I have ordered one regardless from a preferred place, take a while to get all the way down here, hopefully worth it, S4 and a Challenger on their way with it, should all be good company for each other.
M8K is the only one who has shown them in stock and that was Friday night of a holiday weekend for them. Distributors are not showing them yet and the earliest M8K could have shipped them Monday so people should probably start getting them sometime today. What happened to the days when it would take months for many people to even know something was released? Now, a day after it is announced, everybody is clamoring for reviews, patience is a virtue.
Got mine today, it is a beauty. Although I'm not a good judge of the fine detail I love it. I can tell you it runs superb. The new decoder gives great motor control from a count the ties walk to more than scale top speed. It is very smooth and quiet. No contact problems with turnouts or my double crossovers. It will not handle 9.75R curves but the rest of my layout with 11"R+is no problem. It has no trouble through an "s" section that has given other big steam problems. It will pull my longest consist (25 cars) up my 3% grade with no slip at a crawl. I haven't made any adjustments to achieve great performance. I have always purchased Bachmann locomotives with some reserve, but I am extremely happy with this locomotive. happy railroading! Harold
Got mine and it is a great looking and running staemer. Unforunately I cant tell you the pulling power since as is the way of Bachmann they apparently live in a different universe and cant figure out how to install a coupler at the proper height and thus the rear coupler wont stay coupled to a standard MT car. And they are the giant knuckle coupler that is a knokoff of what Athearn uses, both front and rear. I will probably see what I can do with the coupler tonight and take some photos.
I have been riding the undecided fence about this one and finally made up my mind that I will pass on it. Just can't fit it into my modeling frame at all. Now a nice GN R-1, 0r 2, or an GN N class and a A-3 NP 4-8-4 and I will be first in line. But the new F-7s are also supposed to roll out this month and I am still looking for a Uboat or two so my money will go there. The outfit north of me near Baltimore has already sold out one version and restocked again. Who said eastern roads don't sell? But this one I am going to ride out and set back and watch the feeding frenzy.
I'm sitting on barbed-wire fence with this release... and it really hurts. I just played with my 2 Bachmann S4's and found them to be exceptionally good. (12 years ago I would have been sent to the funny-farm for that comment) Most of the steamers Bachmann has put out over the past 11 years have been pretty good too. Their first articulated steamer... the 2-6-6-2... was mediocre due to its lack of pulling power. That one was also 'minted' in mostly 'Eastern' liveries... so I ended up with a Wheeling and Lake Erie... with the intention to make it a faux-western road. That one cost me about $100.00; and, I've probably run it 5 times... with very little mileage. It's a handsome engine and looks good parked in a yard or on a shelf. So... will paying $200+ for another articulated engine that doesn't fit my area of interest make me any happier? Probably not... but... I have yet to pass-up on any articulated engines. There's something about these behemoths that is very tantalizing. Still riding that thorny... painful... fence...
I received my EM-1 a few days ago. Looks and runs good as others have reported. The front pilot on mine was tilted to the firemans side a little, which was due to a mounting screw that was tapped crooked. You folks have to be careful with the separately applied detail parts too. Mine came with one of the tender steps almost torn off from the factory. While trying to fix the pilot I noticed that the classification lights on the smoke box were almost falling off due my handling. Also, I have already lost one of the flag holders on the pilot, I guess that's what they are. I'm not a "ham-fisted" person either, and usually don't damage anything with normal handling, maybe the glue they used was the wrong type???? Anyway, I'm still happy with the locomotive, because I tinker with all makes, none are perfect right out of the box, not even Atlas and Kato. Regards, Charley.
Received my EM-1 today and all is not well. I am sending it back. In addition to the fragile detail parts it seems that Bachmann has followed the Kato Mikado model too closely. The drawbar on mine was broken. The draw bar is very fragile and prone to break apart amidships where apparently only two small nubs of plastic hold it together. At least that is all I could detect. Break those two nubs and the drawbar is in two pieces.
This is starting to sound like one of those 'wait for the second run to come out' things. Not everyone buys ready-to-run models so they can spend several hours of their time tinkering with them.
Inkaneer, I'll keep an eye on the drawbar, it did look a bit "weak" to me. Also, be careful trying to straighten and bend any side/main rods, valve gear parts or level the cross head guides. Some parts are stamp metal, but many are die castings and bittle. Many pictures on line and my own locomotive, have at least one of the cross head guides that are not level (I gave up on the guides). Since my last report. I was running my locomotive in reverse and it had a little "hitch in it's get-a-long" and then locked up. One of the valve gear rods got caught on a main rod and stopped it cold. I tried to bend the reverse link out a little for clearance and "snap", it was/is a die cast piece. That makes you feel sick on a loco that is two days old. I've already made a new one from brass sheet, it looks pretty good, and the loco runs OK. If you have the same problem you can bend the main rod/s "in" a little (that seemed to fix mine). The main rod/s appears to be a stamped metal piece, but your on your own!!!!!!!!!! Regards, Charley.
I have to ask the question of what Bmann did in their basic tried and true drawbar design? Up to now the same basic design has worked just fine on all their recent models with some minor tweaking of the contact wipers and the same bundle of wires for the DCC functions that occasionally might need to be gathered some. While I await Mark's review I would love to see a photo of the drawbar.
John, It is the same drawbar they have always done. Nothing new and exciting. It sounds like the loco in question had a rough ride in the UPS truck. We got 10 of them at our shop and so far I have been through 9 of them with no issues what so ever, one was sold before I could check it out. I wouldn't be surprised with an issue but I haven't seen any yet.
That is a fairly tough little drawbar and hard to damage. Sounds more like a factory defect in the casting.
A few pix. On the bottom photo the eingine had run threw a spider web on the back of the layout! I was running backward and the back drivers stopped turning. on close inspection the valve gear was bound up when the screw in the eccentric crank came loose and the drive rods were goofed up. I realigned everything and tightened the screw and it ran ok. I had 100 cars behind it and it did pull them but it was a struggle. If the Athearn articulated steamers rate an A I give this guy a B to B-.
Comparing N scale articulated steamer size. At the bottom the EM-1, nest is an Athearn BigBoy, then a Bachmann H-4, next is a Key C&O 2-6-6-6 Alleghey, and finally an Athearn Challenger.
If the EM-1 is a big seller and was only ran on one road can a 2-6-6-6 which ran on two roads, be far behind? ( Note: I WILL KEEP THIS 2-6-6-6 TALK UP UNTIL SOMEONE MAKES IT IN PLASTIC!)
oldrk, nice pictures, thanks. I have read a couple of guys say the loco is very heavy, with the metal boiler. Have you or has anybody else actually weighed one ? Just curiosity on my part I guess. Carl
