We all get the occasional lemon. In terms of performance, what’s the worst locomotive you’ve ever owned?
Mine was my first N Scale Spectrum 2-8-0. The thing must have been a “Monday or Friday” locomotive because it never ran right. It’s pilot truck derailed if you looked at it wrong, the mechanism had a tendency to bind and the running gear fell off several times! Eventually the motor died and I returned it to Bachmann. To Bachmann’s credit, they made it right. They gave me a new engine, which runs like a Swiss watch at no charge.
My worst was a Broadway Limited Mikado with a terrible short in the tender. Went back twice for repair before I figured out the fix for myself.
Other than that it would have to be self inflicted worst, for example buying one of my sons a model power loco because if was cheap and regretting it almost from the moment we put it on the track
About 30 years ago it was either a Bachman or Tyco with the plastic idler gear that worked off the brass motor gear, couldn’t throw it far enough. Now its all mostly Kato and a few Atlas loco’s. Lesson learned and no looking back. Jim.
Mine was a Custom Brass model of a Rio Grande M-78 4-8-2. Underweight, underpowered, drivers sprung with Ernie Ball guitar wire (really!!), couldn’t even handle a 36"radius without the lead truck shorting out against the cylinders, could barely haul its tender. It was either melt the darned thing down and make a brass lump out of it, or re-build it from the ground up. Back then, I had a lot more patience than smarts, so I rebuilt it. At least three times. It runs okay now, but JUST okay.
Evidently I wasn’t the only one who wondered what the sam-hill was wrong with the loco–about a ton of them seem to show up on the used brass market these days.
My vote is for the Tyco General 4-4-0 kit. The motor is in the tender with u-joint linkage to the drive wheels so torque twist wheel lifting is a problem… Even with a heavier Cary “Pittsburgh” boiler and axle electrical pick-ups, this thing shudders all the way around the track.
Sure is a sweet-look’en little bugger though! I remember a long ago MR article about making a twist-proof draw bar… another of my many “someday projects”. [:-^]
For me, it was an IHC 2-8-2 Mikado. The thing had an extremely dim bulb, ran really jerky and the smoke unit got so hot that it melted the smoke stack (don’t ask me how that happened). It met its demise when I set up some track on some track on a plywood table and the loco just magically derailed somehow and landed on the hard concrete floor of the garage. After that, it was placed in the trash.
G Gauge - Bachmann 4-6-0 - The “frame” is made of some sort of plastic that normal glue won’t stick to. As a consequence the brake shoes won’t stay on. Tried super-glue, E6000, several brands of syrene cement… The Drive wheels will not stay on. The built in sound system is pathetic at best.
O Scale - AHM Plymouth Diesel - Just poor performance would loose electrical power. Disassemble - reassemble it would run again for a while. Funny coupler arrangment too.
S Scale - American Flyer 4-4-2. I had several of these but there was one that was just a dog. I rebuilt it several times and it just never ran right.
HO scale - Athearn Genesis SD7xs - have three. Two are from earlier runs the 3rd from a later run. All three are junk and it isn’t even due to MRC electronics, but warped trucks, and plastic that cracks with the slightest pressure.
N scale - AHM F7s - I had 6. The electrical pickup was so poor even after reworking the pickups I had to wire two of them together. Then the pulling power was so bad - even with traction tires they mostly just skidded around a lot.
This was a funny experience as the best and worst N scale locomotive I ever owned were the same model, a Lifelike BL2. I picked up two a few months apart. One was just an all out lemon. The second ran, and still runs, like a total jewel - the smoothest drive train I’ve ever seen.
At this point, mine would be my Bachmann 4-8-4 Niagara (pre-DCC). The first one split every axle and wouldn’t run, so Bachmann replaced it. The current one ran well for a few years, and then it went downhill fast. I like the thing though, so when I have the money, I’m going to build a new frame from scratch, use Bowser wheels, and put in a gearbox from NWSL.
Definitely a Bachmann (non-Spectrum) 2-6-2 Prairie, with smoke.
3 laps around my layout and it threw a tie rod. So I fixed it. It threw it again. Fixed it again. Then it threw one on the other side. Then the first side, this time bending the plastic retainer. Sent back to Bachmann. Got it back. Ran for a week, then… yep, threw a tie rod. Now it sits on my display shelf, broken running gear to the rear, collecting dust.
My Stewart C628. Before I left the LHS, it didn’t run.
My LHS got it running, by repairing the driveshafts from the motor to the trucks, but they broke again, complained to Stewart “BB” (Before Bowser) who sent out replacement shafts.
It has to be the Tyco 2-8-0 Chattanooga with the motor and drivve wheels in the tender. I finally sold it on Ebay. I don’ t know what is soooo good about these but they sell like hot cakes on Ebay.
I had one like that back in the early 80’s. Mine was the 2-8-0 Royal Blue. The tender drive went south quick. The large soft-as-soap gear stripped. I pulled the drive out, replaced it with a switcher chassis and it ran like a champ. I have another tender drive steamer now. An old Pemco 2-6-0. It has the drive in the tender like the Tyco garbage did but it uses hard and thick plastic gears. Only problem it’s light. I’ll have to see if I can put some lead in the top of the tender.
My next worst loco and I still have it, a Bachmann 4-6-0 Hall type. Think Harry Potter and you got it. Only somebody ripped the Hogwart’s Express tags off it and painted it black. It runs great but can’t pull two box cars. It just sits there spinning.
My worst? Although they are gorgeous, the Genesis SD75M’s. The details are flimsy, if nicely made and attached, and the trucks don’t run well…they need exceptionally level rails.