I recently purchased a Con-Cor N Scale Galloping Goose. I did some preliminary test track runs on my home layout, including programming with my Digitrax Zephyr,. Today I gave it a test tryout on our club layout and was disappointed with the results. The unit had very poor slow speed response... very jerky, not smooth running. Also, it would stop at various spots, not always the same spot, and not respond without a "tap" or other stimulus. I noticed that the power pickup was on the rear wheels and not always in complete contact with the rails. Have others had similar problems? Do you have to add some more weight to the rear of this assembly to insure good electrical input? Any suggestions would be very welcome as this is a very handsome model! George
I have never ran mine, it's only been out of the box twice, to have this photo taken and when I got it to look it over.
George,mine runs like a watch.It has excellent slow speed running,and is very smooth.I'm so impressed with my Goose and Atlas Shays,I'm building a small RR around them..I'll say this though,my trackwork is VERY clean and well done,and I have powered frogs on my turnouts..I would immagine that on track that is dirty in the least,the story may be different..
If I remember correctly, when I first got it it was a little spotty. but I ran it on a small test track of clean kato unitrack for about 15 minutes. then it has been excellent since. because of it's light weight and small size and limited wheel pick up all sompared to larger diesel & steam it might find dirty track on a club layout where a A-B-A of katos might run fine.
Most of my locos run better on our club's newer modules than on some of the older ones that need some work. I would think that the lightness of this vehicle along with it's less than usual amount of pickup is finding all sorts of track issues that the average SD runs over with no problem. Perhaps this one needs to be tried out on a solid loop of test track. Good luck, Adam
All right... funny you should have brought this up. I just picked up a Goose over the weekend. I had been wanting one since before they came out, and I found one discounted at my LHS with a decoder so I bought it. On my home test track, which is clean, new track running DCC via my Digitrax Zephyr, it works really well. Those tiny little wheels will sometimes get a little lost if I try to stop it and then start it again right on the frog of a Peco Electrofrog turnout, but how often do we really do that operationally speaking? I noticed that it needed quite a bit of throttle to get going, so I put it on the programming track and fiddled with the CV that controls starting voltage (can't remember off the top of my head if it is CV 2 or CV 3). The factory default is 10. Not knowing what would be better for my situation, I first set it to 20, and then put it back on my test track. It needed even MORE throttle to get going, so I put it back on the programming track and set the value to 5. That was a lot better, but I wanted more control of slow speed starting, so I set it to 2, and THAT was what I was looking for. So I took it to my club last night. We have a large collection of NTrak modules ranging in age from a couple years ago to the Dawn of NTrak Time. Most of the track is code 80, and most switches are Peco Insulfrogs. We're DC for the moment but will be DCC in a few more months on the red line. I put it on the red line (the "front main line") and started throttling up. It worked really well UNTIL it got to the back end where we've been doing a bunch of work and putting in drops and such for the DCC recently, and it stopped dead in its tracks. It needed a series of nudges then. I cleaned up the track and it ran fine through the clean section and then BOOM, died on the next section. My conclusion - this is a great little runner as long as your track is clean and well put together. This thing is small and light enough that it will find nearly EVERY track-laying flaw on your layout, as I noticed on some of our transitions between modules. If I want something to glide through all the good and bad trackage I run my Atlas SD9. I don't know about your club layout, but if it's anything like the average club layout it probably needs more track cleaning and more M-O-W work than anyone knows. I know ours does. Good luck! Adam
For those who have a goose I was curious if anyone ever had trouble with that tiny front truck having a tendency to jump at turnouts or on curves? I was only using Atlas sectional track and peco turnouts, not to mention a really cheap little power pack for just the DC version, but it seemed like the lead truck had a lot of trouble tracking.
Mine is also DC. I am very impressed. Low speed control is good. I have no powered frogs and have had no issues with mine.
I think in my case it is largely due to using a really cheap power pack, but that front truck still concerns me.
I have only a little experience with little front trucks, as I'm not a steam guy, but in my experience,the adjustment of those things is very tricky. It must be just right, not too hot, not too cold, but just right. It might need more pressure on the little tiny wheels, but too much is as bad as too little.
I am a steam guy and when I first saw those front trucks, I was sure that they would be a source of headaches. My trackwork is mediocre. Despite that, it is rare that I have problems with that front truck. When this thing first appeared, several posters to the old Atlas Boards had more than few comments about it. Most agreed that it was quite the little gem. The one brickbat that it did get was that while the prototype was narrow gauge, the model is standard. Other than that, it is quite well done. I use MRC 2400, 2800 or 1200. It runs well on any of those. I do have a couple of various B-mann and LL cheap trainset packs, but I do not recall ever trying to run the C-C Gallopping Goose on one.
Well I just dug my original run Galloping Goose out of its box where it has laid since at least 2007 put it on the track and it runs great at a good clip around the unitrack. Definitely ranks as Concor's best offering.
What decoder is in it? Maybe it is an electronics problem, not a hardware one. You can have the best model in the world, but a bad decoder will not control it well. A lot of other people are saying the model runs well on DC, so maybe it is the DCC system and not the model itself. If you only have 28 speed steps on your system, that could be why it looks like it is running badly, but in reality, the motor is only doing what the decoder is telling it. Small models with small or no flywheels do not have a lot of momentum to smooth out their running characteristics, relying entirely on speed steps and back-EMF for speed control. Take a look at your decoder. If you want good low speed control, try upgrading to a modern, high quality decoder or using 128 speed steps.
I forgot to mention that the real diagnoses was one axle of the front pilot truck was binding in it's slot. Flipping the wheelsets around seemed to fix the tracking issue, hence the pictures i was able to get.
