Since Fathers day is in the not to distant future and my family is always wondering what to get me I am thinking of asking for an HO shay. I only need DC and don’t care about sound and am running standard guage. Which type(two truck, three truck) and manufacturer would any one recommend? Thanks in advance.
Bruce
I have a PFM brass three truck Shay that is Beautiful. I have a two truck Climax by Spectrum. It looks good and runs great. Between two and three truck, let your preferences choose. They all work about the same. I love my brass shay, but the Spectrum looks almost as good and runs a whole lot better.
There is really only one choice - the Bachmann three truck Shay. The Roundhouse two truck model doesn’t even compare. You won’t regret it.
My Bachmann Spectrum is very smooth running and quiet and beautifully detailed. My older Roundhouse is noisy, grindy, sounds as if it’s going to spew parts all over the place, and it outpulls the Bachmann about 2 to 1 and is a lot more exciting to listen to, LOL!
Tom
I own 3 Bachmann (Spectrum) 3-truck shays and love em!
Great Father’s Day gift! I agree on the Bachman Shay. It’s a sweet model and I doubt you’ll be disappointed with it.
I have one of the MDC/Roundhouse Shay kits, but now I don’t know if I’ll ever work up the nerve to build it.
I have two of the Roundhouse shays, both came as kits, the first one built up nice and became a very smooth runner after some tweaking. The second kit I never did get to run right so I set it back and will work on it when the time is right. The two Bachmann shays ran fine right out of the box, one came with sound installed and the other I installed the sound myself. The detail almost equals any brass Shay or Climax that I own. I have even had people mistake the Climax as being brass until they pick it up. Jim
Tom, we are talking about a Shay…right? Noisy, grindy, about to spew parts all over the place…? Quite a bit like the real thing…? What’s not to like? [(-D]
I have a Bachmann three truck Shay and a Climax, and I have to agreee with Vampire’s comments on the Shay. Actually, both of these locos run very well and look real good to boot. You will not be disapointed.
I also run an MDC two truck Shay that was assembled from a kit, as per Jeff Johnston’s MDC Shay Handbook. It runs well too, and as already mentioned will outpull the Bachmann…But it’s detail is lacking and to build the kit is a real adventure / undertaking in “you gotta’ love to do this”.
I hear that MDC now offers the Shay RTR (but have NO input as to how it runs or what level of detail it has), if you are looking to have a two truck loco. Bachmann doesn’t offer a two truck in HO and I have no idea about brass that may be available.
I am not sure I agree that shays are noisy. The ones I have ridden on in California and West Virginia were scary quiet even in the woods. But maybe, a little more noisy on th e11% grades at Cass.
Peter Smith, Memphis
My HO Bachmann Shay 3-truck never ran well; seems as have “oval” flywheel…any ideas? Thanks all you, Bye
I guess it depends on what you really want…
The Bachmann Shay is a excelent engine. Tons of detail, good runner.
The Roundhouse R-t-R Shays are nice, although a bit noisy, but it is a Shay…
If you are going to get a 3 truck Shay, don’t get a Roundhouse. Get a Bachmann.
Also, you might even consider a Climax or a Heisler. The Bachmann Climax is my smallest engine (aside from the Mack 12t and the GE25t), and is the quietest. The Rivarossi Heislers run awesome, and I have never had a running problem with them. Their noise level is in-between the Bachmann and the Roundhouse, but not too bad. The Heisler comes with different parts, in which you can convert the engine from a straight stack, to a diamond stack, and from a wood burner to a oil burner.
Again, the question is 2tk or 3 tk. I picked up 3 MDC 2tk’s at the Madison Train Show this year for $59 each, a steal in my opinion. They had 3 other 2tk’s and 2 3tk’s. Don’t know if the place still has them. They were out of Missouri.
Phil
I am considering a climax if a shay is not available around fathers day. I’m waiting until then as all the LHS’ around here run sales usually 20% off the week before the big day. My family and I had a chance to ride on a tourist train pulled by a climax at Clarks Trading Post in Lincoln NH. Its a real neat engine. The Shay is my first choice and the Climax a very close second. Also I understand that Clarks has a Shay in storage, not sure if they plan to restore and run it.
Bruce
My LHS says he has a couple of RTR two truck MDC Shays. Does anyone have any experience with these? I know from this thread to stay away from the kits but do the RTR’s compare with the Bachmann favorably? Thanks.
Bruce
I have one of the MDC ready-to-run Shays and found two things that detract from it: The headlight is way, way too bright and it makes a high-pitched whining noise as it runs. The Bachmann Spectrum model is much quieter and has better detail.
We have 2 MDC two truck shays and just purchased a Bachmann 3 trucker. They all need some work to run well.
I have installed a NWSL regear kit in one of the MDC’s and it is the smoothest and slowest running loco that we own. The kit is fairly easy to install but it is still not as quiet as the Bachmann.
The Bachmann shay suffers from considerable slop in the drive train which causes surging on our 6% down grades. There is about a quarter turn in the drive shaft when changing directions before the loco starts to move. It appears some of it is in the square drive shafts and some is in the ring and pinion area. I have contacted Bachmann and they are sending new trucks when they become available. It is a gorgeous model and so far it has been less expensive than the MDC’s. The jury is still out on its performance. We may have bought a lemon when concidering the rave reviews by others.
Larry
I don’t think the RTR MDC Shays end up any better than the kits, and frequently worse. For the kit buyers, there’s plenty of talk in various places that one should expect to some serious cleaning of gears and tuning of the mechanism before it will run smoothly. I don’t think any kit buyers expect to slap it together and have it run well.
But from all the reports with the RTR version, that’s exactly what happened on the production line. None of the extra work needed for smooth running was done. I think quick assembly is the norm for almost all but the high end models. But a Shay has a lot more moving parts, and the design and tolerances of the MDC parts was just so-so. The result, if an RTR version of the MDC Shay runs well, it seldom does so for long. Again, it can be made into a very nice model. But it takes effort. The real Shay had all kinds of external moving parts, and so does a good model Shay.
I am sure there are other model railroaders who have the opposite experience. But that’s not what I see on the forums.
I base my decision on which Shay to buy not on the running qualities out of the box (that can be fixed with some enjoyable modeling time), but how close it comes to being the size and era I want. The Bachmann is a model of very large Shay. The MDC is somewhat smaller, but still larger than most prototypes. The Keystone is much more representative of Shays used by short lines and in narrow gauge. The Keystone Shay is also the most difficult of the 3 to assemble, and needs 2 kits (motorizing kit from NWSL) to be completed.
I own 2 Keystone Shays, one standard and one HOn3. I have one MDC 3 truck standard gauge Shay.
just what I have experienced and have seen and heard from friends
Fred W