I recently bougth Bachmans model of a Richmond built 4-4-0 American (Bachman 83402). I liked it but there is always room for improvements. I feel the leading truck is have a tendency to derail. It cary rather little of the locomotives weight. Have anyone in this forum corrected this? Please advice on suitable ways.
The tender is nice but too large for my freelanced Swedish railroad. Richmond delivered some locomotives with three wheel tenders. Do any of you know of any source for such tenders?
Magnus’ suggestion regarding wheel gauge is right on. You might also want to check the springing (if any) - it might be too light, or, more likely, not balanced front-to-rear of the truck.
You might want to check with the European modelers for that one - the American railroads gave up on 3-wheeled tenders early in the 19th Century for that very reason - too small for the distances they have to cover in the US.
There is no spring on it. It’s very light. It is also VERY sensitive to bad trackwork because of the fact that their is no weight on it. Smal kinks will force it to derail.
If that’s the case, might help to put some weight on it. A small slab of lead, about 1/16th inch thick by 3/32 wide and somewhat shorter than the distance between the wheels, laid above and parallel to each axle, would help, I’d think…
Also, And I need to find the lnk for ya, but while your working, You might try wires fromt he tender using a centering spring that takes power off the tender wheels. This gives the motor extra muscle, and the ability to crawl if your into that thing.
Thanks for your suggestions. I will first check the wheel gauge.
Two of you have suggested to add weight to the lead truck. This may help to keep the truck on the track but it will not help the truck in its job to lead the engine through curves. The result woulb be a two axle engine pushing the truck in front. I have been thinking in the lines of “three point equalisation” as advocated by many British model railroad authors but it may be too ambitious. Have any of you tried to modify the truck so it caries more of the engine’s weight?
Thanks for the link to the tender pick-up page. I will keep it in mind for other projects. This particular model is delivered with tender pick-up.
The trade-off that comes with forcing the pilot truck to carry more of the engine’s weight is loss of tractive effort - won’t pull as many cars. Our model 4-4-0s have limited traction as it is, so transferring weight to the pilot wheels isn’t normally thought of as a good solution. That is also the reason for the recommendation to weight the truck directly.
I appreciate and applaud your thoughts on equalization. The Brits in their P4 group are the recognized experts on equalization in models. Equalization is essential for reliable operation in any of the small proto scales. Unfortunately very, very few mainstream models are equalized. A few are sprung, and probably half or more of those are sprung poorly. Proper equalization results in not only the pilot truck guiding the engine into curves (like the prototype) but also generally gives better traction since more than 3 of 4 drive wheels will normally be in full contact with the rails.
But equalization usually requires a complete drive train redesign. With Bachmann’s belt drive, you have a pretty good start. The motor and its mount are already isolated from the drive axles. The next
The Spectrum 4-6-0 has a spring that holds down the leading truck, the 4-4-0 does not. I was able to find an extra 4-6-0 spring and installed it on my 4-4-0. It now works fine.
If you can’t find this spring, you can easily make one. It can be made from a piece of thin brass ( Or better yet bronze). It looks like a slightly bent tender draw bar with a hole in one end that attaches to the screw that holds the lead truck on.
