Scarpia's MINIVerse - Model RailroadingScarpia's MINIVerse - Model Railroading
Motive Power - Steam
I've been picking up some locomotives since January 2008, mostly on eBay. The prices for the Bachmann Spectrum locomotives has been very good on eBay, on average the DCC equipped steam locomotives have been acquired for less than $70 each. While I know that these are a far cry from the brass jewels out there, they are also at a fraction of the cost, and I'm grateful that Bachmann puts out these nice looking models for such a reasonable price. Sure they all need some tweaking, but for the price, that's not a big deal.
I'm planning on using the two Consolidations and the American as the primary motive power on my test layout for DCC. I'm hoping to start converting the two DC diesel locomotives to DCC over the next year.
Steam Power
CN 4202 Notes: Purchased new off of eBay, runs great right out of the box. Too large for my test layout, while it navigates 22 inch radius curves, it's not all that happy about it. DCC |
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CV 469 Notes: Bought new in the 1990's long before I was in the hobby. It runs...ok, needs to be broken in I think. |
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CV 501 Notes: Bought new off of eBay. Like the Other IHC, it runs- ok. |
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CV 700 Notes: Bought used off of eBay, runs great, worn paint, no lights. |
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Un-lettered Notes: I had forgotten about this model, which I purchased off of eBay years ago. I could never test it, and when I finally got a DC power supply, it refused to run. Well I found it again, and discovered it wouldn't run. I took apart the tender, and found it was DCC, with a Digitrax DH121 encoder. It would move 15 inches and stop, and than stopped completely. I put in a decoder from a Bachmann Spectrum Consolidation and still wouldn't run. Finally, after unscrewing the circuit board, I found there was a shoddy wire connection. Loose, as shown, the model runs great. I need to fix the circuit board, and add a Tsunami for sound. |
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Un-lettered Purchased new off of eBay, runs great at all speeds, right out of the box. Bachmann decoder does not like anything higher than 28 speed steps. Had a real problem with the tender, in that the tow bar was too tight, and lifted the front trucks off of the track. The solution was reverse the tow bar, so the biggest hole was tender side, now it works great. Need to replace the couplers with proper KaDees. This is also a strong pulling model, it can handle all of my current rolling stock on the 4% grade on my test layout. |
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Un-lettered Notes: Purchased new off of eBay. This is an identical model to the first, but this one ran poorly out of the box, very herky jerky. It's starting to break in nicely now, but had the same problem with the tender tow bar. Also needs proper couplers. I converted this model in June of 2008 to a Tsunami DCC sound decoder. DCC |
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Un-lettereed Notes: The front truck on this model is a bit flaky, in that it floats almost too much. It also stalls at slow speeds over a couple of switches, I think it's because the tender has pickups on only one side. I need to fix that, as well as install new couplers. It's not the best hill climber, It will only pull 4 cars up the 4% incline on my test layout. |
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The American sits on the siding while a Consolidation pulls a fast freight. |
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climbing west hill. |