Steam Loco Maintenance

[dwbum]

I have 3 Bachmann steam locos purchased over the past couple of months; an Alco 2-6-0 item 51706, a saddle tank 0-6-0 item 81811, and a connie 2-8-0 item 51310. What is the recommended maintenance for these locos?
Don

[richg]

Keep the wheels and wipers clean. That is all I ever had to do with my Bachmann locos.

Rich

[WoundedBear]

Keep the wheels and wipers clean. That is all I ever had to do with my Bachmann locos.

Rich

Ditto....other than my geared locos, which get a little more attention in certain areas.

Do like Rich says and run 'em  until the wheels wear down to the spokes....then send them back in for repair

Sid

[Doneldon]

Don-

I maintain my locomotives a little more fastidiously than the first two posters. In addition to the wheel and wiper cleaning, I clean off the old grease from the gears, depending on how much I have run a given machine, and relube with plastic-safe grease like LaBelle's. It usually works out to about once every 12-18 months, plus whenever I have a loco open for some other purpose like changing a headlight bulb. I keep records on my rolling stock and locos in order to ensure that everything gets the attention it needs and to identify problems before they get to be big ones. I also watch coupler operation and squirt in a little Grease 'em if they don't center quickly or if they have sticky knuckles.
                                                                                         -- D

Sid-

Do you really run your locos until they fail and then return them to Bachmann for repair or replacement? I'm hoping that was meant as a joke because it doesn't sound like taking care of one's property or an appropriate use of Bachmann's generous warranty practices.
                                    -- D

[rogertra]

Don-

I maintain my locomotives a little more fastidiously than the first two posters. In addition to the wheel and wiper cleaning, I clean off the old grease from the gears, depending on how much I have run a given machine, and relube with plastic-safe grease like LaBelle's. It usually works out to about once every 12-18 months, plus whenever I have a loco open for some other purpose like changing a headlight bulb. I keep records on my rolling stock and locos in order to ensure that everything gets the attention it needs and to identify problems before they get to be big ones. I also watch coupler operation and squirt in a little Grease 'em if they don't center quickly or if they have sticky knuckles.
                                                                                         -- D

Excellent suggestions.  Sounds very similar to my maintenance program.

[jbrock27]

Yea Sid, you're a bad boy!

I keep a maintenance book on my motor vehicle.  My locos.....

[WoundedBear]

Don........

You really need a sense of humor.....see the smiley face after the post? Yes...a joke.

I didn't say I run them til they fail..you said that. I said that if you keep em clean like Rich said, which I do, the things will run forever. Running them til the wheels wear down to the spokes (Which is what I did say) implies a long lasting product. And if it does run long enough to wear out the drivers, Bachmann should be happy to fix it, whether under warranty or on my tab.

And like Rich, I have never had the need to add lube to Bachmann's models. If anything they have been over lubed at the factory. When I ever opened one up, other brands included, all I ever did was redistribute the old lube off the sides and close things back up. BTW....I just got a 3 truck Climax with sound from Micro-Mark not too long ago. The clear plastic formed liner was wet with lube under the cab area from excessive lube out of the factory.

The side rods and valves of most steamers have enough play so as to never really need lubrication, but a drop of WD40 works for those areas.

Like I said, I have Bachmann 2 and 3 truck Climaxes on the layout and Bachmann's 3 truck Shays. I have repaired all of them myself including regear kits from NWSL and new gears from Bachmann. These engines require special attention....which I said I give them. You must have missed that part. But this poster is asking about steamers in general...not geared steam.

As far as coupler lube.....you can save on the overpriced hobby stuff and use regular powdered lock graphite. But again, there is enough play engineered into those couplers and pockets, that lube should never be required.

I have a background in heavy equipment fleet maintenance and I crew chief a drag racing team running mid 9 second cars. Your telling me I don't know how to take care of my property is funny, but wrong. I pride myself on having 20+ year old vehicles as my daily drivers.

