Help -- Acela drawbars

[Anonymous]

Hi,

My son has learned the hard way that the drawbars on his new Spectrum Acela HO set are a bit fragile. Now two of his cars are sidelined and he is brokenhearted. Can anyone help us with where we might get replacements for the drawbars? Thanks for any help you can lend.

John

[Anonymous]

Best advice I can give would be to get in touch with Bachmann through their website www.bachmanntrains.com - their service and repairs department have plenty of good reports and they should be able to help you out with this. Good luck!

[cacole]

A member of our local club broke a draw bar and had to wait and wait and wait to get a replacement from Bachmann. There are two different lengths of drawbars used on the Bachmann Acela, so you will need to tell them very specifically which one you need -- to go between a power unit and passenger car, or between two coaches.

[MisterBeasley]

I assume from their fragility that these are plastic - essentially strips of poly-benzyl-ethyl-cheryl-whatever. I'd go down to my LHS and buy a pack of the appropriately-sized styrene strips. Use the damaged part as a template and cut out a new one - maybe make it a bit wider or thicker, if it fits and there are no rivet-counters looking. Drill some holes, paint it black (you devils) and install it. Another alternative would be aluminum flashing from a hardware store. That would probably be stronger and more flexible than the original part.