Diesel Engines

[3rail]

CobraBob,

We made them before and had them in the line for several years.  Maybe they will reappear in future catalogs.

Regards,

3rail

[phillyreading]

Another thing left out on some diesel sets is a second powered unit, like an example is the F7 AA set of diesels. Would it be possible to offer a set of two powered A units or a set of powered A & B units?
It looks nice to have two or three engines at the front of a train, but you can't pull many cars when only one engine has power. I had to buy a power upgrade kit to add power to an F-7 set of Santa Fe diesel engines, now I can pull 10 passenger cars with the ABA set of F-7's.

Lee F.

[3rail]

Hi Philly,

That is why we offer the power upgrade kits, so if you want the extra power, you can add it.  Many people don't need 4 motors.  I have a complete Golden Memories Canadian Pacific set F-3 A-B-A and 7 cars.  I run it on my layout on O-31 curves and it has no problems pulling the entire train with a single powered unit.

Regards,
3rail

[jpstrainyard]

JP of Acton MA USA writes,

Quite curious.

I have a powered Williams FP45 diesel featuring 2 motors. Its chassis has all the necessary cut outs and mounting brackets to accomodate its motor trucks. While I currently don't have any Willliams non-powered units, it is to my knowledge that the chassis of Williams non-powered units do not feature the necessary cut outs and mounting brackets to accomodate the motor trucks. This would require that the end user use a dremel (or other rotary cutting) tool and a drill to cut the necessary holes in the non-powered chassis to mount the power upgrade motors, and drill holes for any screws needed to secure the motor trucks to the chassis.  Optionally, the end user would have to aquire a stripped chassis (with no lights, electronics, or motor trucks) for a powered unit through WBB parts dept., install the power upgrade motors, as well as lights and electronics on the chassis, and mount the shell from the non- powered unit on the powered chassis.

[phillyreading]

Hello 3rail,

The question I have for you about your set of 7 cars and only one powered unit, is a this a new set by Williams/Bachmann or is it an older set by Williams?  As I noticed that the new motors run a lot faster than the old Williams motors.

JP of Acton,

I just added a motor set to an unpowered F-7 diesel and what I had to do was remove the truck assemblies and change over the couplers and the plastic steps and bracket plates from the unpower version. I had NO drilling involved to mount the new motors. One of the bracket plates needed to have a hole drilled out just a little but otherwise no drilling or using of a dremel tool.

Lee F.

[phillyreading]

From what I have seen in the Williams diesel engines that I have; four F-7 A units and two F-7 B units, three GP-9's, three SD-45's, the mounting unit fits directly to the frame. Take out the wheelsets with just a phillips head screw underneath and remove one wire on the top side if it has a light, have to remove the top first.
I have re-wired a pair of F-7's to run in one direction only(one forward and one reverse) with the use of a bridge rectifier, as the circuit boards wouldn't act right for me.

Lee F.

[3rail]

Philly,

My F-3s  were from the from the last production run when the company was still owned by Jerry.  We have not made any changes to the motor specs since then.  We changed motor types twice.  I do not know the exact dates, but both changes were prior to 1995.  The changes were made to allow the addition of flywheels to the motors.  Previous model motors were too tall to accept flywheels.

There are manufacturing tolerances of motors that can have speed variances. Especially if one is at the low end of the range and other is at the high end.

Regards,

3rail

[phillyreading]

Hello 3rail,

What you are saying is that basically the trucks and the way a motor mounts to a frame have not changed since Jerry W sold the company, correct?
With my F-7 diesel unit I had to almost give it full throttle from a postwar Lionel ZW transformer for it to pull all 6 Santa Fe "el Capitan" passenger cars and 2 unpowered F-7's around the track. I bought a second set of F-7's and used the 2 powered A units to run the train, looked odd because one A unit was a Santa Fe and the other was a Pennsy. That was before I put another set of motors in the second Santa Fe A unit.

Lee F.

[Cobrabob8]

Just a question for the Bach-mann...
Is there any chance that WBB can, or would, consider manufacturing some ALCO RS3 diesels? Brand L's aren't all that great and they also make no non-powered diesel units to go with their RS3 powered models. MTH RS3s are over featured and over priced for my tastes. A nice set of powered and non-powered RS3 diesels in prototypical roadnames and paint schemes would be great! I like to run my diesels in two or three unit lash ups. Thanks for your time.
Cobrabob.

[r0gruth]

Another thing left out on some diesel sets is a second powered unit, like an example is the F7 AA set of diesels. Would it be possible to offer a set of two powered A units or a set of powered A & B units?
It looks nice to have two or three engines at the front of a train, but you can't pull many cars when only one engine has power. I had to buy a power upgrade kit to add power to an F-7 set of Santa Fe diesel engines, now I can pull 10 passenger cars with the ABA set of F-7's.

Lee F.


I have pulled forty [40] cars with one [1] Williams GP7/9.