Does anyone have the recent? Bachmann 44 ton switch engine, WITH DCC. I'm looking at maybe getting the Rio Grande unit this weekend. But, have a few questions first. 1. What kind of decoder does the unit have? 2. How well does the unit run over all? 3. Headlight color? Not of major importance, but curious is all. As always, information appreciated. Thanks.
I can answer one of these questions: I got the very festively painted red undecorated unit, because it was on sale at Walthers that day. It runs very nice and looked good rolling up and down the track, but I realized as soon as I applied track power that it has white LED lighting in it. That's just too new wave and high tech for me, because real locomotives never had LED lights in them, and I am not the biggest fun of the cool white brilliance of most LED headlights. Train headlights are supposed to be a warm, glowing golden yellow which makes the white LEDs just seem so unrealistic to me. They're just too cool for me, ha-ha,
I got the yellow/black unit a while back: [That's on the xmas tree layout that's DC with code 80 track] It's got a dual dc/dcc decoder in it, and runs very well on both. I haven't messed with the cvs yet, and it's still great smooth slow speed creep. It's got a dummy coupler that will need to get replaced. The light I can live with: it comes with two different style hoods: short and extended. I put the extended on the "front" and the short on the rear just for kicks. Here's two videos: DC Xmas tree layout (c80 track) DCC current layout (c55 track) I think it's a great little engine. Can pull about 6-7 cars on flat, 9" radius curves (starts to slip a little). At $60-$70 bucks, you can't beat it, AND you can use the chassis for scratchbuilds. Win-Win!
The DCC decoder seems to be Bachmann's own in house decoder. It does not offer much in the way of advanced programming, but for the basics you can do with it I experienced no trouble. Running quality is excellent, especially given it's size. About the only way running quality could be better is if it could do that 1"/hour crawl that some of Atlas's larger new locomotives can do. Speed is pretty realistic. Not "silent" like some Atlas or Kato, but even at full speed it isn't that loud. A big difference is that that noise range is much more even - it doesn't go from silent at a crawl to buzzsaw at full speed like some Katos. The headlight is yellow/white (actually I'd have to recheck to be sure, I'm not a big complainer on that). The lights are directional and are simple on/off like most decoders with LEDs. As mentioned the only part to install is the headlight hood. There is a little tab to ensure you install it at the right angle. The choices are a big hood and a little one. I wasn't going to use the big one, but tried it out and found that it seemed to leak a bit around the edge (maybe after being glued in it would better). The hand rails are nice and thin - I'm not sure how close they are to prototype, but they look as good or better then some Kato, Atlas and Athearn I have sitting beside it. They are made of a flexible material that bends like rubber instead of snapping off like plastic. Two extras: The newer runs (which I have) have Bachmann's new functional coupler, not the dummy coupler. It's basically a copy of the McHenry and works well enough. I think that only the generic colored versions were run with the dummy coupler, though I'd still check with your dealer to make sure your Rio Grande has the new one (unless you are replacing the coupler anyway). One question I had that I couldn't answer perfectly until I had it was if you could have a see through cab. The short answer is you can't. There is glass in the windows, and the black plastic block is removable, however when you take off the shell you'll instantly see that the black block is used to hide some kind of capacitor that sits higher then the rest of the DCC board. Overall I'd say that this is probably the best bang for my buck that I've ever bought. I think Bachmann can get a lot of business with this kind of 90% accurate model for half the price direction.
I'm very pleased with mine (especially after I re-painted into Milwaukee Road). Slow speed is great and it runs over most turnouts without stalling. Pretty good considering its short wheelbase. Mine has the bluish tint light; one cool thing that no one has mentioned is that besides turning the light on and off, you can dim it with function 1 (if I recall correctly). The decoder is Bachmann's own design and as stated previously, it is limited in what you can do with it. I replaced the dummy couplers with Z scale ones; they look great. Overall a great locomotive for the price. Nate
I purchased mine with DCC pre-installed. I was unable to get adequate slow speed performance in DCC and had no ability to re-program speeds. Messing with things made it worse and the unit began to exhibit poor performance and intermittent running in both directions at various speeds and lost slow speed response all together. I had the DCC decoder replaced with a Digitrax unit and rewired. Now it crawls along beautifully and performs very reliably. Love the loco and I will use it until someone comes out with a working Trackmobile (which is what my prototype used in place of the 44T). I won't be buying units with stock Bachman decoders again. md
I love mine. It is one of the only loco's I own that the model will move more cars than the real thing. It is a little switcher and as long as it will crawl, I am happy. I'm not sure about the complaints about the stock decoder as far as I am concerned, it is just fine. They come with CV2 set to 3 if I remember correctly. If you reset CV2 = 0 it will move imperceptably slow. I don't need speed tables or other fancy features for a loco that is going to be working alone, pushing a couple cars around a siding. I have seen one with a bad decoder though, it wouldn't start till you upped the throttle pretty far, then it would jump to life. You could then slow it down and run it at a crawl if you wanted. I did a little digging and found a cold solder joint on one of those big capacitors in the cab. Repairing the solder joint fixed the problem. BTW - They are only offered with dual mode DC/DCC decoder installed. On DC the decoder is almost transparent, especially after setting Vmin to zero.