If anything on a model train needs lube, it would be the truck pivots on the bolsters....which I lube with graphite. I'm just waiting for some crackpot.....probably going to be a Kalmbach writer......suggest we start lubing the pointed axle ends of our rolling stock. Maybe Labelle will even develop a special overpriced product to do it with.

So to recap, I stand by what I said. Keep your steamers clean and run them. All this scheduled maintenance is really unnecessary in my book. But then again....my book IS NOT Model Railroader.

Soid

[Stephen D. Richards]

Dear Sid,  I guess I'm the crackpot!  I use initially, a very small amount of lube on the axle points when I rebuild the trucks!  I don't even work for Kalmbach!!  What can I say!        Stephen

[Doneldon]

Dear Sid,  I guess I'm the crackpot!  I use initially, a very small amount of lube on the axle points when I rebuild the trucks!  I don't even work for Kalmbach!!  What can I say!        Stephen

Stephen-

Not at all. Everyone has a maintenance plan which s/he thinks is best and the fact is, most all of them work just fine. Things have changed over the years -- better lubes now, mostly plastic gears rather than metal, can motors, better metalurgy to name a few -- but the old adage that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure still applies. So ... go with your plan or whatever plan works for you. And don't let anyone on here, me included, tell you that you are doing it wrong. If your maintenance plan breaks down, share your problem here and we'll help you decide what if any changes you want to make.
                                                                                                                                                            -- D

[Stephen D. Richards]

Don, I obtained the maintenance ideas and procedures from a very informed individual from this site.  His first name was Sheldon, I don't remember his last, but I tried his methods and they have worked wonders for me.  He sent me specs and charts that he worked up!  It has been great infomation.  Because of his work, I set my standard for rolling stock and locmotives pretty high for model work.  For loco standards, a locmotive has to pull twenty five rolling stock up a one percent grade by itself.  I can do that without overloading the motors but that requires that my rolling stock be equally re-done to match.  Sheldon showed me how to rework the trucks and I now do that with every truck no matter the manufacture.  I properly weight them and they run so easily and smooth they almost run themselves!  lol   Of course the little locos don't have the tractive effort for that to apply, but Sheldon's info really has helped me work my little railroad as close as I can get to the real thing.  have fun,  Stephen

[Doneldon]

1. You really need a sense of humor.....see the smiley face after the post? Yes...a joke.

2. I didn't say I run them til they fail..you said that. I said that if you keep em clean like Rich said, which I do, the things will run forever. Running them til the wheels wear down to the spokes (Which is what I did say) implies a long lasting product. And if it does run long enough to wear out the drivers, Bachmann should be happy to fix it, whether under warranty or on my tab.

3. And like Rich, I have never had the need to add lube to Bachmann's models. If anything they have been over lubed at the factory.

4. The side rods and valves of most steamers have enough play so as to never really need lubrication, but a drop of WD40 works for those areas.

5. Like I said, I have Bachmann 2 and 3 truck Climaxes on the layout and Bachmann's 3 truck Shays. I have repaired all of them myself including regear kits from NWSL and new gears from Bachmann. These engines require special attention....which I said I give them. You must have missed that part. But this poster is asking about steamers in general...not geared steam.

6. As far as coupler lube.....you can save on the overpriced hobby stuff and use regular powdered lock graphite. But again, there is enough play engineered into those couplers and pockets, that lube should never be required.

7. I have a background in heavy equipment fleet maintenance and I crew chief a drag racing team running mid 9 second cars. Your telling me I don't know how to take care of my property is funny, but wrong. I pride myself on having 20+ year old vehicles as my daily drivers.

8. If anything on a model train needs lube, it would be the truck pivots on the bolsters....which I lube with graphite. I'm just waiting for some crackpot.....probably going to be a Kalmbach writer......suggest we start lubing the pointed axle ends of our rolling stock. Maybe Labelle will even develop a special overpriced product to do it with.

9. So to recap, I stand by what I said. Keep your steamers clean and run them. All this scheduled maintenance is really unnecessary in my book. But then again....my book IS NOT Model Railroader.

