1. No
2. No - Not a joiner - I like to do my own thing
3. None - not a member
4. No - live out in the country. Nearest hobby shop is 95 miles away.
5. Yes - did a day trip to the 2021 National Narrow Gauge convention just to buy stuff

Jfc, if your locomotive is a steam engine, you may have a model known as a 4-4-0, that is 4 leading (pilot) wheels that are somewhat smaller, 4 driving wheels (drivers) that are larger and 0 trailing wheels, which, when present, are also smaller. The pilot wheel are not driven and therefore turn freely. The drivers are connected to the motor via gears and therefore do not turn freely.

If your locomotive is diesel engine, it is possible that only one of the two four-wheel trucks is powered (meaning its connected to the motor via gears) and will only turn when the motor is running. The other truck is non-powered, meaning that the wheels will turn freely at all time. Hope this helps.

Terry, you're absolutely right! It doesn't take much to get hooked on On30. For me it was "just a simple loop around our Christmas village". Set it up, fell in love with it and totally abandoned my N scale layout. Never looked back and have no regrets and that was about 2017 or so, IIRC.

Terry, just wanted to let you know that TrainWorld is running what they call the Super Bowl/Valentine's Day sale and they show an On30 2-6-0 in PRR livery for $109.99 plus $10 off for orders over $100. I happen to be on their mailing list so I get all of their sales ads. They also have a couple of other 2-6-0s for more money, up to $139.99. The coupon code for this sale is SBVD23. I didn't think that $100 for a 2-6-0 with DCC is a bad deal so I thought I'd pass it on. Hope this helps.

P.S. According to the ad, the sale expires tomorrow, 02/14/23.

Hi, Terry! Glad that the rear light test worked out for you. As far as the dimming of the rear light when going forward, I've had that in a couple of my locomotives, both N scale and HO scale. All of them were Bachmann. The HO scale one is a 44-ton diesel which I converted to On30 (same drive, different body). I've tried going into the CVs to see if I could change it to full-directional lighting but so far no success. I'm thinking that all of these engines sort of fell into the "low-cost" category and shared the same decoder (or at least the same decoder programming since a couple were N scale) that only supported the dimming of the rear or front light depending on direction. Best of luck in your endeavor to add a rear light.

Fred

Terry, I think you could connect a rear light to the board. A couple of things: 1. Whether or not the light only comes on in reverse would depend on whether or not the decoder supports that in one of the CVs. 2. Before you go to the expense of purchasing a rear light for the tender, I would try connecting your multimeter to each tab and then turn on the lights with your DCC controller to see if you get voltage (usually 12V). Keep track of which tab is positive.

You can then connect a LED to the tabs with a resistor connected to the LEDs positive lead (it will also work on the negative lead but usually in electric protocol the resistor is connected to the positive). The resistor value is not critical but should range somewhere from 500 to 1000 ohms - 580 ohm comes to mind and it should probably be able to handle at least 1/2 watt. When you turn the lights on with the DCC, you should be able to tell whether or not the rear light terminals function OK. Hope this helps.

Fred

Terry, glad you were able to locate another Mogul. I was going to suggest the multimeter route that someone else had already suggested - other than that I was out of ideas. Anyway, glad that you were able locate that Mogul and the wiring diagram. Best of luck and keep us posted.

I totally agree with John and P51. It came as a real shock when the forum disappeared literally overnight without any notifications, etc. The least the programmers could have done is place a short note on the page that said that the Page is Missing saying something to the effect that the forum was being updated, under construction, etc. Anyway, I'm glad the forum is back. Thanks, Bachmann.

Hi Terry,

Glad to see you're back! I just tried the link to the forum and found that it was working again. Yeahhh! Your Christmas layout looks really nice. We didn't put ours up this year because our son got laid off from his job and he, and his two cats, ended up moving back in with us. Thankfully, we all love cats - my wife and I just haven't had our own in a while. However, the cats, while cute, are very inquisitive and my wife and I were afraid that some of the fragile items in our Christmas village might not survive. So we ended up not putting it up this year. We did, however, put up our Bachmann On30 Trolley on the fireplace mantle (out of the cats' reach) so that worked out well. Anyway, just wanted to wish you and everyone a healthy and happy New Year.

This is a really neat layout. After watching your last link about locomotives on the Thunder Mesa, I ended up subscribing to the channel and have been catching up on all of the great back videos. This video is no exception. It is well made and very enjoyable to watch. Thanks for posting the link.

As near as I can tell from my back issues of Bachmann's catalogs, the Forney was featured in the 2013 issue but not in the 2014 issue, so one can only assume that it was discontinued sometime in that time-frame.

To answer your other question, yes, Bachmann sometimes re-issues a model, usually with some upgrades and/or new features.

Yeee-Haaaww and Halelelujah!!! It is finally here!! About two hours ago, our mail-lady delivered my copy of the 2021 On30 Annual. To say that I am ecstatic would be a major understatement. I've only had a chance to leaf through it but I have to agree with Lee, White River hit it out of the park again. I did take the time to read Lee's article and really enjoyed it. Great article, Lee!. Anyway, that's all the news for now. I'm going to my recliner and do some serious reading.

So long for now.

Thanks for the update, Lee. That means there's hope yet for my copy getting here sometime soon. I have read and re-read and re-re-read all of my back issues so much that the pages are fading (just kidding). I'm looking forward to getting the new annual soon.

Hi Ton,

Just a thought. When I was still modeling in N scale, one of my diesels, a Bachmann, exhibited weird symptoms like you describe. This loco did not have sound, so it was mainly the lights would go off at various times of flash - stuff like that. Checked the pickups, wires, etc. and all was good. After going over the circuit board, which meant removing it from its mount on the loco, my fingers happened to feel one of the resistors move. Closer inspection showed a faulty/cold solder joint. The copper trace was intact on the board, but the solder had not made a connection to it. Reheating the joint solved the problem. This is the only issue of that type that I've encountered in all my years of modeling. I know its a long shot but it may solve your problem. Hope this helps.

FYI,

This morning, I sent an inquiry to White River Productions regarding the status of the On30 Annual. Here is the reply:

Fred,

Thank you so much for your patience! The editor pushed back the production schedule three separate times. Thankfully, it went to press officially about a week ago. We should have that in our warehouse later next week and be able to start shipping them back out the door.

Thank you,
Ellen

Hopefully, the Annual will be available soon.