OK, I finally received a B-mann 2-8-0 (WM) from 4Nscale, I asked that it be tested prior to shipping to eliminate a lemon. I also bought a new Kato Mikado at the GATS in Detroit in Jan., bought it without testing as there was no N scale test track there (there was for every other scale as far as I could see--hmm). The Kato had the slightest hitch on initial power up, after a couple of minutes, it disappeared, it is now so smooth it brings tears to my eyes--as smooth as my Kato SD80MACs. The B-mann hit the first turnout and fell over. All 4 sets of drivers were tight-really tight, like way out of gauge. I tried to gently separate the wheels with a dull #11 blade (I really don't know how elso to do it) until they matched the NMRA std gauge, but now there is such a jerkiness it looks like the engine is on crutches. So I'm sending it back, and remain to be convinced, despite the beautiful detailing, that this is the "new" Bachmann deserving to be in the top ranks. We'll see how they respond with their warranty. Just my anecdotal observations, not rocket science.
I myself was a little leary about the new Bachmann 2-8-0, but I did hear so much good stuff and they looked so nice( I got a Southern unit). I also heard that there were some lemons around and I wanted to make sure not to get one of those. I bought mine at Trainland and had it tested first. I'm lucky that I work near Trainland and I got a beautiful steamer and for only $75. Compared to my Kato Mike, my Bachmann looks better w/ detail applied(it drives me nuts that I have to add the detail parts on and pay a premium price), runs just as smooth, great slow runner and can pull the paint off a building. I have a 3.5% grade on one side of my layout and the Kato can pull only 2 passenger cars with no hesitation and 3 with slippage. The Bachmann on the other hand can pull 6 cars before it looks like it struggles a little. This is only my observation with the ones I have and from my standpoint, everybody has got some catching up to do with Bachmann(I can't believe I just wrote that).
Here's my two cents worth on this subject, and my apologies if it develops into a manuscript. I recently purchased three Bachmann 2-8-0 Consolodations and three Kato Mikados. The three Mikados ran like the steamers we all dream about having on our layouts. I ran them through my switchyard spaced three inches apart and they navigated their way through numerous turnouts and one double crossover FLAWLESSLY, without losing or gaining on each other. One of the three Bachmann's had a problem similar to that mentioned in the letter I'm responding to. The other two ran perfectly, just like my Mikados. The problem with the third one was in the motor and it had a really tight motor shaft bushing. not the fault off Bachmann really, but quality control from the factory that is building them for Bachmann. That motor never should have been installed in any engine. Bachmann can't track test run every engine they sell, that's why they have a replacement warranty. Mine was replaced tootsweet by the shop I bought it from and it ran perfectly like the other two. I ran the three 2-8-0's spaced three inches apart and they navigated their way through the same switches and the double crossover with no problem, just like the Mikados. I'll buy more of these little gems. I must cnfess however that I am using Kato Unitrack in my layout switchyard and that track has eliminated a lot of problems that I have encountered with other track systems and their switches. For those complaining about pulling power on the Mikados compared to the Consolodation, remember that the 2-8-0 comes with traction tires installed. The Mikado with traction tires installed, will out pull any N scale steamer made by any other manufacturer and a lot of HO steamers as well. One of my Mikado's won a traction pull contest and out pulled an N scale DD40-X by 300 grams. Personally, I think Bachmann has done a wonderfull job on this beautiful little engine and I hope that the other manufacturers that are in the process of building new steamers, can do as good a job for a similar price.
