Rivarossi NKP #765 Berkshire

[Quentin]

#1 - Good to be back, finally.

#2 - I got a Rivarossi NKP #765 Berkshire (on ebay, but I know the guy)(long story).
It works, sort of. I need to know, does the loco get power from the tender, or does it have its own pickups?


Also, have Bachmann's prices risen on their HO steamers? Specifically the 4-6-2s, J-classes, Berkshires, 4-4-0s, and 0-6-0s.


Thanks!
Quentin

[Len]

The Rivarossi Berk I have uses both the loco and tender for power pick up. It picks up poweer from the right rail with two drivers and two trailing truck wheels, and the tender picks up from the left rail with four wheels. I had to add a bit of weight to the tender to maintain good electical contact.

Len

[Quentin]

What sort of... ugh whatever, I'll try ballasting the tender and see if that works. My berk runs relatively fine, but it can be spotty. Hopefully that'll help, cuz I've always wanted a Berkshire in my collection and didn't want to go broke buying a Bachmann one.

Thanks!
Quentin

[Len]

Mine runs very smooth since I weighted the tender a bit. And strange as it is, the pickup arrangement lets it get across switches and crossings without stalling, like some other locos I own.

Len

[Quentin]

Interesting. Can you post pictures of the pickups on here? If not, that's fine. I just don't see any on the loco, only the tender. I may be mistaken, though.

[Len]

I would, but my layout has been packed away for a while now. I'm in the process of moving to a new house, where I'm hoping to finally get things out of the boxes. If I remember right, the left side wheels on the loco are insulated from the axles and it uses the frame as the pickup from the right side wheels.

Len

[Quentin]

Ok, thank you. I'll check when I get home. Good luck with your house!

[trainman203]

Clean all the wheels.  And thoroughly clean the little phosphor bronze tender truck wipers.  Remove them and thoroughly rub clean with a pencil eraser or something similar.

The wheels, both locomotive and tender, may be made of some alloy that oxidizes heavily fairly quickly.  Moisten a paper towel, very lightly with some goo gone.  Run the tender back-and-forth on that and onto the dry part of the towel, pushing it from side to side to make sure you get the flanges also.  And marvel at how much black crud comes off on the towel. Then, another piece of lightly moistened towel, put it in front of the locomotive on the track and slowly run the engine up on the towel until all the drivers are on it. Then spin the wheels, pressing lightly from side to side and lightly down on the wheels, but not enough to stall the engine. And again, be amazed at how dirty those wheels were. I wouldn't be surprised that if you do this cleaning, it'll solve your problems.

We are talking about a Rivarossi locomotive, but all of the above applies to Bachmann steam engines as well.  Diesels, don't know.I don't have them, and never will.

[Len]

All good suggestions Trainman, but even with clean wheels the Rivarossi Berk tender needs a bit of added weight to maintain good electrical contact.

Len

[trainman203]

Yes.  I'm not familiar with that locomotive, but many of the Bachmann tenders seem to be a little lightweight as well.

Speaking of the Nickel Plate Berk, I have occasionally thought of getting one and trying to modify it to a Missouri Pacific 1900 class, the ones that were converted to 4–8-4's during World War Two. Five of them survived as built on the International-great northern down in Texas, but according to an account written by an engineman, they were rough riders, and not well liked by the crews. 

[Quentin]

I've heard about them.

I'd like to see some more MoPac locomotives on Bachmann. Everyone else (Athearn, Walthers, etc) are beating them in multiple places, i.e. road name selection, locomotive selection...

I need to stop complaining, heh. or just switch to walthers/athearn.

[Quentin]

UPDATE: My NKP #765 Berk is NOT a NKP #765 Berk. It is supposed to be the #1222 Pere Marquette from '97. They didn't even MAKE a #765 Berk according to their "memories" website. I don't know if I'll repaint it or not.

Probably not.

Anyway, I'm just now sitting down to take it apart and clean it. Just thought I'd throw that out there, since it gave me a good laugh. I found the outline of the original "1222" on the cab sides when cleaning the exterior.

[Quentin]

Update 2. Loco only runs with tender pickups. No pickups anywhere on the loco itself.

[Quentin]

Also, does anyone know if this model has operating steam? I don't think so, but just covering my bases.

[trainman203]

1.  Your Berk is an aftermarket repaint. Hopefully they didn't trash the whole engine with a lousy job.

2. pick ups on the tender only are not so good. The engine might start stalling on unpowered switch frogs and and places where some gnat left a calling card on the rail.

3. Never heard of an HO scale steam engine that actually emitted steam from places like cylinder cocks and pop valves. I have seen videos of it on very large scale engines, but they were very large, almost to where they could've been actual live steam engines.