Bruce-

What did you miss?  What did you miss?  Why, only the most interesting, captivating, informative and eloquently written thread I have ever seen on Bachmann or anywhere else.  My condolences.  Your modeling, or even your life, may never be the same.

Doneldon

Even on a very large club layout a train going a scale 125 mph is going to make the circuit in a pretty short time, like a couple of minutes, max, and it might make the other trains look silly.

Also, if this is a long-distance train you might need some sleepers in the consist.

Although the balance issue varies from installation to installation I'm with ABC on this one.  Smoke units cause more problems than are justified.  The do coat your track, they coat everything else, attracting dust, and they don't look like smoke in the first place.  If you want smoke add it in Photoshop!  Plus, the photoshop smoke won't mess up your pike or the walls and ceilings of your train room.  It's a real b***h trying to seal in the oil (smoke fluid is essentially mineral oil) so you can repaint.

D

Jonathon - Yes, there probably is/was a prototype example of anythng you can dream up, even western locos on eastern railroads.  It was not unusual for railroads to sell or lease pwer to one another. D

I use an MRC9500 as a test track and portable test power pack.  Output-wise it is just a normal power pack.  It's the meters which I like it for.  It really helps to diagnose a problem.

The six vold pack won't run HO as HO generally wants 12-16 volts.  However, it would be good for lights or accessories, depending on their power needs.

"ten hundred thousand?"  Isn't that a million?  Oh, I know.  A typo.

Bo-
ABC is right.  It's not that Bachmann has decreased the quality of their Consolidations so they don't live up to Spectrum standards, so much as that the Spectrum standards have improved to the point that some of the older designs (and the Connie is getting a little long in the tooth) aren't up to the improved standards of the newest products.  

If I had to, I would predict that Bachmann will update the Connie and reintroduce it to the Spectrum line some day.  The 2-8-0 was not only one of the most popular (read, "lots of them were sold") locos in real life; Bachmann also sold a gazillion of them and made tons of money doing so.  A follow-on, updated Spectrum Connie would certainly yield another pile of cash, and it would be a lot cheaper in real dollars for them to update what they already have than it was to start from scratch those many years ago when they put out the original Spectrum 2-8-0.  And it would also be cheaper than starting a whole new locomotive which wasn't as big of a seller to the 1:1 railroads as the Connie was, and would probably not generate as much interest (equals sales) in the 1:87 world.
D

ABC-
Please relax, in whatever color floats your boat, er, sends your train down the track.  Did you like my turnout from rhyming to alliteration?
D

The Big Hauler track has a plastic base and very lightweight tubular (sort-of) steel rail.  It is suitable only for indoor use because the plastic is not UV resistent and the steel rail will rust to a grainy brown memory in about four-and three-quarters minutes outside.  D

JerryB- Thanks for the reference.  You saved me the work of looking this up for myself.  I appreciate it.  D

EBT- Here's one for you.  Only in the Navy.  Navy blue is actually black.  My wife and I go 'round and 'round about this every time either of us gets something which is dark blue or black.  But in this case, blue is black.  All I have to do to prove it is drag out my old dress blues, er, blacks, er, oh, what the hell?

Great track plan.  It should be a lot of fun to run.  And your backgrounds!  What can I say?  They are literally luminous!

EBT- The CV plastic stock cars are sure a dim reflection of their Old Timers kits from days gone by.  I was so disappointed when I purchased one.  D

JTF-
Check Walthers.  I just received an email today which says they have an HOn30 loco that looks just about like what you want.  Maybe you can run it on a narrow gauge branchline or rebuild it to standard gauge.

Jonathon- Your rail-joiner-feeder hybrids should be just fine as long as you keep them very short.  You can use double wires if what you have is very tiny but the wires in your pics look okay.  I suggest that you use a consistent color scheme so you don't wind up with a short circuit.  The only problem I have ever found with my homemade rail joiner feeders is that it can be really tough to remove the factory-installed joiners from some kinds of track so I generally have to solder the feeder to those joiners while they are on the track section.