Yes, the Bachmann 2-8-0 with the new sound decoder as per the new Alco 2-6-0 would do well in the market place.

As others have mentioned it is a great little engine.

Florynow

I ended up with a few of these Alco 2-6-0's and right out of the box a couple ran a bit slugish and the others ran fine.

After running these engines for a couple of hours in forward and reverse in slow and moderate speeds all of the engines now run very well.

There were no loose parts, nothing fell off, there was no binding.

I would assume my batch were not typical to what you bought.

I have seen suitcase connectors that are made for specific wiring, 16 gauge for the main and 20 gauge for the feeders. I used these and they work great. I have yanked hard on the wires and they are not coming out.

Beware though that there are also some suitcase connectors that say the are good for a number of wire gauges. They were marked as 14 to 18 on the main and 20 to 24 for the feeders, I would be wary of these. I found those at my auto supply dealers, the ones I bought are from micro mart.

I will only buy those made for specific wire qauges and not the one size fits most style.

I did run the pads throught a cleaning cycle on the dishwasher and the pads came out like new. They were really full of dirt, it was caked on where the pads meet the track. The pads were not loose when they came out I did forget to take them out before the heat cycle so they went the whole cycle.

I use a small amount of ignition electrical spray on a cloth and rub lightly the top of all the tracks on my layout, it only takes about 10 minutes. I then run a couple of the Bachmann cleaning cars with dry pads for about 5 minutes. A cleaning lasts a couple of months minimum.

Quote from: captain1313 on April 09, 2012, 11:27:54 AM
Ronman

Your not alone.  My new ALCO 4-6-0 is a little short on the pulling power.  My other 4-6-0 and  4-4-0 have twice the pulling power up a 3.7% grade.  It is what it is.  Now the ALCO S4 is another story.  Almost unstoppable.

Kevin

The new Alco 2-6-0 has a plastic boiler, the Bachmann Spectrum 4-6-0 and 4-4-0's have die cast boilers, big diff in weight.

Trainworld has Bachmann HO tenders on sale.

http://www.trainworld.com/HO%20SCALE%20STORE%20SALE%20FLYERS.htm

Check page 1 of their flyers, prices are great

The new Alco 2-6-0 is light on its feet. On my layout it will just pull three 60' passenger coaches on my 2% grade.

If you have 4% grades on your layout I would reconsider this engine and consider a larger heavyier engine for such a high grade. You might consider the Bullfrog Snot for coating some of your drivers, I am advised it works very well for handling grades.

Note that there are no traction tires on this model so I consider its pulling power adequate for what I need it for.

I did add weight to the tender as it was riding too light and I was haveing problems going through switches. Once I added weight to the tender it runs fine now. I did not try to add any weight to the engine itself, maybe later, but I doubt it.

I ran across a similar situation with a couple of Walthers cars some years ago. A combine and a coach had the others interior,

I had a combine with rows of seats across the entire car except for thw washrooms and a coach that only had seats for about half of its length.

It took months before I was aware of the mistake.

I was very lucky that I had each of the others interiors. An easy fix. I would bet that some other owners were not as lucky.

It sounds as though you should check out the Woodland Scenic PreBuilt structures.

http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/category/HOBuilt-N-ReadyStructures

These are great looking structures, all finished, great detail. Would be a minimum amount of work for you

Some time back I bought a 4-4-0 in the Russian Iron paint.

The colours are superb, any chance that the Russian Iron paint could be used on other smaller steamers? I had hoped to pick up a few in the 4-6-0 low driver version but that engine is not in production at the moment. If, and when it is again produced could it be produced in the Russian Iron livery?

Quote from: richg on April 03, 2012, 01:36:38 PM
Sound loco description.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=3898

DCC ready version.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=3892

DCC sound on board. ALMOST PROTOTYPICAL according to one. lol

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/dwg/dwgs/HO_260_DCC_sound_.pdf

DCC Ready. Plug in a sound decoder.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/dwg/dwgs/HO_260_DCC_ready.pdf

Rich

You also need a speaker if you are adding sound

Jim

I guess I couild have asked for only serious HO model railroaders to respond, however, that would have I am sure been a very lively discussion about what constituted a "serious" model railroader.

I wonder if there would possibly be a yard stick measure, only model railroaders  of a certain age? or perhaps only those with a layout larger that 200 sq ft? wonder what other measurements there might be?

Hopefully everyone knows that I am not serious.

Quote from: florynow on March 29, 2012, 10:19:28 PM
This may have been asked before ..... forgive me for being repetitious if so.

The "DCC/sound" systems (with all the sounds that engines make instead of "some"of them) that came in the 2-8-0, 2-10-0 and 4-4-0 .............  will they ever come back?  Or is "sound-value" the way of the future?

Simple question. Just a need to know.

PF

Where do you get your information? The Spectrum steam engines with the Tsunami sound were never mentioned by Bachmann as being phased out and a replacement sound decoder brought in.

All of your discussions to date have been about the Standard (not Spectrum ) Alco 2-6-0. We all know your not happy with that decoder, but why bring in the other Spectrum Tsunami engines.

The only bridges I am familar with are those made by Atlas. 

The Atlas bridges come with ties in place and pre-cut rail sections which slide into the grooves in the ties on the bridges. 

I have used a number of different atlas bridges and it is easy to mix and match bridge sections to any length you would need. Atlas also makes stone piers for their bridges which are very easy to use.

You only has to cut the e-z track roadbed off to join the ez track to the Atlas bridges.

I am somewhat surprised that Bachmann has not made any bridges to match their ez track.

I came across a posting on another site regarding the most popular steam locomotives made.

That made me wonder which of the Bachmann steam locomotives made were the most popular to date in the US.

I realize that Bachmann will not release any numbers to the public as to the number of each locomotive they made, but it would be interested in hearing what the members of this site think as to the overall popularity of the Bachmann HO steamers.

I would think that the original Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 would be the most popular steam locomotive to date due to its excellent detail and reasonable cost.

As to which locomotive would be next in line I would think that the Bachmann 0-6-0 switcher,