Mine runs fine with the stock decoder also. I did add a little tungsten for additional weight to improve pickup and pulling power, see pics below. It now weighs in at 1.5oz./ 43 grams. Of course I won't be truly happy with it until I figure out how to put sound in it... Overall an amazing little model for amazingly little investment, IMHO. Regards, Otto
I like my 44t, but especially so after replacing the stock decoder with a TCS MZA4. Someday I want to repaint to SOU.
My Rio Grande unit arrived in the mail today! For its size, I was surprised at the weight of the thing. Haven't eyt tried it out. Gotta get temporary layout clean, so I can do some test running! Maybe a bit of of weathering after its been broken in a bit. Now, to locate photo(s) of it in my collection of books.
I think you'll be pleased with it. This is a wonderful little loco right out of the box but with a few mods can be even better. I replaced the stock decoder with a TCS Z2 and installed micro surface mount LEDs in the shell so the front and rear light can be controlled independantly and also dimmed via F4. The TCS MZA4 is a good choice as it already has LEDs installed and the lighting has all the same functions as the Z2. IMHO the TCS decoders have smoother motor control but your mileage may vary. Swapping out the stock decoder also allows you to remove the black plastic light block that hides the large orange capacitor and makes the cab see through and allows room for an engineer if you're so inclined. I also painted mine for Milwaukee Road (can't let Nate have all the fun now can we?) and installed Z scale MTs, cab shades, a bell and BLMA trainline hoses. I ran my 44 yesterday at a local club layout open house for about 3 hours pulling 7 or 8 two bays and a caboose with zero issues up and over 2% grades. Hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine. Jim
Mine just ran around in circles for a couple of hours! With DCC at a medium speed. While I dozed off watching the TV! Virtually no noticeable heat. And just a slight oily deposit under fuel tank and trucks to clean. Will look into DCC board change. Gonna definitely look into adding a few specific details though. Need to locate some photos first. Over all, quite pleased. Which for me, is a big surprise!
I have yet to see any need to change the decoder. It will crawl with the best of them once you set vmin = 0 and I really don't need to worry about speed matching for switcher so why bother? If you were going to a Digitrax with transponding for loco detection I could understand but other than that there really is no point.
I was just looking at my 44 tonner again today, and then checking through the prototype reference books, and I realized that what I actually need is a 65 tonner . Now I'm curious how hard it would be to pretend the Bachmann unit is a just a few tons heavier than it actually is! Actually, from browsing pictures, the external appearance of both types of locos were sometimes quite close, although both models did come in several variations.
"Actually, from browsing pictures, the external appearance of both types of locos were sometimes quite close, although both models did come in several variations." This was true of a lot of GE tonner switchers. typically with the earlier models differing from the later ones. A lot of 65Ts looked like the 44T with end platforms, which makes me wonder about kitbashing one from bodyshells of the 44T and 70T. One thing that will have to be watched is that the 65T's frame is thinner than the later 80T switcher (built mostly for the military and later acquired by a number of shortlines and industrial operations). here is a couple of great pages at North East Rails for 65Ts and 80Ts... http://www.northeast.railfan.net/diesel130.html http://www.northeast.railfan.net/diesel91.htmlo
My favorite little railroad, the Arcade & Attica, in Western New York has both the 44t and 65t locos on it's roster. Unless you're a die hard rivet counter one would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two. I have the drawings from the Oct 1978 MR article about the A&A of a 44t and the Carstens "Diesel One" book with a rough drawing of the 65t and the major differences are that the 65t is about 2ft longer overall and in wheelbase and the main deck is about 2in thicker. As with the 44t there are cosmetic differences among the units built in different years.
Well that sounds encouraging. I guess I could pretty much claim it's anything I want it be. I'm just scratching my head wondering where you would add 2 scale feet onto this little loco.
Just an update to this: I've just come back with a favorable report. I let the 44 tonner run for about half-an-hour or more on the club layout today, without incident, and it ran smoothly and quietly. I did only run it in one direction, but it doesn't seem to have displayed any unusual traits.
Seems like I am always just posting after myself recently, but I have been doing some more thinking about my GE 44 tonner. (Dangerous I know .) Anyway, I thought that I had heard some reports on one of these forums somewhere, that this engine is very hard to disassemble, especially the handrails. As I have been doing much thinking about the eventual repaint I plan to give to mine, I was wondering if anyone has found any surefire methods for disassembling it safely.
I've got both the 44 & 70 tonners. I replaced the stock Bachmann decoder with DZ123M0 decoders. The stock decoder is 28 speed steps and the DZ123M0 is 128 which gives it smoother control. The DZ123M0 was an easy fit. I simply unsoldered the stock decoder, double sided foam taped the other in, and solder the power pickups and motor leads. The DZ123M0 has SMT LEDs already and work perfectly. Rich