Not to rain on anyone's parade but I will provide a copy of an email I received with all its criticism. I don't know if the observations are valid or not. I am hoping their is some techy person lurking somewhere here who can add his two cents worth. Now remember, don't shoot the messenger!!!! LOL (I love the Consolidation as well) Bachman Spectrum 2-8-0 Consolidation By Donald Papesh Jr. A little background: I’m an N trak club member and taken allot of pride in fixing up old n scale steamers and running them 8 hours straight for shows. I have yet to cast my own loco’s, but may start to consider this after this loco. The point of this is simple: I’m hoping to either save people from a waste of money on this or give the manufacturer a clue about n scale steamers. - Btw keep in mind n scale steam died out in the first place because of low quality engines being released and making people a lot more cautious about buying these. · Design flaws: 1. Non-keyed axles. This engine relies on the wheels staying tight on a slippery surfaced axle that the wheels and internal gears tend to slip on. With normal running of 8-10 cars in more than a half hour the engine wheels tend to slip out of sync causing the side rods to bind. 2. Fulcrum: Most people who understand the principle of a fulcrum and lever tend to understand that the longer the lever the less pressure it takes to increase pressure against the object to be moved. Bachman did a silly thing with the powered drive on this engine the driving wheels are arranged as follows from the front. 1st axle: powered only by the drive rods, this means the linkages aren’t for decorative purposes but the front drive wheels rely heavily on these rods to turn, also this is the force lightly pressing against the lever. In itself that wouldn’t be bad but the 2nd axle condition make a significant problem with this. 2nd axle: this wheel is powered strictly by gearing and does not help with the running of the linkages (a good engineer would have made this part of the rods I looked at it for five minutes and realized this. Because the 1st axle relies on the rods, not having this as a fulcrum point hurts this locomotive a lot. 3rd axle: unfortunately the engineers at Bachman thought it would be a good idea to not only have the traction tire mounted here not to mention to drive the extra decorative side rods off of this, but then they went even farther and made this the fulcrum point for the front rods, ok if they had put linkages on the second or gears on the last wheel this wouldn’t be as bad but this tends to now become the main work wheel, I’d say more like 90% of the force delivered to the wheels through the gears gets put here (remember it has a traction tire that the second wheel doesn’t. This also means this wheel tends to slip on the axle faster than the others cause it to extremely slip eventually causing the plastic part of the wheel to bend, the bending happens after the slipping not before like non steam fixers would think. 4th axle The last wheel set is one I looked at harder than the others, for some strange reason one half of the frame seems to be grooved as if they had originally intended to put a gear on this axle to help the workload. Unfortunately they didn’t gear this so the 3rd wheel has to transfer even more power from the gears to the rods. After some run time I can watch the rods actually buckling from the pressure. I should make this clear I’m a computer / network engineer not a mechanical engineer and this was obvious in 5 minutes flat. 3. Decorative front guide wheel. Making this out of a heavier material really would have been a good idea, much less quality control that made sure holes were drilled straight would really have been nice. Also the screw hidden by this should have had a flat head allowing more weight to be added, anything could have been an improvement. 4. Side rods: too thin for the work load these could have either been thicker, been grooved/ bent u “-_- “ shaped to help with force while keeping light or been made of a better quality material. 5. Wheels in gauge. Hey n scale gauges only cost $3 maybe you could buy these for the assembly lines? I have yet to find two wheels on any engine in gauge out of the box much less after a couple hours of running. Like I said $3 for the standards gauge, unfortunately us Americans are willing to pay premium prices for an inferior product without quality control made in china. Then we wonder why we’re losing jobs in this country. I typically buy 2-3 of any type of steamer made but will not be purchasing a second of these. · Improvements made Ok I think that pretty well covers the problems to be fixed. I’ll be nice and state the major improvement Bachman made with this over their other steamers. 