Hi All. Has anyone had any luck decreasing the rolling resistance on this train? This thing has a TON of drag in the wheel sets. It pulls about .33 amps at speed. Just the power car alone pulls .06 amps at same speed step. I know the train is lighted, but sitting still it only draws 0.03 amps. The engine has to work so hard to push pull the train. Does anyone have any tips or tricks for making this set roll easier? Not sure if Bachmann has released subsequent sets, but my set is from the first release many moons ago. Thanks! Also, on a side note, who the heck decided it would be a good idea to put the power car in the cafe in the middle of the train.....
Not at all uncommon for double ended trains like that. Since there isn't a "front" and the locomotives are semi-permanently coupled, with a powered locomotive if you change directions you'll be pushing the whole train. With the power car in the middle, you're always pushing half the train, but never all of it. This is how pretty much all of the Tomix and Kato bullet trains are powered. One thing that's different with the Acela, however, is it looks like they actually started to design the locomotives to be powered and then switched it, and that may be part of the reason they roll so poorly (at least with my set, the intermediate cars aren't that bad, not the greatest, but not horrible either, while the locomotives are horrible). As far as getting them to roll better, I can't help there. I have looked into but it's been a while and I've had other projects take precedence.
With a lot of lighted cars, that's sort of a fact of life........I have Bachmann short heavyweights, old ConCor/Rivarossi/Atlas, and several Walthers cars that are all like that. The problem is to get power for the lights, they all have wipers that rub on the wheels or axles to draw power. Usually, by the time you loosen those enough to decrease the drag, you've also disabled the lights. About the only solution to totally fix the issue is to go to battery power. Kato passenger cars seem to do much better......but I don't have any lighted passenger cars to tell you the difference.
Two things come to mind. The bearing surfaces for the axles, and the wheel wipers for lighting. Do the wheels feel tight in the bearings? You might need to open them up a bit. In HO scale, there is the Truck Tuner from Micro-Mark to ream the needlepoint bearings wider on the sideframes. If you have access to a lathe or mill, you could make a similar tool in N scale. The other option would be to modify the lighting pickups. I have the HO Acela, and the pickups are brass strips that touch the back faces of the wheels. If the brass strips are of a similar design on the N scale model, I could imagine it causing a large amount of friction. Even axle wipers can cause friction if they are too stiff. Depending on the design of the truck, you could try something like this: This is an OO scale video for EOT lighting. Skip to around the 5 minute mark where he puts the pickups on the axles. It looks like a lot lower friction than brass strips.
Your question has inspired me to take another look at my Acela trainset. I believe I have figured what the problem is, but unfortunately I don't have a solution for you. Well, I may have a solution, but without spare parts available I'd be afraid to try it in case it doesn't work and makes things worse. Here's a truck on a Kato Superliner: The metal pickup strips have indentions are "cups" that the points of the wheels ride in. This results in a very free wheeling truck, they roll about as good as any car even without electrical pickup. Here's a truck from one of the power cars in my Acela set: Although they're a little harder to see, the electrical pickup is the same as on the Kato, but here's the problem: The truck is actually riding on the axles of the wheels, whereas with the Kato design the truck is supported by the metal pickup strips - in other words in the Kato truck the only thing touching the wheels is the metal pickup strips. The possible solution I mentioned before would be to enlarge the holes that the axles pass through so that the truck wouldn't be touching the axle. What I don't know is if you did that would the metal strips actually hold the truck up or would it drop down far enough to hit the ties.
One more thing I meant to add. I may actually try 3d printing some replacement trucks at some point, but that will be a while, too many other things going on right now.
IIRC, a complete article on upgrading the Acela appeared in N Scale Magazine; check the publisher's website for back issues on dvd. The train's wheel sets were replaced with Kate E8 wheelsets for the dummy locos and Kato passenger wheel sets for the unpowered cars to reduce the rolling resistance. I'd say this article is a must for every owner of this model train. Barry Cutaia
