I’d like to purchase an N scale 4-8-2 Mountain,preferably DCC ready or better still,sound equipped.Broadway Limited advertises one that seems vey nice,with DCC and sound,but the price is somewhat hefty.I’d probably stretch the budget a little to get one anyway,that is if they were known as pretty good,but no words on them yet.I’ve been bitten with an Athearn MRC equipped Challenger and don’t want another one.Can someone comment these 4-8-2’s?
I know Spectrum sells one too,but I doubt they are DCC ready or even convertible to DCC.I’ve had a Bachmann 4-8-4 in the past that was a real lemmon so I have doubts as to their 4-8-2 quality also.Are there other makers of N scale Mountain locos?
I thought 4-8-2’s were called Mohawks? 2-8-0 are Consolidations, 2-8-2 are Mikado’s, 2-8-4 are Berkshires, 4-8-4 are Northern’s. Or did mix some of them up. This post has me second guessing myself…
I have Bachmann light Mountains and really like them, run nice, not DCC, not real big haulers (I am experimenting with Bullfrog Snot, looks promising), but I think quite adaptable to DCC, the Bachmann Spectrum steam is of a high quality IMHO (did need to re-gauge the pilot truck)
Bachmann also do a Heavy 4-8-2 that I think comes equipped with DCC (not sound though) and I believe they are a pretty reasonable hauler as well.
Don’t confuse the lower-quality Bachmann lines (like the 4-8-4) with their Spectrum line. I believe the Spectrum engines are all DCC ready. I can really only talk about the HO ones, but the Spectrum line steam engines I have are very good indeed.
All nicknames for engines like “Northern” or “Challenger” are just that - unofficial nicknames. Railroads were free to call engines whatever they felt like. For example, many southern railroads balked at calling 4-8-4s “Northerns” so came up with other names for them, like “Dixies”. New York Central boasted in it’s advertising about it’s “Water Level Route” passenger line out of New York City, contrasting it to the steep grades the Pennsylvania faced. When they got 4-8-2s they didn’t want to call them Mountains since it would contradict their advertising, so called them “Mohawks” instead. (They also called their 4-8-4s “Niagras”.
The 4-8-2 was a Mountain using the Whyte classification but the NYC called them Mohawk. The NYC also called their 4-8-4’s Niagara instead of Northern.
Many railroads did not use the same name as the orginal given to a class locomotive by the Whyte method.
The Santa Fe type was a 2-10-2 and was named after the SF since they had the first, but the Illinois Central called their 2-10-2’s “Central”.
The C&O called their 4-8-4’s Greenbriar’s. Other names for 4-8-4’s were Dixie, Potomac, Wyoming and it goes on and on.
The CB&Q called their 2-10-4’s “Colorado”, not using the Texas type since they were named after the T&P locomotives. The SF added a four wheel trailing truck to one of their 2-10-2’s, (3829) but their name had already been used for the 2-10-2.
The Whyte classification of locomotive naming was only a guideline, If you owned it, you could name it.
As for the Broadway Limited / Percision Craft Models, don’t hold your breath. These were announced back in like 2004, and they haven’t seen the light of day yet. I don’t expect they ever will either. You see, PCM announced them and decided they’d make them if there were enough pre-orders. Lots of folks pre-ordered, but not enough I guess, so they didn’t get made. The company is still holding the same position on this, but now many, if not most, of the pre-orders have been cancelled. Folks got tierd of waiting / the economy went south / the company didn’t have a solid enough track record (only 1 N scale release in the company’s history, and though it was a good debut, it’s not enough to build that kind of customer loyalty to demand large numbers of pre-orders I guess). The long and the short of it is, if they actually made it, and it lived up to it’s promises, they probably couldn’t make enough to keep up with demand once the modelers got their hands on the real thing and found it to be a good model. For now, it’s on the back burner, and it’s not looking good for the future.
The light mountains are really nice, and easily adaptable to DCC. They do have some traction issues though, but fortunately they’re easy to fix. There’s two methods. Fist, on the traction tire axle, pul the axle blocks slightly so that they are still in the frame, but there’s a gap between the block and the frame. Now slip a sliver of regular masking tape in there and reassemble. She’ll now pull like a champ. The other method is to pull the axle block all the way out and rotate it 90 degrees and reassemble. Serves the same purpose.
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Bachmann also do a Heavy 4-8-2
The Heavy Mountain is a beautiful machine, and runs well out of the box.
As with all things Bachmann, your best bet is to try before you buy. The Heavy comes with factory DCC, but it’s a 28 step very basic chip, but it can be easily replaced with something smoother and more feature-rich. As noted previously, there is plenty of room for sound.
Thanks for the link, very useful, down here in Australia, we didn’t generally have very large engines, in NSW where I was a Fireman/driver in the 1960’s, the largest I worked on was the 200 ton 38 class Pacific’s, the 4-8-2 57 & 58 class Mountains were finished and as I was at a passenger depot, the Garratts were not on our allocation.
The information from the other poster regarding the Light 4-8-2 tractive effort is also useful, I recalled that there was some sort of a fix, but couldn’t remember where or what.
The beauty of these forums, when someone asks a question, we can still all learn.
