N Scale has reached a new pinnacle with the arrival of this set. Fox has proven to us what we can expect from them with any future releases, lets hope for the same from other manufacturers. We should be able to say " They got it just right" with any of the N scale items we consider adding to our fleet. Again, MATT, you hit this one out of the park man, amazing ! fatalxsunrider43
If this is a module you are using to photgraph the set, can you post some pics of the module looking down from above, it is magnificent. fatalxsunrider43
Unfortunately I don't have any recent overall shots from above. I have this one that was shot looking across two of the modules:
Here are a few photos of my second Atlantic. I've used decals from Streamstyle Graphics to put the second paint job on this one. Re-numbered it to #2, changed the number and class to Gold lettering, and added the running indian to the tender. They stayed this way from about 1937 until the arrival of the ribside cars in 1938 when they had a maroon half circle added to the end of the tender and a small portion of the lower maroon striping removed. Enjoy. Nate
no mone else noticed... shhh... still looks great. If they do notice, tell em this is how they look on the return journey. Then move on in the conv.
Thanks Marty. I already ordered another set of decals to fix it. The decal film is quite thin and I think I can just lay a new one on top of the one I have down. As long as the original one doesn't show through, it will be good. The dulcote should hide it quite well. If I try to scrape it off, I'm sure I'll ruin the paint. We'll see what happens I guess. If it's not one thing, it's another. Funny, I thought for sure that I had checked that. Must be getting senile in my old age of 35 Nate
OK. I have a concern with the trucks on the cars for this set. The rear bogies don't spin well on every car. The front bogie (based on the parlor car) is the one that has the bar across the back of the truck. These wheels spin freely. The rear bogie spins very poorly. I checked it by hand and there is even a differennce rolling it off my re-railer. Arguably the best wheels on the market, so they are not the issue. The truck differ in design. so it is conceivable they grip the wheels differently. Does anyone else see this? Does anyone think the drag will place extra stress on the engine? There isn't a lot of drive on this baby, it's basically an 0-4-0, for drive purposes.
I guess I'd have to look closer and check the trucks on each car, but when I put the 8 car train (6+2 extra coaches) on the track, before backing the loco up to them, I used my finger to see how well they rolled as a train of cars, felt very free and light to me.
Mine all seem to run freely, if any wheels are a bit tight you could try just gently bending the side frames out a bit. It sounds like that could be the problem as the ends of the trucks with the generator holding the sideframes at the correct distance seem to be ok.
When I first received my set, I had a terrible time getting the cars to run and stay on the track. i was ready to send the whole thing back. Then I took a close look at the trucks of the 2 cars that were giving me trouble. I could see that the wheels on these cars had sprung out of the little depressions on the truck side frames. The wheels could still turn, but very poorly and they were definitely out of kilter. I carefully sprung them back where they belong and the train rolled perfectly after that. I have since noticed that it takes very little pressure on these cars to spring the wheels out of their rolling points and once they do, the car won't work. I have had to sping the wheels back in place a couple of times. I have also been adding lighting to the cars using the Easy-Peasy sets. First off, you need to trim the tops of the interior partitions down about 3/32 for the light strip to have enough room. Then you need to shorten 2 of the strips by about 5/8 to get them to fit in the observation and baggage cars. The rest of the cars seem to be long enough. Gerry
I ran into a similar issue on the observation car which is the first car out of the box. I was unable to get it to roll smoothly or even use the Kato re-railler. Hmm. Ok, test the 2nd car. That worked great, (as did all of the other cars). Close my eyes and explore the wheels on the observation car. Yes, Ok, out of place. It was frustrating and I almost quit but my ego kicked in and told me I could do it. Finesse, not force works for me. I love my set and can't wait to see it rolling over the expanded Grey and Grandure.
Yes working the trucks has improved the situation immensly. Reinstalling the wheels was all that I had to do on the generator equipped trucks. The other trucks required more than just wheel installation. If this is the only run. FVM needn't be concerned. If there are future runs, good trucks are a good thing
I don't know what the fuss is over wheels not sitting in the trucks correctly, you get that occasionally from any manufacturer even, wash my mouth out with soap, MTL. I haven't seen anyone reporting problems yet with their Hiawatha that were bad enough to pack it up and return it or swear they will never buy from FVM again.
I have the wheels needing to be popped back into the trucks problem from time to time with several manufacturers, including MTL, Athearn, Atlas, BLMA, and FVM so far - possibly a few more. It's never been that big of a deal to pop the trucks back in except on one boxcar from Athearn where the actual truck was warped. In that case I swapped trucks. I would have taken it back perhaps to trade but I didn't notice the problem until I had owned it for three or four months and had already disposed of the receipt.
"The fuss" was just mentioning it in case others needed encouragement to fix it themselves, well, at least in my case anyway. Ya, I doubt anyone would consider this bad enough to return the product.
Look at those details! My set has arrived - hooray! We couldn't wait and assembled the train on the table.... What incredible elegance! The whole train will look good on the layout and it's length is impressive When you look at the head and tail ends side by side it's quite clear that the whole train is a work of art... More photos are in the album: FVM Hiawatha - RailImages.com Enjoy, too! Michael
