So far I can give high Kudos to Bachmann on the new 3 truck Climax locomotive. I purchased the painted/striped but unlettered with sound version. Out of the box and as expected it was a bit dry on lube and stiff. But once one looks at the very prototypical way the model is driven, you see the need to spend time with the light bearing oil on all the line shaft bearings, thicker lube on the bevel gears in the trucks. Once this is done the operation smooths out noticably and gets smoother with some break in time. Sound is wonderful, whistle reminds me of the “19” in the Emperor of the North movie. I set the master volume to a value of 25 (CV128) and changed the front and rear headlight (CV’s 49/50) to a value of 15 to simulate the spool up and down of the turbo generator which is factory assigned to F5 on your DCC controler. You must enable the generator by pushing F5 before F0 will turn the lights on and off. F5 will spool up the turbo generator and the light will gradualy light up depending on the direction of travel you are set for. You can turn off the light but keep the generator running using F0 at that time. Sound at a value of 25 is good to my ears at home, but at club or a noisy enviroment a higher setting might be needed. Only time will tell if the bevel gears will split but it appears they are a ght heavier made compared to the early 2 truck model. The engine is almost all diecast metal and is much better porportioned to my eye than the 2 truck model. Lets hope the drive train holds up as well as the model looks. Mike
MIke
Thanks for the review.