Old pilot, I have a couple of these gondolas and the load is easily removed. What I did, in order to facilitate removal, I glued a washer (iron or steel) to the inside of the load and then bought a lid lifter (used in home canning, basically a magnet on a stem) and use it to lift the load out of the car - works very well. I have found that lightly sanding the sides of the load (normally not seen) facilitates the removal. Hope this helps.

Well, my order went in today. Now the waiting begins...

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll be ordering mine shortly.

Old pilot, I forgot about the safety straps since my tank didn't come with them. I second what Len says about a small screwdriver set. I bought a Craftsman set at least 30 years ago and it comes in very handy. As far as the tiny screws are concerned, you can order them from Amazon, both flat-head and round-head versions. I have both and they also come in very handy, especially for scratchbuilding or kitbashing. Glad I was able to help. Best of luck.

Old pilot, I just kitbashed an On30 track-cleaning car using the under carriage from an HO track-cleaning car and an On30 tank that I found on the kitbashing parts section on this site. The tank I purchased came apart along the lower seam and the top part, complete with ladder and hand-rail, just lifted off, so you could add weight there. Also, the tank is secured via two screws from below so you should be able to remove it by first removing the trucks and the frame. Hope this helps.

Bachmann sells replacement EZ-Mate couplers. Check out the 2025 catalog (page 140) under the catalog heading at the top. The couplers are available in a variety of styles, so you will need to look at your couplers to see what kind you have. If you purchased a Bachmann set, chances are good that the Medium Center Shank style is what you need. If all else fails, give Bachmann Support a call and I'm sure they can point you in the right direction. Hope this helps.

To add to what Yard Master said, gently squeezing the roof inward (towards the center of the car) while gently prying up usually works for me. There are four tabs, one at each corner of the roof, that have outward-facing pronged tabs that latch into slots on the body. Squeezing while prying upwards helps unlatch the prongs and allows the roof to be removed. I usually do one end of the roof at a time. Once you get one end released, the other end usually comes off fairly easy. Hope this helps.

Dusten, one thing that I have done to minimize the impact of a lack of passenger cars on my layout is to run an excursion train using Bachmann's open excursion cars. Look on page 234 of the 2024 Bachmann catalog and you'll see what I'm talking about. I run one open excursion car and one gondola-style excursion car, populated with some figures to add a passenger train to my layout. One other thing that I also run, since I run short trains pulled mainly by Porter engines, is a wood side-door caboose, which is an elongated caboose with sliding side-doors like a combine and a small passenger section. Look on page 240 of the 2024 Bachmann catalog. I had just received an email from TrainWorld listing a sale on the open excursion cars, so you may be in luck. Not sure if the caboose is on sale. Hope this helps.

You have three choices that I know of: Bachmann EZ track, Kato Uni-track, and Atlas Tru-track. As far as I know, and someone correct me if my information is wrong, both the EZ-track and the Uni-track use code 100 rail, while the Atlas Tru-track uses code 83 rail. The rail codes simply denote the height of the rail in hundreds of an inch, so code 100 rail is .1 inches tall whereas code 83 is .083 inches tall. The most common rail used in train sets is usually code 100. Code 83 looks more prototypical but, in rare cases can have issues if you use old cars (usually found at train shows or swap meets) that have what is affectionately known as "pizza-cutter" wheels, meaning that the wheels have really deep flanges that could bottom out on the code 83 roadbed. Hope this helps.

Sorry, I didn't catch the reference to upgrading to nickel silver track the first time around. Steel rail (black roadbed) has been the bane of model railroaders since the Lionel era. That's why brass rail became so popular during the 60's. My first layout had brass rail and it worked way better than steel, but it still had its drawbacks. As soon as nickel silver rail became affordable and mainstream, I switched and never looked back. Steel rail will oxidize while being stored and it will become dirty much faster than brass or nickel silver. I would definitely make the switch to nickel silver as the budget allows. Hope this helps.

Since this is a temporary layout (I'm assuming) check to see if that particular piece of track is fully supported or if it is flexing when the train passes over it. Flexing can cause momentary, minute gaps as the locomotive passes over, causing arcing which will cause track fouling. Since things seem to work OK for a while after cleaning, dirt definitely seem to be the culprit. I would also clean the locomotive wheels with a cotton swab and some isopropyl alcohol or mineral spirits. One thing you can try is to swap that particular piece of track with another one on the layout, clean both of them, and then see what happens. Hope this helps.

I agree with Jeffery and Terry. I started out using the free version of Anyrail and used it for a few weeks to familiarize myself with the program. One of the things I really liked about it were all of the track libraries. Once I really got into it, I found myself limited by the track piece limitation in the free version (50 IIRC) and opted to pay for the full version. I've never looked back and consider it money well spent. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the heads-up, Scotty. Merry Christmas!

I would love to see a re-issue of Porters, 0-4-0 or 0-4-2 or both. Also, a re-issue of the little Davenport Gas-Mechanical, except this time with metal gears, or even just a metal gear upgrade kit so that I could keep mine running. Oh, and some more passenger cars, both 40' and 20'. Merry Christmas to all.

It sounds as though the problem lies in the connection from the controller to the track. Since this is a set, I'm going to assume that you have the standard beige EZ-Track controller with the big knob on top, and the red wire which connects the controller with the track. If my memory is correct, the red wire has a phone plug that plugs into the controller and a flat plug that plugs into the power-feeder track section. As it turns out, on newer EZ-Track, it takes a lot of force to insert the flat plug far enough into the track for it to make a connection. So you may just  want to take that section of track (usually a re-railer section) by itself and try inserting the plug with some force (almost to the point of hurting your fingers) and then connect the multimeter to both rails and see if you can read voltage across the track by turning the speed control knob on the controller. Sometimes, you may have to wiggle the flat plug while pushing on it to get it to seat correctly. Personally, I would not open up the controller box. You can check just the wire by plugging it into the controller and connecting your multimeter directly to the flat plug while varying the voltage by turning the knob. If all of this fails, since the set is new and under warranty, you may want to contact Bachmann's tech support for additional help. Hope this helps.