Their heaviness is what turned me on to them because when I re-do my layout, there will be grades and I would like a single steam locomotive to pull a 20 car train unassisted. Also it seems there is a vast supply of parts for when something does break. I will def have to contact yardbird (I have been looking at what they offer) but I think the hardest thing for me right now is time, as I'm a full time college student and working full time; essentially a major layout upgrade is waiting and I barely have time to work and hone the modeling side. I wonder how hard it'll be to add a decoder and all wheel pickup...

After seeing and reading jonathon's works of beauty that he has done with the locomotives that he has worked onand included the rest of us in, in kinda leaves you inspired. My hats off to you. I recently acquired a Mantua mikado and pacific at a local train show, and both of them run well too. Ok well the mikado runs smoothly but the pacific needs a little help to start, but both of them are loud. I would like to do a similar job to both as jonathon did with his mikado. I'm hoping to get some tips and advice for this project, and I would like to replace to DC-71 motor with a more modern can motor. What would the replacement be? Thanks for the help.

Its the N&W article that has been my inspiration for this project.  I remember reading that specific article many years ago and I cannot remember the specific details of it for the life of me.  Since my steam locomotives wont be running with a auxillary tender the vast majority of the time Im trying to power the tender.  The hardest actual part is finding the gear boxes that actually fit over a tender truck frame. 

A company made one some years ago but the loco was not powered. The tender did all the work.
[/quote]

That company was Tyco.  It was for their 0-8-0.  I have seen several of them but what about scratchbuilding a modern version of one of them to assist a steam loco.  Its not really that hard once you get the motors installed.  I use DCC some some tinkering with the CV's would get the motors sync'd together.  They would have to be because they would be under the same address.

But while we are on this subject and to fulfill the request, how hard would it be to create a powered tender like he asks?  It would be a great benefit to a smaller steam locomotive to have the tender pulling as well.  So how hard would it be?  From the trucks up?

Well if these engines are the FT chasis with a F7 shell over it, installing/hard wiring a decoder will be pretty easy.  I dont know why Bachmann would say that particular engine is too hard to modify. 

Yep, that is something that is not really new at all, to have a single diecast frame.  By using it also to carry electricity to the motor too is nothing new either. 

Those contact strips are going to be on the bottow of the frame and above the wheels, and they contact the bottom of the frame.

After you have hard-wired a handful of units, it will def make you appreciate that 8 pin plug or DCC equiped units.

Installing a decoder into one of these units isnt really that bad. 

White-headlight
Blue(common)-goes to the other wire n the headlight
Red-Right rail pickup
Black-left rail pickup
Yellow-not used
Orange-goes to the wire mount on top of the motor.
Grey-goes to the wire mount on the bottom of the unit (the one with a pressure pin the is in contact with the frame.

Good way to isolate the motor is by using black tape for this, put a strip down where the contact strip is supposed to be touching the frame and just above the left side of each truck there is another one, and put a black piece on the bottom of the frame (if your worried it wont hold then you can glue it.  Run a new wire down to those contact strips above the trucks and solder them to it (if you cant do that a good squeeze with a set of pliers with the wire looped a few times around it will work just fine too, as I have done both of these with no problems with either method)

When the above is done, just connect the wires as I have stated at the top, test it, and have fun!

O, I see your point.  I do.  There is fun in taking a older locomotive, repowering it, detailing, painting, it and such to fit a our likes and dislikes too.  But now we are beating a dead horse.  The Spectrum 2-8-2 is not based on a American prototype at all though, its Chinese.

Quote from: ABC on February 07, 2010, 09:43:58 PM

Quote from: Nigel on February 07, 2010, 08:04:26 PM
ABC is partially correct - they are not good runners.  They are actually a fairly accurate model of a Reading I10 2-8-0 (and very similar to L&HR's 90 class).

They have the incorrect tenders, if you want go do some research... you'll find that the tender is actually based off of a Southern Pacific design for some of their larger locos like 4-8-2s and 4-10-2s. But, you did note one thing, that they sure did cram in that trailing truck.

Quote from: rockymidlandrr on February 07, 2010, 08:53:34 PM
Hey now, easy what you say about those white box steam locomotives, I have four of them from the 0-6-0 to the 2-6-2.  Now they may have noisy motors, but when you add electrical pickups on the tender, add a decoder, new leadlight, and front coupler, those things will run good.  They add a good mix to the heavy mountain and Berk and a host of others. 

Hey Rocky, let me ask you this...How much does it cost to add all these things? It costs $30 for a good decoder and $20 for a bare bones decoder. So is it around $40 for the upgrade? Do you replace the motors too?
I have always found the Pre-2000's Bachmann standard line locos to be noisy runners, often times either with two speeds stall and 240 scale mph or three speeds stall, 240 scale mph, and a speed somewhere in-between that you can't control that varies even when you didn't touch the rheostat on the control. Why is it that these are the same locos that I always have break on me right off the bat. Now their standard line locos are a lot better runners and more reliable and accurate. And their Spectrum locos were always good.

I will not deny that the tender looks out of place on it as well as the trailing truck.  It is a  interesting "what if" combination though.

Now as for costs, I have been able to keep them down on these little projects (college life), but I'll tell ya.  About $17-20 dollars for a NCE decoder (buying them in 4 packs is cheaper than one at a time), lets say about $5 for the wheelsets, and the rest is time involved.  I keep the origional motor, install the wheelsets, the pickup wipers and wire are salvaged from another project. Yea, they do seem to take off, but once you get some wear on them as I have seen they teld to "loosen" up.  So thats about $25 a engine. 

Hey now, easy what you say about those white box steam locomotives, I have four of them from the 0-6-0 to the 2-6-2.  Now they may have noisy motors, but when you add electrical pickups on the tender, add a decoder, new leadlight, and front coupler, those things will run good.  They add a good mix to the heavy mountain and Berk and a host of others. 

Now as for the Locomotive at hand, yall hit the nail on the head with it.  On my layout, its doesnt have to be totally, rivet counting accurate, I just have to like it.  For the people who see my layout, they still think trains our powered by steam.  But could I do the same trick that I have done with the 0-6-0 generic locomotives to the 2-8-2/2-8-0?

I have been watching and wanting for a good while the older 2-8-2's Mikado that bachmann used to produce, and I seem to notice that when they are put up for sale online that they go fast.  The roadnames I have have seen on them have been UP and B&O.  Does anyone know the specs on these locos, drive mechanism, or a way to find a review of them?  Thanks.

McHenry Couplers makes a coupler specifically for these IHC cars, unfortunately they are a talgo mount.  The biggest downside to them is the phantom uncoupling, where they will randomly uncouple.  But other than that, they are a good match, allso for the swinging of the trucks on tight radius curves.  Hope this helps.

I have one that i can part with.  You can contact me on private messages or my email.