We all get the occasional lemon. In terms of performance, what's the worst locomotive you've ever owned?
Mine was my first N Scale Spectrum 2-8-0. The thing must have been a "Monday or Friday" locomotive because it never ran right. It's pilot truck derailed if you looked at it wrong, the mechanism had a tendency to bind and the running gear fell off several times! Eventually the motor died and I returned it to Bachmann. To Bachmann's credit, they made it right. They gave me a new engine, which runs like a Swiss watch at no charge.
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
My worst was a Broadway Limited Mikado with a terrible short in the tender. Went back twice for repair before I figured out the fix for myself.
Other than that it would have to be self inflicted worst, for example buying one of my sons a model power loco because if was cheap and regretting it almost from the moment we put it on the track
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
About 30 years ago it was either a Bachman or Tyco with the plastic idler gear that worked off the brass motor gear, couldn't throw it far enough. Now its all mostly Kato and a few Atlas loco's. Lesson learned and no looking back. Jim.
The Model Power open pilot locomotives,Tyco,AHM.
Russell
Mine was a Custom Brass model of a Rio Grande M-78 4-8-2. Underweight, underpowered, drivers sprung with Ernie Ball guitar wire (really!!), couldn't even handle a 36"radius without the lead truck shorting out against the cylinders, could barely haul its tender. It was either melt the darned thing down and make a brass lump out of it, or re-build it from the ground up. Back then, I had a lot more patience than smarts, so I rebuilt it. At least three times. It runs okay now, but JUST okay.
Evidently I wasn't the only one who wondered what the sam-hill was wrong with the loco--about a ton of them seem to show up on the used brass market these days.
Buyer BEWARE!
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
An Athearn.
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
My vote is for the Tyco General 4-4-0 kit. The motor is in the tender with u-joint linkage to the drive wheels so torque twist wheel lifting is a problem.. Even with a heavier Cary "Pittsburgh" boiler and axle electrical pick-ups, this thing shudders all the way around the track.
Sure is a sweet-look'en little bugger though! I remember a long ago MR article about making a twist-proof draw bar.... another of my many "someday projects".
Jim
For me, it was an IHC 2-8-2 Mikado. The thing had an extremely dim bulb, ran really jerky and the smoke unit got so hot that it melted the smoke stack (don't ask me how that happened). It met its demise when I set up some track on some track on a plywood table and the loco just magically derailed somehow and landed on the hard concrete floor of the garage. After that, it was placed in the trash.
Will
G Gauge - Bachmann 4-6-0 - The "frame" is made of some sort of plastic that normal glue won't stick to. As a consequence the brake shoes won't stay on. Tried super-glue, E6000, several brands of syrene cement..... The Drive wheels will not stay on. The built in sound system is pathetic at best.
O Scale - AHM Plymouth Diesel - Just poor performance would loose electrical power. Disassemble - reassemble it would run again for a while. Funny coupler arrangment too.
S Scale - American Flyer 4-4-2. I had several of these but there was one that was just a dog. I rebuilt it several times and it just never ran right.
HO scale - Athearn Genesis SD7xs - have three. Two are from earlier runs the 3rd from a later run. All three are junk and it isn't even due to MRC electronics, but warped trucks, and plastic that cracks with the slightest pressure.
N scale - AHM F7s - I had 6. The electrical pickup was so poor even after reworking the pickups I had to wire two of them together. Then the pulling power was so bad - even with traction tires they mostly just skidded around a lot.
This was a funny experience as the best and worst N scale locomotive I ever owned were the same model, a Lifelike BL2. I picked up two a few months apart. One was just an all out lemon. The second ran, and still runs, like a total jewel - the smoothest drive train I've ever seen.
No question about it. Athearn Genesis 4-6-2 light pacific. All it knew how to do was bust gears.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
At this point, mine would be my Bachmann 4-8-4 Niagara (pre-DCC). The first one split every axle and wouldn't run, so Bachmann replaced it. The current one ran well for a few years, and then it went downhill fast. I like the thing though, so when I have the money, I'm going to build a new frame from scratch, use Bowser wheels, and put in a gearbox from NWSL.
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Definitely a Bachmann (non-Spectrum) 2-6-2 Prairie, with smoke.
3 laps around my layout and it threw a tie rod. So I fixed it. It threw it again. Fixed it again. Then it threw one on the other side. Then the first side, this time bending the plastic retainer. Sent back to Bachmann. Got it back. Ran for a week, then...... yep, threw a tie rod. Now it sits on my display shelf, broken running gear to the rear, collecting dust.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
My Stewart C628. Before I left the LHS, it didn't run.
My LHS got it running, by repairing the driveshafts from the motor to the trucks, but they broke again, complained to Stewart "BB" (Before Bowser) who sent out replacement shafts.
No problems since, thankfully!
Brought to you by the letters C.P.R. as well as D&H!
K1a - all the way
It has to be the Tyco 2-8-0 Chattanooga with the motor and drivve wheels in the tender. I finally sold it on Ebay. I don' t know what is soooo good about these but they sell like hot cakes on Ebay.
-Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
GSB sd40-2
farrellaa It has to be the Tyco 2-8-0 Chattanooga with the motor and drivve wheels in the tender. I finally sold it on Ebay. I don' t know what is soooo good about these but they sell like hot cakes on Ebay. -Bob
Because all you have to do on e-Bay is say "Collectible" and some poor sap will buy it!
My next worst loco and I still have it, a Bachmann 4-6-0 Hall type. Think Harry Potter and you got it. Only somebody ripped the Hogwart's Express tags off it and painted it black. It runs great but can't pull two box cars. It just sits there spinning.
My worst? Although they are gorgeous, the Genesis SD75M's. The details are flimsy, if nicely made and attached, and the trucks don't run well...they need exceptionally level rails.
My worst locomotive that I have ever owned is a Proto Heritage 2-8-4.
This was the first edition model and while it looked great it has no pulling power.
Two box cars on a 2 % grade was all it could handle. I remember reading a review in Model Railroader of this engine and in passing it did mention slippery drivers, however, the reviewer thought with a good run in that would solve the problem. Wrong.
It could not be upgraded with the optional traction tires that Walthers added to the later editions.
I was lucky and traded it off for a Heritage 2-10-2 that came with the optional traction tires but strangely did not need them.
A Life-Like 'Teakettle'. Those train set quality locos from the 70's were almost universally junk.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
This.
A Lindberg switcher from the early 60s.
Life is simple - eat, drink, play with trains!
Go Big Red!
PA&ERR "If you think you are doing something stupid, you're probably right!"
Worst locomotive huh? Well, a Spectrum K4 blew a decoder and never worked right even after trying to hard-wire a couple times but I still liked the loco quite a bit. One day I'll send in for a replacement.
Alvie
I had said I couldn't pinpoint my best in the other thread; I can DEFINITELY pinpoint some of my worst, as follows (all HO scale)--
The Trainline GP15-1's wiring completely failed after about 1.5 years of use and would not work at all; I elected to completely gut it, give it a set of Athearn trucks, and now it's a fairly nice dummy unit on my layout (hoping the P1K model doesn't do that!!)... I'm baffled by the bad luck I've had with all of my Atlas products; it could be because all the Atlas products I own are all fairly old models (the GP38AC and GP40 both had their motors burn out, while the S2 just quit working one day, and to this day I don't know why), but regardless of their age, they've earned a spot on my worst model list! As for the Bachmann electric, simply put, I'm thinking of a four letter word; begins with "s", ends in "t", and it isn't "soot"...
And someone else may have had excellent experiences with these models; I'm basing my opinion here on the examples on my layout...
My little 4x10' HO layout may be small, and I may not have enough money to make it a masterpiece, but that doesn't make me any less of a modeler!
When I think of 'worst' locomotives I usually think of their design, not whether a loco was a defective unit off the production line. Any loco with a defective drive train can be repaired if the parts are available.
But as far as design goes, I'd say anything with a pancake motor is garbage. That includes the Bachmann train set locos, some of the old Model Power stuff, and Life-Like train set locos. I had a few pancake-motored locos when I was younger, and they eventually disappeared after I discovered flat can motors with dual flywheels.
In my earlier years, with no money for brass, I lusted for a set of ATSF E units. Finally I got a pair from Model Power - I believe sometime in the late '70s. The things never, ever ran for more than a few feet. No, it wasn't due to track or wiring problems, the locos were just junk. I eventually gave them away - which in itself should tell you of their worth.
My second set of "worst" locos was the Model Power ATSF F7 units. They ran, but kept growling and losing contact from trucks to motor. I paid $5 each for them brand new - which should give you an indication as to worth.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Hmmmm....I'm going to have to say a Broadway limited diesel dcc and sound believe it or not. Cannot get that sucker to not derail on a certain curve on my layout. The only one out of about 20 other locomotives. Sent it in for repair, got it back the same as it went in.
Jarrell
Texas Zepher G Gauge - Bachmann 4-6-0 - The "frame" is made of some sort of plastic that normal glue won't stick to. As a consequence the brake shoes won't stay on. Tried super-glue, E6000, several brands of syrene cement..... The Drive wheels will not stay on. The built in sound system is pathetic at best.
I think I can go you one better. I have the original RC version. A good looker, but no weight, and plastic drivers. Could barely pull the tender and two cars that came with it. MY little Lionel 0-6-0 ran rings around it. Today it's the only piece of G-scale I have left, as a static model that sets on top of my computer desk.
I have figured out what is wrong with my brain! On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!
Probably a HO Lionel GP30... can they call it a motor?
Matt
Proudly modelling the Quebec Railway Light & Power Co since 1997.
http://www.hedley-junction.blogspot.com
http://www.harlem-station.blogspot.com
Hum, so may to pick from!
I am going to say it is a tie between a Athearn RTR SD 50 and a PK2000 E-6.
The E-6 will not track period even on K-10 Model Trains 32 inch turns. Have not ran it for 4 years.
SD 50 on the other hand has BBQ 4 decoders. Takes month's, but it will let the smoke out.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust