POCHER 4-4-0

[mrgstrain]

After being away from the hobby for some 20 plus yrs, I am for farious reasons returning useing alot of old equipment. I have a POCHER 4-4-0 made in Italy that runs very well but I know nothing about it. What do you know about it?

Larry
( in it for therapy )

[rrinker]

Those were imported by AHM starting in the late 60's. I believe IHC still offers them. Somewhere in the early 70's they were updated with a nicer motor. I have 3 of the 4 different ones they offered at the time. The motor is in the tender - be careful when picking it up that you do not lose the drive shaft between the tender and locomotive. Don't ask. If you look at the bottom of the tender, and see a round silver part, that's the newer motor. The older motor was more of an open frame type which you would see looking at the bottom of the tender.
They do run nice, at least mine always did. Pickup is a little weak as they only pick up from one side of the tender and one side of the engine, and there are traction tires. I used to use one of mine to test trackwork as I put it down, even with a relatively cheap power supply it would run nice and slow, and was quiet enough to hear any clicks if there was a misaligned rail. Plus if there was insufficient power to the track it would stall.

--Randy