Got one of them this afternoon. From the diagram has the can motor like the 4-6-0. My guesstimate is a 15mm diameter speaker facing downward in the tender. Full Soundtraxx Economi with all the sounds. Runs and sounds really great, am impressed. Harold
A video would be rather redundant. Looks and runs like the old versions. Sounds like a Soundtraxx Economi. http://soundtraxx.com/factory/images/bachmann/pdf/2-8-0_N_AE32071.pdf There are videos of both on You-tube. Just beginning to slip with this train: All the cars have Fox Valley wheels. Harold
That looks like eleven cars and a caboose on straight and level. It is just beginning to slip? The old one would not even have noticed eleven cars and a caboose on straight and level. I wonder why it is not pulling as well as the old one.
The sound on my Bachmann 4-6-2 Pennsy (now a GN goat!) is absolutely the best and the whistle makes me feel like a kid at the train museum. I'm darn glad Bachmann is keeping up with the quality sound decoders, and in their bulk production I imagine they still make a pretty penny!
two versions the o But which analog 2-8-0 was it? Bachmann made two 2-8-0's. The first one was not really good but the second was their Spectrum model and was very good. Some people claimed it was better than the Kato Mikado. Spookshow has both listed in his locomotive encyclopedia: http://www.spookshow.net/loco/bach280.html which is the 1980 version and http://www.spookshow.net/loco/spec280.html which is the 2001 and 2010 Spectrum version. The 1980 version was basically a 'trainset' quality locomotive. Spookshow gave it a 'C' grade meaning "Has some performance flaw making it unworthy of operations- maybe it runs rough through curves, overly loud, too light, lousy puller, iffy pickup, jackrabbit stops and starts, etc. Looks toyish- oversized handrails, proportions out of scale, major prototypical inaccuracies, etc" The Spectrum model was released originally as an analog model in 2001 with a DCC model coming in 2010 and a DCC w/ sound in 2018. Spookshow has not yet reviewed the 2018 sound equipped locomotive but the 2001 and 2010 models both received a grade of 'A' meaning, "Looks and runs great. Smooth, quiet and accurate to the prototype. Worthy of any operational fleet. State of the art." So you can see there is a vast difference between the 1980 and the 2001 models. Spookshows locomotive reviews are considered by many to be the "Bible" of N scale locomotive reviews. Look to see if your analog locomotive has traction tires. The Spectrum models had traction tires on the rear (fourth) drivers. The 1980 model did not have any. I have several of the Spectrum models (with traction tires) and all of them will pull 40+ cars on straight and level track.
When the old Bachmann 2-8-0 is referred to I think of the old Wooten firebox version and that was one that was also prone to the split gears in the old split axle assembly. The issue may be excessive wheel blackening which has occurred on some locos from time to time.
If I am referencing the NEW 2-8-0 why would the old Reading prototype 1980 be the model compared. Huh, huh, huh? It would be the comparable 2001-9 analog model, geez! 2009 is OLD. Both pulled what they pulled. Been posting on the net since 2004 and always wonder why. https://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/ Harold
There is no working front coupler. The usual answer to the front coupler is the MicroTrains Z-scale 905. It worked but the front coupler is usually used for switching, the problem is the car being switched would "bobblehead" or "slinky". With a little bit of fitting the McHenry coupler will work in the 905 coupler box. Not for everyone, but works for me. Harold
I have a first run that will pull eleven box, hopper, covered hopper and tank cars, of various manufacture, mostly on MT trucks (a few on Atlas trucks), and a caboose, up a 2,2% grade. There is an eleven inch curve on the inside track at the crest of that grade and a thirteen and three quarter on the outside. It will make it up that hill on either track. The caboose is the old Arnold boom tender (basically a flat car with sides the old Arnold bobber caboose body. It is on MT trucks. That is the most that I have tried. I suppose that now I will have to do my loaded MT gondola test on it. It did pull fifteen loaded MT gondolas and a MT wood caboose up a one per-cent grade on my old pike. The MP mogul, with a SPECTRUM USRA standard swapped in for the original, also pulled fifteen loaded MT gondolas and a caboose up that same one per-cent grade. The Kato Mikado with the traction tyre swap done did likewise. All were at fifteen and twenty SMPH. I did not try more than fifteen loaded MT gondolas the MT caboose in any of the tests. The MP model will do better than the prototype. The SP M-4, which the MP resembles, had a tractive effort of just under 29.000 lbs. That would not have been enough to get fifteen loaded fifty foot gondolas up a two per-cent grade. I can not imagine that an M-6 had that much more, which means that even it would not have gotten that train up that hill. Does anyone out there know what the tractive effort of a 1911 SL-SF/CRI&P consolidated was? The B-mann resembles those consolidateds.
