Should have spoken in propper english..
bloody turnhouse 

Confucius said
" one must have a video camera if bragging about roundtables working "

let's not flame the bach-mann. I think we all know some locomotives have specific requirements in addition to general lubrication practices.

I will give it a shot. 10 hours is a good step to at least look what the wheel surface looks like. I personally wait til I hear a squeal and immediately stop the locomotive and minister the cure, very light oil and sparingly applied to the axles. Usually it is the front trucks that dry out first requiring oil first and really use oil sparingly for it " leaks " onto the tracks very easily. I use my CEO Singer sewing machine oil. The local hobby store has bottles of light oil with long small tubes that would make application of oil a far more elegant matter.

there have been so many business acquisitions and mergers, it is hard to keep up who made what. In response to the original question, i think it will be ok to run it on an 18 r track but run it slowly around the bend, lest the beast tips over.

No company in existence today can duplicate in a lab what an american consumer will do to a product they design.

I have seen ( and bought ) stuff at the local hobby store that looks like glue and it is a sticky substance that dries clear, made to simulate window panes. Ypou apply it with toothpicks. I used it to make window panes in models of passenger airplanes that have many windows..

I found this, and it is so cool
http://home.new.rr.com/trumpetb/loco/rodsr.html

If I may pipe in here, I had similar problems with my 4-8-2 HVY MTN and discovered my track wasn't perfect, the rail joints were not smooth and some  rail joiners were loose, and a few were actually pushed under the adjoining track. After reapairing all the joints and sanding smooth the offending rail tops, the locomotive runs fine without bucking itself off the electrical contact.. Just another day

it is as you ask. plug in replacement. however, removing the tender shell is a challenge for bachmann seems to use tight dimensional tolerances and it is easy to break the plastic tabs. I used an MRC 1639 decoder ( with the smaller speaker ) Just note before hand where the number 1 pin is located  for if you install it in reverse, the loco will only run in reverse and nothing else will work. The 2-10-2 looks good on the track ( I do not know how it performs on 18 R track. Are you going to use the originasl decoder elsewhere or throw it away ?

I GOOGLED it and found it fascinating. If i ever go to Penny again,  I will make sure to buy a ticket. I wish i had known about this in 1965 when we drove thru the state in 1965 looking for touristy stuff.

Change your subject line to something like " Mr Bachmann, I need help " or something similar.

Smoke generator are simply a low resistance short. it doesn't care if the current is DC or AC or DCC. breadboard the smoke unit directly from the output leads of the DCC power source, mine measures 15.8 volts. Breadboarding allows you to experiment with resistor values to cut the voltage prior to installation. Those things get hot so a metal bodied boiler is a must. Essentially you are throwing oil on a hot exhaust pipe. You might want to consider examining the MARKLIN 7226 smoke generator.
oh yeah, to complete the thought, run the leads from the red/black wires feeding the decoder. ( bypass the decoder )

and that is where boys imagination kicks in. Big time. I put a pellet in the smoke stack of my lionel and suddenly nothing mattered. I was never a purist when it came to model railroads.

Bachmann is an international company, that probably has to adhere to the standards of each country ( or lack of ). I can imagine the nightmare of standarising wiring with so many distributors all over the globe and Ebay to boot, all crossing political boundaries. You have to have pretty good eyes to solder nine wires to circuit boards in the correct order, specially if the wires are all black. I  have a MANTUA loco that I need  to " rewire " and the way it looks, the beast will remain in the box.. I guess with a lot of patience and a decent ohmmeter, with my favorite music, i can rewire the beast.  Long gone are the days when you could only get one steam engine, as long as it is black     Oh yeah, the directive at work has always been, anything you put in an email can and will be used against you.