Wow.Why are these so expensive on E-bay.I bought one with the cars years ago.It runs like crap to the point I packed it up put it away and forgot about it.Never thought any train I purchased would increase in value!!
The trains for sale on e-bay may not be the same as the ones you have. All of the Rivarossi locomotives I have run extremely well because they have can motors and high-quality gearing. Yours is obviously not a Rivarossi product made within the past 20 or so years.
Another possible factor is that Rivarossi made models that were sold under other, cheaper brand names such as AHM. Even though it may say Rivarossi on the bottom doesn’t mean that it was sold as a Rivarossi product.
It is a riverossi and it does run very poorly.As a matter of fact all 4 of my streamlined 4-6-2’s, 2 N.Y.C. the aforementioned L.V.and a Milwaukee rd. run poorly.These where all purchased in the 90’s and came in those nice red boxes.My old rivs. and big artics.run smoothly.I cant figure it out.At least there nice to look at.
Are we talking N scale or HO? I never had any luck with N scale but own maybe 20 HO Rivarossi/AHM 4-6-2’s and they all run fine. You need to tweak the electrical pick-up on the tenders and wire them direct to the engine and that makes a big diefferance. The price of Rivarossi is even higher in Europe.
Bob
Coldsteel, if you are talking about the John Wilkes streamlined pacific by Rivarossi it is vary rare and that’s why it worth a fortune on eBay. The story goes that the mold for this locomotive was accidentally broken at the factory and never replaced so only a limited number were made before the accident. I’ve had many Rivarossi locos in my time and I must admit that the Pacific’s were not the best runners out of the box but could be easily tweaked to run very well. I still have two Rivarossi Pacific’s that run very smoothly, one I have converted to DDC, it still has the original thee pole motor in the cab! If it is the John Wilkes you have I would suggest you keep it even if just for a show piece. There is a brass version available but also very hard to get. The other thing you could do is sell it to me and I’ll look after it!!![:D]
I also have the streamlined Milwaukee Road Hudson, this did run like a dog. I re-geared and re-motored it with NWSL parts and converted it to DCC. It now runs like a charm. These locos are also getting rare now and command a good price on eBay.
Cheers
Jim
Yes,it’s the John W.I just took it out again to play around with it.Gave it power and had to push start it every couple of inches.As I said previously,my 2 streamlined N.Y.C. suffer from the same erratic behavior.The Mlwky rd. is the best running of the lot.Glad to know I may be able to smooth them out cause they are all really nice looking.thanks.
This is a PICKUP issue. Clean your track, clean your wheels, check your wipers for cat hair and the like.
David B
One more thing you should try, is to lubricate the motor shaft at both ends. Although some of the older Rivarossi motors were quite good they do run a little warm. This causes the oil on the motor shaft to dry out. One drop of oil on each end can speed the motor up considerably. The other thing I have done is to put extra pick-ups on the loco wheels, extra pick-ups on both sides of the tender wheels wired back to the loco and also add weight to both the loco and tender. Adding weight will help quite a bit with poor electrical pickup. These Rivarossi locos and many other brands were made very light so it would cost the manufacturer less to ship them. You can add quite a lot of lead to the boiler and tender and the Rivarossi motor will still pull smoothly.
Cheers
Jim