10. Soid

Sid-

1. You suffer from a common ailment -- thinking that what you meant is what you said. You intended your statement to be a joke but there is no way to distinguish that from a statement that you are pretty pleased with yourself for finding a way to abuse Bachmann's policies.

2. On the contrary, you gave the distinct impression that you run them 'til they fail. Everyone knows that running until they're on the spokes isn't literal but a way to say until they're junk. Here, again, you thought you said what you meant but you did not. And, by the way, why should Bachmann be happy to repair anything? Whether a new product or old, repairs cost the company money. Nowhere did you use the word forever or any synonym. Running models until the wheels wear down to the spokes does not suggest durability in the absence of context, context which you did not provide.

3. You'll get no argument from me here. I've certainly taken my share of grease gobs off of new locomotives. It's the worst when the loco has been on a shelf for a few years and congealed. But does that mean ignore the old grease? Of course not unless you don't take care of your things.

4. Just because something wobbles doesn't mean it doesn't need to be lubricated. Indeed, old automobiles which had a good deal of slop in their mechanics needed much more frequent attention to lubrication than current models which are built to very tight specs.

5. You may think that you explained that you repair and regear and provide special attention to your geared locomotives but all you said was the vague "a little more attention in certain areas." Go read your post for yourself.

6. Yes, I use the same graphite in my couplers as I use in my car door locks, and it's not a MR product. But we're talking model trains here so I cited a specific product.

7. Congratulations on your fleet maintenance experience and ability to keep old cars running. I only did that with my 40-year-old 12-cylinder E-Type Jaguar which has now been sold back to someone in the UK because our downsize house also has a downsize garage which lacks a berth for the Jag. But would you please quote the words in my earlier post where I said you don't know how to take care of your property? What I wrote is that I hoped you were joking because it sounds like not taking care of one's property, not that you don't know how. Indeed, IMHO, it's worse to neglect maintenance when you know better than to neglect it due to ignorance.

8. Yes, we're on the same page again, although I don't routinely lubricate truck bolsters except when I have metal on metal.

9. I've noticed on several occasions that you seem to have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to the MR press, especially Kalmbach and Model Railroader. I'm sure there is a reason for that though I can't imagine what it might be. I do have to say that I would trust a long-established publication written by experienced professionals for advice before some anonymous person making imprecise posts on a public bulletin board.

10. Who is "Soid?" That's just sloppy, Sid, sloppy.

If you have some personal issue with me, which I believe to be the case based on some of your previous posts, please contact me privately. I don't care to point out your foibles publically anymore and the other people on this site don't need or want to read it.
                                                                                                 Doneldon

[Doneldon]

Don, I obtained the maintenance ideas and procedures from a very informed individual from this site.  His first name was Sheldon, I don't remember his last, but I tried his methods and they have worked wonders for me.  

Stephen-

Yes, I know who you mean although I can't recall his last name either. But I know he was very systematic about his records and maintenance. It's not an accident that rental fleets, police vehicles and other large scale vehicle groups get good routine service. I'm sure they have monitored the cost benefit aspect of maintenance and found that it pays in the long run.

I learned from another old pro, not Sheldon, to keep careful records of track maintenance, too. Specifically, the system involves making notes about any mishap -- derailments, unwanted uncoupling, etc. -- for both the rolling stock involved and the track point involved. This will reveal a pattern of problems and point to what the problem is. If one box car consistently derails or uncouples, it's the box car which needs attention. If four different cars have derailed at the same location, it's the track, not the rolling stock which is implicated.

So ... I'm with you on systematic maintenance. To me, it's cheap insurance against having frustrating operating sessions or a yard full of unreliable trains.
                                         -- D

[jbrock27]

This Sheldon sounds like a knowledgeable, heck of a nice guy, albeit somewhat obsessive.

[dwbum]

Hi all,
Thank you for your comments and humor.
Does Bachmann have any official recommendations?
Don

[Bob_B]

..... What is the recommended maintenance for these locos?
Don

I found this video helpful.

"Bachmann HO Scale Ready to Run starter set video part 3 - Locomotive break-in, cleaning & maintenance"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtW8Gx_WxL4