Did an Ebay purchase, and it came, tried to run it, it seemed to have poor pickup and ran with a clicking sound. I contacted the seller, they said they could replace it, but I was going to check it over.
Kinda a mini-review here as well, the model looks great, it has all wheel engine pickuo minus the lead/trailing wheels, the tender pickups alternated left/right, uses mini plugs to power to the engine. DCC placed in the tender, no sound, using Bachmanns DCC 28 step. Motor has a flywheel.
Testing it over one side of the wheels didnt pick up power, I took the engine apart and the motor is just clip-mounted into the mount. I removed the motor and hand turned the gears and it showed a hitch as I turned it part of the way around, I figgered this is about prolly a quartering or side rod problem. I found bottom frame screws not screwed tight. With all the fidgeting, the loco will not run now period. Its being returned, they said they could replace it.
For this model I believe its faulty manufacturing, could be a one model problem. Every thing else looked pretty good.
I’ll see how the replcement works, but looks like the model is fine in general, just a few probs…