I installed a Northwest Shortline 2032 motor last night. The improvement in torque was remarkable. The factory motor I suspect uses very poor quality magnets, as you could turn the armature by hand and barely feel the magnets "grabbing" the armature. The NWSL motor has a much stronger "feel" as you rotate it by hand.

That is positively ingenious!

I recently picked up a DCC on-board Spectrum N&W J class 4-8-4 at a train show. When I brought it home, it ran very poorly, made a buzzing noise, and had no pulling power. It was suggested that the factory decoder might be of poor quality. I wanted sound anyway, so I bought a Soundtraxx Econami to replace the factory decoder.

The new decoder solved the motor buzz and also with some CV tweaking it runs pretty nice by itself. The issue of pulling power remains. This locomotive has very little and does not slip its drivers, it flat-out stalls. With just a few freight cars behind it, it runs around the layout rather slowly even at throttle setting 99 and when encountering mild grades slows to a crawl or flat out stalls, never slipping the drivers.

If I place it on the track and hold the rear coupler, and throttle it up it just stalls. I've never owned a locomotive that won't slip the drivers.

-It's had two different decoders (factory and Soundtraxx) and it does it with both
-The chassis with the motor removed rolls freely
-The gear train and driving boxes have been lubricated
-The motor spins freely when removed from the chassis
-The motor runs fine when disconnected and ran with a 9 volt battery

I see I can buy a new motor from Bachmann for $20 but I don't want to throw any more good money after bad, if these locomotives are just pulling power duds due to low quality motors or bad gear ratios or something. I plan to call Bachmann CS when they open and see what they recommend.

Has anyone else on the forum gone through this with these locos and if so what was the solution (if there is one)?