I recently visited the Bachmann repair shop in Philly with my defective 80 ton Shay. while I was there they gave me their latest catalog and a flyer with upcoming products. One that catches my eye is the EMD DD40AX. That is one big machine. 8 wheels per truck!!!. I have an AC6000 and I thought that is big. The flyers shows it available in spring next year. I found it on a search of their website, no pics though. I did some reading and found that they had it back in the 90’s and sported 2 motors. Wonder if they’ll do the same with the DCC version.
I think this one is just a tad too big for my layout. They show minimum 22" radius curves required which I have but on an 8x8 it would look out of place.[]
I have one of the original HO scale Bachmann DD40AX engines and it did NOT have two motors. Only the rear truck is driven, with a pancake motor mounted right on it. The front truck only picks up power.
Athearn had a DD40X with dual motors and I have one of those as well.
Bachmann may have released a second version of this engine that had two motors, but the original one didn’t.
If Bachmann released a Spectrum version with two motors, that explains a lot. Mine is a Bachmann Standard line product, which was the first production run of them.
You’re right about this being one monstrous engine. It was basically two DD40 locomotives mounted on a single frame.
As near as I know, only the Union Pacific ever ran them, and called them the “Centennial” engine because they were introduced during the centennial celebratiion of the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah. The UP still has one operational Centennial that they take around to special events throughout the U.S.
The original DD40X with the single pancake motor was sold through the 80s, and maybe into the 90s. It ran rather poorly (which is why I did a total repower of mine with Athearn parts), and the paint and lettering were pretty off as well. The Spectrum version came out sometime in the mid-late 90s, with two large motors and four flywheels, sixteen wheels drive, a very heavy metal frame split in two halves with the mechanism clamped between them, and more accurate paint. The new DCC version should be a reissue of the Spectrum version, like the current GP30, GP35, and H16-44.
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