Using my highly inaccurate as far as measurement food scale but for comparison the modern cars are about two times heavier than a 40ft boxcar and about three times heavier than a 33ft hopper or tankcar. Harold
The boxcars in the eleven car train and caboose were four of the recently issued MT runner pack of the Penn fifty foot waggon tops; one recently issued B-mann forty foot with body mounts; one Atlas wood outside braced, which has a rather heavy chassis. There was one Fox Valley (?) Penn covered hopper, two MDC forty foot, seventy ton hoppers with loads; a MT thirty three foot with a load and a MT tank car. Add the already described caboose. The loads were wood for the thirty three foot and cut down and painted plastic B-mann laods from its forty foot gondola (P&LE used seventy ton hoppers for iron ore). I do not know how those would compare to the modern cars (Except for the few that I have received as gifts, over the years, I do not run modern prototype equipment). The real test will be the loaded gondolas. Those get the old Mr. Plaster loads.
That's how I interpreted the words "old versions" in the OP. The 2001 and 2010 versions are mechanically identical. The 2018 version is probably the same. The 2010 version only added DCC and the 2018 version added sound but these are not total redesigns. Thus one may expect that the pulling ability of these would be comparable. The wheel blackening that you identified could be an issue but I recall there was another issue that affected some of these engines which only needed an extremely simple tweek and effectively turned a pig's ear into a silk purse. It may be the culprit here too.
I just did the loaded MT gondola test. I took ten MT gondolas. Five of them had Mr. Plaster coil loads, one had a Mr. Plaster pipe load, one had a Mr. Plaster ore load. Three of them had a Hay Brothers pipe load. The caboose was the Athearn wood caboose on its Accu-Mate trucks. Of course, I used the first run B-mann SPECTRUM 2-8-0. The 2-8-0 is completely stock except for the MT Z scale couplers on pilot and tender, the substitution of an UltimateNscale oil bunker for the coal load and a back-up light fixture (non-funtioning) from some manufacturer of N scale detail parts. I ran the train on a section of straight and level, then through a Kato #6, around a thirteen and three quarter curve, then to a PECo "medium radius" turnout, onto the snaking track on the 2,2% grade. I ran it on both the inside, with an eleven inch radius at the summit, and, the outside, with a thirteen and three quarter radius at the summit. I ran the train at fifteen SMPH. It was necessary to keep my hand on the throttle as it hit the hill, in order to maintain the fifteen SMPH. On the inside, with the eleven inch radius at the summit, the train went into full slip about four inches from the summit. I removed two cars and it made it to the curve, but went into full slip just as the locomotive was fully into the curve. I removed one more car and it made it up the hill slipping badly. I removed one more car and it made it up the hill with no slippage. Each time that I removed a car, I backed the train to its starting point. I removed cars with Hay Brothers loads first. On the outside, with the thirteen and three quarter curve at the summit, it made it up the hill slipping slightly when the locomotive was fully into the curve. When I removed one car, it made it up the hill with no slippage. I took the data painted on the P&LE car. I assume that similarly constructed fifty foot gondolas would have similar ratings. The data on the P&LE car indicates as capacity of one-hundred-forty thousand pounds. The empty weight reads sixty-one-thousand-five-hundred pounds. Thus, a ten car train of loaded cars and the caboose would be something close to two million pounds. I am assuming, here, that the cars are not quite loaded to rated capacity. This allows for the caboose weight and the empty weight of the cars' being just over sixty-thousand pounds. Now, I must find, again, the formula for tractive effort required to get a train up a hill. Someone did post it in reply to a post that I made on another forum, so I will look there, first. I am wondering if a 1911 CRI&P/SL-SF 2-8-0 would have sufficient tractive effort to get a two million pound train up a 2,2 per-cent grade.
It would require ninety-four thousand pounds of tractive effort to get those ten loaded gondolas and caboose up that hill on a prototype. I can not find tractive effort figures for the CRI&P/Sl-Sf 1911 consolidateds, but, a B&O E-27 had right around forty thousand pounds of tractive effort. Thus, it would require three E-27s to get a train like that up a hill like that.
I was not, but thank you for the link, which delineates other factors for consideration. I was using something oversimplified. The link deals with diesels, but the arithmetic applies to steam, as well. There is also the coupler rating factor to consider.
The Western Maryland used to run 7 (or even more) much larger (60,000 lb TE) Consolidations to get 55 50-ton cars of coal over some of their steep, twisty branch lines. So, feel free to buy these Bachmann Connies by the dozen and stick as many on your train as needed to make your grades with the trains you want to run. That's how the real railroads had to deal with steep, twisty grades like we put in our layouts. Of course, those real railroads eventually went bankrupt, too. So, you could tell the wife you are being "prototypical" when you drop something like $1,500 on 7 of these models.
Boy this thread has went off the rails from the original topic. Even though I said a video would be redundant, here we go, forgive the mess and lack of production values Harold
