With the track, wiring, and structure placement all finished, I’ve been doing literally months of testing on my 11x15 two level HO layout to assure everything is OK, and ready for scenicking. As I have over 50 powered units, it is important to me that everything works as it should, for I just don’t know what units will stay on the shelf, or in storage, or will actually be running on the layout.
One of my favorite locos is the BLI Paragon ATSF 2-10-2. However, it is my most finicky loco, and in that regard has been my primary testing vehicle. It runs nicely everywhere - except thru the chain of Atlas # 4 turnouts on the yard access track. While I’ve got it so it will go thru without derailment, its pretty much finger crossing time.
I’ve done all the usual tuning on the turnouts and loco, and my other steamers run just fine thru the same route. So I’ve come to the conclusion that it is the nature of my only 10 drivered beast, and I’ll just keep it on the mains and service terminal and away from that string of # 4s.
But back to my question, do you have a loco that you love (or love to hate) that is your main challenge?
I have a brass 0-4-4 Forney from MTS that is that challenge. It is modeled after a NYC elevated locomotive. When the trains electrified in the major cities, many of those little Forneys were sold to logging lines in the South, so it is fitting for me to use it as the mill switcher on my line. For a light locomotive with minimal number of wheels for pickup it does pretty good… but it is wired BACKWARD internally. What is forward for every other locomotive in the fleet is reverse for this one.
Maybe it would work properly in the Southern Hemisphere?
AS I am Narrow gauge, I am forced to use the flawlessly functional Blaskstone C-19 Consolidations and K-27 “mudhen” mikes. I feel the the K-28 “sports model” is the prettiest engine I have ever seen. Unfortunately no one has ever produced a K-28 in HOn3 with DCC and sound. Blackstone is dragging their feet and issue a new engine about every 2-3 years and spend a large portion of their time re-running current issue of the C-19 and K-27 (sell out fast). The rumor is the next release will be a K-36.
I got tired of all of this and I purchased an older brass PFM (United) K-28 on e-bay for a rather nice price. It is a beauty. The old massive pittman open frame motor had to go. I picked up a $100.00 Faulhaber can motor with flywheel and installed a Tsunami TSU-750 sound decoder. I also bored out and installed micro surface mount LEDs in the fore and aft Pyle headlights. What a fabulous combo. Unfortunately the flawless runner and sounder has an issue on reverse running on my curves.
I am currently tearing my hair out. I am almost sure it is a pickup issue. related to the sprung drivers in reverse on the 20" radius curves. In forward running, all is matchless through the entire curve, but throw it in reverse and there are three spots in the curve that in spite of the new giant 2200uf keep alive capacitor (with steering diode and resistor) on the Tsunami 750, the engine lurches to a stop and it must be pushed backwards a bit. It then takes off again only to stop another 14" into the curve from the last spot, and so on until the third and last trouble spot. The spots are always the same. I have scurupulously cleaned the track at those trouble spots, especially the inner flange bearing part of the inside rails. Still, no luck.
I am very frustrated here. My paint work and decaling really are nice and the forward low speed can really just crawl at a snail’s pace.
My Rivarossi Big Boy is my most finicky loco and quite understandibly when I go thru the yard turnouts and it is mainly the pilot truck that causes the problems, not the drivers… So far I have gotten most of the turnouts to work with it but as with the 10 driver steamers, the small #4 turnouts are challenging. I had a Spectrum 2-10-2 and it was one of my favorite locos but it derailed on too many turnouts so I sold it. I know some of my trackwork was not the best but all the other locos work on it and I have at least 50 engines.
I guess my most finicky engine for physical trackwork is the IHC Mikado. It’s a light engine with a spring-loaded front pilot. Right now, it seems happy everywhere. Another thing to consider is the electrical quality of your track, and for that I use my trolleys and a Bachmann 0-6-0T tank engine. With the fewest and smallest electrical pickup wheels, these are the ones that will stall on dead frogs and short powerless sections that bigger engines will maintain power on.
Still, I’m tempted to say, “There are no finicky engines, only imperfect trackwork.”
Quite simply put: If I have a “finicky” loco that doesn’t run well or that creates excessive track dirt, it is gone.
I sell them on Ebay for whatever I can get and replace them with something I hope will be much better.
Consequently, there are certain manufacturers whose engines I avoid–almost at all costs–yet what is surprising is that steam locomotives from that certain manufacturer may actually run great but I won’t buy their diesels, or vice versa.
I pick my engines on a case by case basis. This leads to questions such as: does it have rubber tires (on steam)? If so I generally avoid buying them. However, the Athearn/Roundhouse steam engine I just purchased runs amazingly well (and I didn’t know they come with traction tires). It actually has a smoother running quieter operating mechanism than some much more expensive steamers from the competition. So based upon my Roundhouse 2-6-0, I would actually buy more Roundhouse engines.
Other questions I ask are: Does the model appear to be a good representation of the prototype? Is there some feature about the model I cannot live with? If so I won’t buy it or won’t keep it.
I’ve also learned that some of the dual mode equipped engines run much better with my pseudo-DCC power supply (MRC Sound Controller 2.0) than DC equipped engines. In DCC mode with that power supply, the instances of locomotive stalling on my mainline are reduced relative to running the same engine(s) in plain DC mode.
Based upon my recent experiences, I’ll buy more DCC equipped engines when they are cheap, and just run them in DCC mode on the MRC Sound Controller 2.0.
Mine’s a Bachmann Spectrum with a dual mode sound decoder. The “chuff” sounds start before the locomotive does. I finally stuck it back in the box and put another locomotive in service to take its place.
I understand your experience. However, on my layout the Standard Bachmann (DCC and sound equipped) Alco 2-6-0 runs much much better in DCC mode (really pseudo DCC) on the MRC Sound Controller than it does in plain DC mode.
The performance you describe is actually typical of most manufacturers’ locomotives that have sound or are dual mode equipped when they are run in plain DC mode. The reality is that those engines seem to be designed primarily for DCC operation, but for marketing reasons the manufacturers choose to make them operable in DC mode for the masses (like myself) who have no intention of switching to DCC.
Some of the (imo more honest than MR) product reviews I’ve seen in Model Railroad News have pointed out that for example Intermountain’s GEVO’s are really designed for DCC operation, but they choose to make them operable in DC–at least enough so that some DC users will want to make the switch to DCC after using them.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the reality we live with.
Some of the “dogs” in DC mode run incredibly well in DCC mode, and I honestly have not seen too many engines, even with back EMF, that feature sound or dual mode decoders that in my opinion perform well in plain DC mode. However, again, that is my opinion only. Others will differ.
Could the problem be a short between the tender and the locomotive when backing?
Mark…
No I have put a thin, G-10 fiberglass drawbar there and the engine and tender in those curves never touch. It is not that sharp of a curve. (for NG) I have also checked for kinked track or kinks at joints. no dice there either. Again, the loco moves through these areas in forward just fine.
It’s for a brass K-36, but it’ll work just fine for your K-28.
[EDIT: Whoops, forgot it’s members only, but drop me a PM and I’ll shoot you a copy if you don’t want to join. It’s a great group, BTW.]
You don’t need to double insulate the axles on the tender trucks to add pickups on it. Simply add pickups that wipe the uninsulated side. The objective is to bypass the troublesome connection at the bolster/kingpin. You can tap the wire either directly to the decoder (best) or tack it to the tender frame and then connect to the decoder from the frame.
With DCC/sound, you need every little bit of pickup you can get. My C-25 actually runs better than my Blackstones af
Richard, there’s info HERE on adding all-wheel pick-up to a loco. There’s no need to get complicated, as it mainly involves making both loco and tender the same polarity, then adding additional pick-ups to the insulated wheels. No cutting, hacking, or chopping of the loco or tender wheels is required. [swg]
For me it’s a 30+ year old Atlas GP40. Running forward it’ll go all day without a derailment. Turn it around and run it backward, different story completely. An imperfection at a turnout, even a slight kink in a curve or it just doesn’t like that piece of track for whatever reason will result in the rear truck derailing every time. It has no problem once the fault is fixed but until then it won’t go past that point.
I had a BLI Paragon ATSF 2-10-2 and a BLI Paragon ATSF 2-10-4. I really liked them both, but they both qualified for my “most finicky locomotive”. So, I sold them both on eBay. Now, my most finicky loco is my Proto Heritage 2-8-4, all three of them.
As I have mentioned in posts about making trackwork bulletproof, my worst performer is D50380, a 2-8-2 with zamac frame and brass superstructure and tender. Both the pilot truck and the rear tender truck will derail at the slightest suggestion of imperfect trackwork.
I make good use of this - D50380 is the motive power for my `designated derailment checker’ train - cars with pizza-cutter and trapezoidal(!) flanges, long wheelbase 4-wheelers, a couple of LL 2-bay hoppers (seriously underweight) and a 6-wheel flat (3 axles in rigid pedestals.) If that collection of misfits, mismatches and outright disasters can run over newly-laid track at track speed without going on the ground, so can anything in the known universe.
Well, you’d think that with a 95% brass steam locomotive roster I’d have a whole TON of ‘finicky’ locomotives, but that’s not the case. Most of them run smooth as silk. I do, however have one that has tested my patience ever since I bought it about 15 years ago, a Custom Brass Rio Grande 4-8-2. The longer I have it, the more I am convinced that it was really designed to be a Shelf Queen and not an operating locomotive. Drivers are sprung with guitar wire (I kid you not!), the motor (until I replaced it last year) was vastly underpowered, lead locomotive truck would short out against the cylinders on anything under a 34" radius–no weight or balance to speak of until I took it apart and added it–essentially I’ve had to rebuild the thing from the ground up and it’s STILL finicky.
Looks good, though. However, in this case, beauty doesn’t get the job done, LOL!
