Just purchased an EM1 - I am having trouble with the wires between the engine and the tender causing the tender to derail. Also the tender comes unhooked from the engine at times. Clearance issues - I can fix those - just more than I expected. All the curves are 22 inch radius.
The layout is a work in progress anyway - the clearance issues are my first priority.
I have run a Rivarossi 2-8-8-2 on the layout for 2 months - and it was flawless - and it is now running on the inside track which has a consistant radius of 18. I had to take care of one clearnace issue for it - at least that was on an unfinish part of the layout.
I’m trying to remember the article link when these were first released about this very issue. Most of your trouble is that min 22" radius, the excessive cab swing interferes w/ the wire/ draw bar. I believe this was discussed on the bachman Forum, the remedy was a modification to PU wire position. Of coarse you are in the outer most hole in the draw bar, but i wish i remembered some of the actual solutions. I found that on mine, I had to add a slight upward bend for the draw bar. The factory position seemed just to low riding on the tender.
I don’t recall the wire harness giving me any troubles but the drawbar is stamped out of a particularly soft sheet steel that bends easily. The drawbar is pretty long as well since it spans over the trailing truck making it even more prone to sagging. It took me a bit of fussing and tweaking to get just the right amount of bend to it so it would stay up into contact with the tender pin. I have two EM-1s and I only had to make adjustments on one of them.
Sometimes one twist in the wire harness will help keep it from bunching up and causing derailments. It’s just a game of trying different things before you stumble on a cure.
Hope this gets you going, Ed
Does that mean to make a knot in the wires? (Actually I think the wires have worked into a good position. I have made two adjustments with the drawbar - and I still have a problem, but at this point I have all the space problems fixed with the tunnel portals and so forth. Now it is time to concentrate on the derailments. And then I have to turn the EM1 around and go the other way and see if there is anything else that causes problems.
It is a good thing that I purchased the EM1 now instead of later after I had finished all the scenery.
The below is from Jonathan at the Bachmann HO forum. He has experience with the EM-1. He was answering WVWoodman.
Others here might be interested.
I found I had to put a very, very tiny bend in the drawbar to prevent it from lifting the tender on a curve. Tolerances are tight, and that drawbar is very long. Also, make sure the drawbar clears the trailing truck on a curve. The drawbar shape is critical on this locomotive. The tweaks required are tiny, so don’t overdo it.
Rich
No, what I mean is to put a 360° twist in the cable. Sometimes, but not always, this will allow the flat ribbon cable to bend a little easier. On several of my earlier Spectrum locomotives there was two jumper cables with little “collars” on them to group the wires. These were prone to hanging low and snagging on switchpoints and track work.
What I would do is lay out a soft cloth or foam, lay the locomotive and tender on their sides with bottom facing me and make the electrical connection. THEN give the tender a 360° turn, slip the drawbar onto the pin and carefully lift the whole shebang to the layout. Hopefully the drawbar is still engaged!
There is no stock soultion to the drawbar/harness interface since there are so many designs out there you have to deal with them on a loco-by-loco basis.
IIRC Didn’t the Life-Like 0-8-0 have a snap connecter that made the electrical connection and drawbar all at once? That was a sweet deal!
Some Bachmann locomotives had a plastic dog-bone drawbar that would expand on curves. Clever but could be a head ache on vertical alignment. Some BLIs just have a snap type clip but they seem to work well.
Some tenders have a fairly generous slot where the wire harness feeds in so you can use plastic tweezers and stuff the excess wire back into the tender (ala Genesis 2-8-2s and others).
Glad you are having some success… good luck, Ed