1. Looks: like a g gauge spectrum quality engine this is a huge part in their selling unfortunately the drivers are Trojan horses dressed up. If I could buy the shell cheap and mount it on something else I might. 2. Motor: this is a huge improvement over anything I’ve seen come out of Bachman. Motor has great torque with low speed. 3. Tender pickups and power transfer to motor. This is a huge improvement; it looks like a Kato MicroAce or Tomix design. All wheels pickup power without huge drag on the axles very good improvement, maybe they’ll sell the tenders cheap for replacements for my old steam projects, I’m wonder how a 0-8-0 atlas with an A-line motor, Bachman spectrum tender and body shell would do. Unfortunately that’s it for improvements they’ve made. Lets move on to fixes you can make to give yourself more hours of enjoyment before parking it permanently by a roundhouse. · Bad option Loosen the lower plate maybe it will run longer? I’ve seen this on the web and in magazines already, those that came up with this should go back to the diesel world this is a very bad idea and will cause gears to strip. · Gee my car runs a little better with sawdust in it maybe that means it will last forever??? 1. Option1 low cost Keeping wheels in quarter: Pull the wheels out don’t force them or grab hard by them - they will twist. Ok very carefully pull the wheels off the axles, make sure you know what went where. Key the axles: Use a file or fine screw driver to make 3 key marks equally separated on the o shaped axle so it’s no longer 100% round. Get this ca glue and lightly with a tiny applicator put a drop of glue inside the wheel hole from the front (make sure you get none on the outside or near those brass bearings.) ok make sure the wheels are put back on in quarter 90 degrees from each other exactly (a small jig reusable for other steam types can be made. To ensure this is perfect. Ok press the wheels on (use a small press while checking to make sure the wheel axle doesn’t push outside the wheel on either side a gauge should be used to make these perfect. I also advise doing a scratch in advance to glue the powered gear on the axle and putting a drop of ca for this also. The gear should be pushed to be flush against the bearing (not tight use a toothpick to make sure the bearing turns freely) Ok after this is repeated all wheels/axles should be reinstalled before rod reassembly Before reassembly of the rods get some tiny washers to ensure little lateral slob is done on the main drive rod. If you’re willing to do this maybe you’ ll take the time to fix the problem too and drill a small hole in the main drive rod and link the 2nd driver (if you can’t make a pin use the one from either the front wheel or rear (if you go this route you may want to swap the wheels themselves to have the wheels “predrilled”) 2. Option 2: expensive route. Kato mike wheels, the gearing is close enough so is the wheel size and bearing size. Keep in mind unless you drill the 3rd wheel (Kato traction tire drive wheel) this isn’t going to work. I won’t go far into detail on this since anyone willing to dump the extra $40 on an engine that the overpaid for can figure this out themselves. Another reason it would have been nice for Kato to include the traction wheel as a part of the wheel sets for the Mike. 3. Option 3 keep returning this to Bachman Hey they are warranted for lifetime and if you run it stock you’ll be using this a lot. I hope this sheds some light on the engine, I’m hoping either model power or lifelike does better or we can just stick with Concor Roundhouse and Kato as the only n scale steam engine sources. (I ’d list brass but have yet to see a brass compete with any of the others late model equipment.)
Please see attached note from Challenger Hobbies concerning the 2-8-0 Challenger hobbies We should be diplomatic and constructive when criticising what arguably is Bachman's best ever effort in N scale, especially if we expect to see any more steam out of them [ 28 March 2002, 02:12: Message edited by: ajb ]
It seems the N scale loco is plauged by the same problem it's HO counterpart had: Poor quality control. Some run like champs, others don't run at all.
'Tis true of far too many goods and services at this dawn of the third millenium. The new mottos of business are in danger of becoming"Anything worth doing is worth doing twice!" and "If at first you don't succeed, ship it anyway." Take care, Randy
I've been far more impressed with my Spectrum Consolidation than by my Kato Mikado. The Mike has a tad bit of a start-stop-start-stop motion. Not a whole lot, but it's only noticeable at a creeping speed. Plus the Spectrum model just plain looks better.
I'm with Ridgerunner. My Bachmann 2-8-0 looks and acts better than my Kato Mikado which, hithertofore, I considered the best steam ever in N scale. I also agree, if we want more, we should make sure Bachmann knows we appreciate their latest effort!
