bachmann ho 2-8-2 sy

[ken black]

I have a 2-8-2 sy that slips going up a 2% grade with 4 passinger cars.Will adding weight to the loco help and where should weight be added?Ken

[Atlantic Central]

Ken

What kind of passenger cars? How free rolling are they? How much do they weigh?

I do not have any experience with the SY, but since no one else was answering you I thought I might offer some help.

Weight will help, since I have never had this loco apart, I can't offer specifics, but weight should always be centered on the driving wheels or slightly ahead of center.

Many passenger cars have very bad rolling qualities do to pickups for lights or just plain poor design. Improving rolling qualities is often easier than improving pulling ablity.

I have done much study in this area and have nearly doubled what many of my locos will pull by changing trucks and/or wheel sets.

Two percent grades are a resonable standard for a model railroad and I would consider 6-8 passenger cars a reasonable train for that loco on that grade.

Keep in mind the the real SY mike is a fairly light loco by north american standards and would not pull a large train on a grade that steep in real life.

May I ask why you are using this loco for passenger service? Are you trying to model its use here as a tourist line loco?

Hope this helps some, feel free to ask more specific questions about improving rolling qualities if you are interested.

Sheldon

[oldline1]

Ken,

Sheldon is right about the SY being a fairly small Mike by USA standards but it can still perform better than out of the box. It's one of the better buys on the market today. I wish more smaller Mikes were available and less USRA's and Pig Boys!!!!

Weight can be added to several places in the engine which will really help it pull better. Disassembly, contrary to what's been stated in other posts, is not that difficult. There are many tiny and fragile parts but with caution and observation really pose no problems with removing the cab and boiler shell from the mechanism. Follow the included exploded break-down drawing for locations of screws and you'll be OK. Once the boiler shell and cab are removed you can add quite a bit of weight in the cab roof & sides, boiler and between the axles and also on top of the frame by the valve gear hanger and in the cylinders. I used lead bird shot in the cab, cylinder and boiler areas fixed with Elmers glue. Between the axles I cut A-Line weights to fit snugly and fixed them in with epoxy. I removed the double-back tape from the weights.

Use the same care you used during disassembly with gluing the weights between the axles and everything will be fine. To help make everything stick well wipe the frame areas to be epoxied with a Q-tip dipped in alcohol to remove any residual oils. Probably the trickiest part of disaasembly/reassembly is getting the strange drawbar setup all aligned and back in place. Like I said..........just use caution and take your time......watching everything as it goes back.

I love the little Mike and especially the Box-pok drivers.

Enjoy!!
Roger

[Hoople]

You could get one of those(I think caboose hobbies makes them) self-powered trucks and install it in the passenger car. I'm probably going to do that with my daylight. His worst enemy is my 6% grade...

[jschmid]

the coach yard makes powered passenger trucks in dc an dcc.

[ken black]

Thanks for the help. I added weight as Sheldon discribbed worked great.The reason I used roundhouse passsinger cars I just wanted to see how many it would pull.They were 4 oz.each.With weight added the pulling power was x2.These were 50 foot Harriman passenger cars.  The weight was easy to add you just have to careful. Thanks Ken