Just thought I would share my experience with this model and make those who purchased one aware.
For starters, I do not even have a working layout. So I am limited to shufflling my engines back and forth on 3’ of track. So this engine has NOT seen much service.
After a few months of very light use, mine started acting erratic. It would move a few inches then stop, the decoder would restart. After the usual clean the trakc, clean the wheels I determined I had a pickup issue with the drive truck (center one). To find out exactly what was wrong I had to remove the freight car body.
Found a bad solder joint on the middle truck (power truck) where the wire connection had came loose. This now required I take the drive completely apart to get at the truck and resolder the pickup wire. I found quite a few bad solder connections and I elected to take it all apart right down to the frame. I do not mind this type of work but am not impressed. Read on.
Concor has used a warm White LED in the body of the Pierce-Arrow for the head lights and interior light. Unfortunately they used an incandescent bulb for the rear light. I suggest people check this area out for distortion, discoloring. On mine the rear light has caused a noticable defect to the body. Based on the picture I sent to Concor, they are sending me a replacement freight car body. I am replacing the incandescent by a warm white LED
On to the rear truck. Mine had a bind to it. The pick up wires are soldered to the rear portion of a pad on each side of the truck. The wires pass thru an oval hole. Problem is the wires on both sides are up against the back edge of the oval hole so that truck rotation is hampered. Had to resolder the wires so it was centered in the oval acces hole when the truck was in a neutral posi
Sounds like they have serious quality control issues. Will be interesting to see if others have similar problems. A friend of mine has one of the earlier models, but he doesn’t have a layotu either so I haven’t heard if he’s had any problems with his on our club’s modular layout.
A bit of information that may be useful to owners of the original HO scale version:
Mine ran very poorly no matter how much track and wheel cleaning was performed – it seemed like it just didn’t have enough weight on the wheels that pick up current – it wouldn’t run at all unless I pressed down on the model. As soon as I let go, it would stall.
A friend examined mine under high magnification and noticed that there was some type of factory coating on all the wheels that was acting as an insulator. After that was cleaned off the wheels, it runs very smoothly.
More problems. After few minutes of use, we come to a stop and it refuses to run. SDN144PS is making sound but engine refuses to move. Turn it off and leave it a few minutes it returns to normal.
Remove the box car body to view the motor in action. Bind found in motor. Remove motor and check it. Paint build up, enought to cause a bind during rotation. Scrape the paint off the armature plates and put motor back. Run it on DC. No more issue.
On my Goose, purchased last year, I did not have all the electrical-mechanical issues you had, but I sure hated that lighting! I have seen a lot of really bad lighting, Bachman for one, but this goose is a bold effort gone really bad. Light pipes are really nice, quick and dirty for the manufacturer but just plain dirty for the end user. It has to do mostly with the poor casting and lousy light transmission of the plastic.
A good lighing job can really set motive power apart from the common RTR stuff. Diesels can be the easiest of all to light with Steam engines being among the most dificult to successfully light, realistically.
With the latest in micro minature LEDs, there is little excuse for not being able to creditably light up a loco. Admittedly, the goose is a special handful and in a different category, but where there is a will, there is a way.
I’ve had no running issues with my first run HOn3 Goose. I dropped an NCE decoder in it, no sound, and just sort of left the lights alone. Next batch of SMD LEDs I get and an upgrade like UpNorth’s is what I’ll be shooting for.