Do you think this is a good engine

[Anonymous]

1:20.3 Scale 2-8-0 Narrow Gauge, Outside Frame Consolidation from bachmann. They are on a good sale for 279.00. Any problems with this beastie? Bill

[cacole]

When I purchased one a couple of years ago it was dead on arrival. The locomotive is so heavy that sending it back to Bachmann for warranty replacement would have cost more than it was worth, so I opened it up to see what was wrong. It looked like some 6-year-old Chinese child had done the soldering. Three wires had not even been soldered to the main circuit board, and two other wires pulled loose because of cold solder joints when I moved the board. All of the wires were red or black, so it was impossible to tell which wire was supposed to go to which hole on the circuit board. I eventually just ripped all of the electronics out of the model and installed an AirWire 900 wireless DCC receiver/decoder into it, removed all of the electrical pickups from the wheels, and run it on battery power. NOW it is an excellent running engine, but initially it didn't run at all. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that one of the wires to the motor was also not soldered at the factory. I can't say this is true of all these locomotives, but mine was definitely a basket case. Appearance-wise, this is a very good locomotive. It's very big and very heavy, so it has considerable pulling power. If your other G-scale trains are not 1:20.3 scale, this locomotive is definitely much bigger than them.

[Curmudgeon]

This from an original post on the Bachmann site.
And, remove the circuit board on the motor. Save it for Warranty claims purposes.
I have 2, they run fine, track good, FAR outpull an Anniversary with stock drive.
I added a bit of stick-on weight to the inside bottom of the smokebox to balance it a little. With sprung drivers, the nose bounced a bit. Second generation do not need the locktite trick, but they still need the board removed. One of the things I could not say at the time was EVERY STINKING SCREW is loose on that first-run loco. Treat it like a Topolino (Fiat 500) and tighten everything, including axle screws.
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While doing some conversion work on one of the new Bachmann 1:20 scale 2-8-0's, I found the motor to be loose on the gearbox.
This is a new design gearbox mount from Bachmann, and bugs may have inadvertently crept in to the assembly process.
The following is the procedure I used to adjust this and subsequent units. First is the boiler removal, which is about the easiest Bachmann Large-Scale to disassemble to date.

Disassembly procedure:

1) Roll engine over on fireman's side, locate forward end of reverse
actuating rod under running board where it attaches to the valve gear.
Remove slot-head screw. NOT MAGNETIC! Don't lose it!
2) Roll engine onto its wheels. Remove all 4 screws and both smokebox
supports (if you try to flex them out of the way, it will scratch the
paint).
3) Roll engine over on it's back.
4) Remove ashpan (4 small screws).
5) Remove 4 screws about in the corners of inside of firebox under ashpan.
6) Remove one screw between cylinders under front truck.
7) Separate boiler from chassis. Pull motor wires down from boiler to reveal
in-line plug. You may unplug for complete separation of boiler from chassis.

Check motor for tightness to gearbox as outlined below:

Pull the lower gear cover, 4 screws, and front support bracket on top of frame to gearbox, 2 screws, lift the motor/gearbox off, removed 4 screws on one side and 2 on the other of the gearbox, separate the gearbox halves. The motor screws are located inside the gearbox. I removed the screws, locktited (222) and lubed before re-assembly.

When re-assembling, make sure the sander pipes from the sandbox on top of boiler fit into holes provided in frame just forward of valve gear support bracket. They may spring backwards and rub on lead driver.

TOC

[Anonymous]

Hi,
Had mine for about a year now and not had one bit of trouble with it. It's a heavy beast so it takes some careful handling. This was my first venture into Bachmann, in any scale, so I hope it continues when I purchase one of the geared loco's.
Cheers,
Kim
[tup]

[Anonymous]

I can only run LGB and I am sold on their boggie construction and I cannot see that you will be able to handle the curves with anything less.

Rgds Ian

[Anonymous]

My personal opinion (other than being NG) is Bman is like, how do I put it nicely [8)], well let's say that it's not the best brand to buy. I've heard more talk about messed up stuff(problems) with Bman. Even though I don't buy Bman, I do buy their metal wheels for my MOW cars and my american series 1/29th boxcars too. I got one set once where there was 2 sized wheels on the same axle [:O] I didn't discover this until after putting it on the car I was working on [:(]



Now I know that boo-boos do happen from time to time, but you've got to be on drugs or very hung over to let this one slip by [V]

I still buy Bman wheels sets, but I'd never buy Bman either. I did once have two of their ten wheels back when I first started in G scale, but I was dissapointed buy the lack of quality in their products. The one 10 wheeler I ran died less than 10 hours after I first got it. Seems that all the plating on the wheels wore off and the loco ran erraticly and arched where the wheels met the track. The second 10 wheeler I had ran under the christmas tree for a coupler hours until I got the Lionel 4-4-2 which replaced it. I sold the Bman ASAP before the wheels wore out. The other thing I noted on Bman was they put the doors on their boxcars BACKWARDS [:O][:(!] Nope, don't want that either [;)] I'll stick with other brands thank you very much [^]

[Anonymous]

I have a B'mann two truck Shay that I run around Christmas(not in the last two year). No problems like other people had with this engine. That being said I prefer LGB, Aristo and Hartland. I am not a mechanical genius, so tearing down the engines to get them to run would not be for me. All of the engines that I have purchased(15+) have run out of the box[knock on wood].