For those of you who have purchased one, are they worth the money (I realize this is a subjective question)? Are they decent pullers for their size, and is the decoder worth a darn? Thanks!!
I should be able to tell you next week as I just got one on ebay. It should arrive early next week. Pulling power doesn’t worry me too much as I have a small layout and don’t run much more than 5 car trains. This will be my first decoder equipped loco from the spectrum range and I’ll be interested in how well it performs. You don’t hear much good about them (the decoders) on the forums. I’m also hoping to get one of the Atlas HH600s advertised on the right hand side of these forum pages when they come out in December.
Hi!
These are pretty nice, and serve their purpose (switching) very well. I have not maxed mine out, but so far it can move 5 cars with ease.
Mobilman44
I have one in the Bethlehem Steel livery. Overall the detail and painting is excellent. The decoder shows to be a 28 speed step in the instruction sheet and the motor is a little noisey for my taste. This may be the motor itself or the out dated decoder. I would appreciate others who have operated these to chime in to see if it is just my loco or all the 45 tonners.
I have disassembled mine and it looks like a LokSound Micro will fit once the circuit board is removed. Speaker wires can run down the side of the motor frame and attach to a 1/2 inch speaker facing down in the fuel tank area. A spot is provided for it. This is a good feature.
The LED circuit looks like it can be isolated and reused on both ends once the decoder circuit board is removed.
The car body is die cast and the cab is plastic.
Overall I like this little switcher and can reccomend it.
Chris
Thanks for the responses thus far. This is one of those things that I don’t “need”, but really just want to have, so I don’t want to be wasting money. This was the first prototype locomotive I ever operated, so I have a certain fondness for them.
I have one and it’s excellent. Like many bachmanns it was noisy for about the first hour of use. It quieted down and now is silent and smoothe running. This little engine is a must have.[tup]
I have one and it’s excellent. Like many bachmanns it was noisy for about the first hour of use. It quieted down and now is silent and smoothe running. This little engine is a must have.[tup]
Smitty,
I finally got mine today after the Post office courier failed to let me know that they’d tried to deliver it last week. It’s the unnamed one in black with yellow handrails. Looks good!
I would agree with Chris that it is noisy at first, but that sounds like the decoder frequency noise rattleing the motor. Mine does jerk a bit in one direction at the moment, I’m hoping that this will stop when I run it in more. It runs down to a very slow speed on the lower settings of my NCE Powercab. There is not much instructions with it, just the usual Bachmann fully exploded view. No info on the decoder at all came with mine. It pulls 5 cars including a track cleaning car up my 2% grade, but I don’t know if it will do much more than that.
HTH
It sounds about what I would expect from a smaller locomotive like this. I think it would be a safe bet to add to the roster.
I would Smitty,
Let us know how it goes when you get it.
It goes well with my SW1000 and my 0-6-0 steamer although the steamer runs better.
I also have this old 4 wheel diesel which is a Sakura model from the 70s.
It runs like a dream, just have to fit a decoder in it.
cheers
My 45-tonner runs smooth, slow, and quiet. And how much do you expect a locomotive to pull which is less than half size of a 40-foot box car? After all, it is not a mainline locomotive, but it is great for shuffling several cars in an industrial complex for which it was designed. (Sorry, they seem to have all been purchased.)
Mark
I like the looks of the 45-tonner and it’s a smaller size than the 44-tonner. I’m wondering if it’s constructed in such a way that it could be bashed to run on HOn3. Mostly this would be a matter of how narrow the gear train in the trucks is. Anybody know?