bachmann cars so most will not match. I have a Walthers Diner and Business car, and a Bachmann coach and combine.
You didn’t say which color scheme you are trying to match. Assuming you are looking for Pullman Green, Walthers are a close match in color but certainly not in price. I’ve bought Santa Fe Heavyweights (which I am relettering for my road) from both and you have to look close to see the color isn’t a perfect match. The Walthers definitely look good and work better.
I’ve had the same problem with the Spectrum couplers. It wouldn’t be so bad if they were all the same incorrect height but the height is very inconsistent so unwanted uncoupling is a real problem. I will probaby replace the pivoting couplers with fixed body mounts but I haven’t looked closely at them to see how that will work.
I have a string of HO Bachmann HW GN passenger cars. I drilled out the rivet in the coupler arm linkage and got rid of the linkage. I then body mounted KD # 5 couplers with thin shims. The result on 30" radius is that they are some of the best running cars that I have ever had.
As far as trying to match colors. Walther’s and Bachmann GN colors do not match well. To overcome this I seperate my Walther’s and Bachmann GN cars by Bachmann or Walther’s Pullman cars in the Pullman green livery. Now the color mismatch is less noticable.
I don’t like the stock Bachmann lighting using 12 volt bulbs. These things can get hot when you run them off of DCC track voltage. In the future, I will switch them over to yellow glow LEDs.
Also, I have put people in my Bachmann HW cars, but I don’t like the way HO scale people fit in the small seats. So I use N scale people which fit in the seats better. No-one seems to notice the difference in scales, since the N scale people fit the scale of the seats.
Now that’s a great little tip. It’s little things like this that make time spent on this board productive. Most of what goes on here is just modelers offering opinions on a wide variety of subjects, which is OK, but every once in a while you find a nugget like this.
I have the Santa Fe 8-car set and have never had the problems you are encountering with uncoupling after I changed to Kadee #5 couplers on all of them and cut the trip pins short.
Since it is club night and it is the path of least resistance. I’ll try popping #5 Kadees in the existing boxes and give it a whirl. I’ll post the results.