Yes, I hear it's being developed by Amtrak to eradicate the Californian's "National Moon Amtrak Day" sometime in July. I forget the exact date.

About 18'' radius is the sharpest you'll want  to go, of course the larger the curve the better it looks and runs, but 15" is, IMHO, too sharp

Amen! Haven't heard of this before, but DCC systems have some unfortunate glitches.

BTw, there have been several runs of this set. Most were made from the 90's to the present.

Does it come with EZ track? What's the date on the manual?

Make sure your rail joiners are connected properly. Also make sure your cars are in gauge and roll freely. If this still persists, don't sweat it. As long as the cars don't derail, it's fine - even prototype freight cars do this.

Picky picky picky... I guess you're right then...

Generally smoking, any kind of model smoke is bad smoke.
However, Rapido recently released a 'Oh So Steamy' steam generator car in HO scale that produces smoke. They claim that their smoke actually helps clean the track, so if this turns out to be the case with no bad side effects I'd reccomend it to anyone.

Interesting methods, Jim.
If you do choose to  round them, vacuum up all the metal shavings so they don't get stuck in the mechanism and harm your locomotives.

Quote from: Neo Fender on December 01, 2008, 01:42:06 PM
Thanks for your reply.  I'm sure they all move as well.  My "motion" requirement was in regard to something that moves on one or more of the cars, a feature that Lionel gets into a little and (I assume) Bachmann does not.  Smoke? Understood.  I know there are opposing camps on the subject.  My Bachmann G scale never has smoked well but my kid sees the engines on train set videos smoking like crazy and he loves it. 

None of Bachmann's freight cars have motion as you described, but they do offer a handcar with two people pumping up and down on a bar . It's called a "Gandy Dancer" . However, you can't use it with DCC. If your E-Z Command DCC has a functioning DC outlet on address 10 as most do, you should be able to run it. I don't have E-Z Command ( DC for myself), so I don't know the specifics.

Amtrak's Oklahoma City - Fort Worth train the "Heartland Flyer" has an F40PH converted cab and baggage car. Railfans have nicknamed locos of this type "cabbages".

If no one has mentioned it, Walthers sells a track eraser called a "Brite Boy" that is a good cleaner, especially for tough jobs like your 10-years-in the attic track. DO NOT USE SANDPAPER, STEEL WOOL, ETC. TO CLEAN YOUR TRACK.

I believe the sound was factory-installed. Some of the old Bachmann 2-10-4's, and probably the 4-8-4's too, advertised a "Chuff Chuff" sound feature.

Okay, on the subject of Amtrak being on time, here the Texas Eagle is on time fairly often. BNSF seems to be better at it than UP, but they're getting better...

Cool, do you have pix?