I Just recieved two pair of Intermountain FTs in N scale. Can you say A-B-B-A? Decorated in Seaboard. These sets Between the A&B Use a small piece of plastic, as drawbars were prototypically how the units were delivered I assume. Well after much tinkering with trackwork, these units wi***o derail around one of my curves on my layout. (11" Snaptrack that Life like Cliners, Model power 4-6-2s, sd40s, all negotiate no ploblem bacckwards and forwards 500 miles an hour each direction) The FTs will make it tru, but the rear truck on the A, and/or the front truck on the B derail. It seems after 3 hours of testing, I have discovered the problem lies in the DRAW-Bar, It doesnt have enough give for my medium curves.
To Test my theory I lashed up the two B units, knuckle coupler to knuckle coupler, and 500 miles and hour backwards and forwards they have no issues.
Santa Fe prototypically ordered their FTs with couplers on all ends, no drawbars. What kit do I need from microtrains or pieces from intermountain to convert my FTs to have couplers on both ends in N scale?
I have a Stewart FT in HO and the drawbar is held on by screws. Is there any way of loosening whatever holds the drawbars to the individual units? If they are took tight, that would explain why you are having the problem with the derailments.
It sounds as if there could be some binding in the drawbar between the units. Set up a test track with some curved track and carefully run the pair on the test set-up. If you watch closely, you may be able to determine what parts are binding. You may need to do a little trimming to provide clearance. If so, trim a little and re-test. Keep trimming and re-testing until the locos operate smoothly on the curves without derailing.
IMO, the drawbar is the weakest link on these fine models. It is plastic, so it can bind some. I have not looked at it in enough detail to know what MicroTrains coupler might fit that space…
I’ve got an ABBA Santa Fe Cigar Band set for my layout, although they are now packed away for a move and have not seen full-time action yet.
Are you going to convert them to DCC, or keep them in DC? The conversion is pretty easy, although the headlight LED is wired and those wires must be soldered to small soldering points on the board. It is a great opportunity to replace the blue-white headlight, which is not very prototypical for 1940-50’s era headlights, with a yellow-white one.
I will be converting them to DCC, My Super Empire Builder is on the way. I heard there was a drop in decoder for these units, hence why I picked them up.
Dgwinup, when you say Trim, do you mean the drawbar?
Adelie, If you look at your Santa Fe set I’ll bet you they have couplers on all ends. If they do are they a pair available from MTL?
Mine have draw bars between each A&B, although I believe they included at least one coupler in the box. My assumption was that this was for the back of the A unit, to allow either an A-only or an ABA lashup. Unfortunately, they are packed up and not available for probably a couple of months.
The decoder is essentially a drop in. It is held in place by two screws that are essential to maintain electrical contact. The headlight wires need to be removed from the existing circuit board and resoldered to two solder points on the decoder. There is a different Digitrax decoder for the B unit, but the visually look the same to me.
If you opt to replace the headlight LED, it involves unscrewing the two halves of the frame because the LED housing is embedded between the two halves. It isn’t hard.
The toughest part is getting the shell off the A units. I used small toothpicks near the corners and gently slid the body shell off. I had to remove the front couplers to get this to work. The B units are less stubborn.
I have Stewart FT’s where drawbar is fixed to A & B via round head screws. I had derail problems which were function of trucks interferring with drawbar screws. What I did was “dremel” the round head screws so that they cleared the trucks. To do so I marked the screw head position when sufficiently tight to allow operation. Next removed screws and “dremeled” the round head screw on a bias(angle cut) so that heads would clear truck. It cured porblem. If smaller profile head screws(pan head) are available that might have worked also. Again, this is HO and Stewart-don’t know if drawbar mounting is different in N. If so, welcome to micro surgery. [;)]
Hope you get problem resolved-my experience with Interm
I phoned Intermountain, and she said they would send me the parts in the mail tomorrow so they will all have couplers instead of drawbars, with so many drawBACKS (I couldn’t resist the pun [:D])
Glad to hear it. The folks at IM are incredibly helpful. I’ve emailed them about such minutia as build/service dates on freight cars, and they always respond.
Good products, good customer service, helpful with information and happy customers. Is anyone listening out there?