I purchased some replacement pads for my Track Cleaning car and am wondering how to replace the originals. Do they have an adhesive on them do they somehow slide into the retainer. Not obvious to me

X-Acto makes a mat cutter for cutting the mats for picture framing. It holds a blade either verticle or at a 45 deg angle. It does have a big enough "edge" that you can run it along a good straightedge to get a good cut. However, I'm not sure how well this would work on full size HO cork but I think should work fine on N scale cork sheet.

The other day I saw a Bachman B&M Caboose which I believe is an NE-5 and it looked correct for a B&M NE-5 caboose. (No Crash Bars and square ends) However I haven't been able to find it in the online catalogue. I'm hoping it is available in the Minuteman and/or original McGinnis paint schemes. The one I saw (didn't get the item number) is in Gilford Blue and has a 3 digit number in the 400's which certainly indicates Gilford.
Has anyone else seen this or know if it's available in other painr schemes?

Has anyone installed a sound decoder in an older 44 Ton, the one with two motors? If so what decoder did you use? There are a couple how to magazine articles about installing a non-sound decoder. Just wondering if anyone has done a sound one.

Are the body's from the 2 motor 44 Ton locomotives, interchangable with the new single motor units? Wondering about getting a single motor unit and putting the B&M body from my two motor one on it.
Paul C.

for drgw268 - In running my Shay on a friends layout last evening I did find the exhaust volume a bit low. However I did change the exhaust volume (CV122 to 240) and felt the sound level with the foam coal load in place was just fine. Good appropriate volume level with locomotive about 10 ft away. The Whistle volume CV 120 remained at 192 and the bell volume CV121 remained at 128 and air pump CV 123 remained at 75. We did have one other locomotive present that was having volume problems which after investigation seemed to be from extra paths for the sound to get out of the tender and small or not enough speaker holes.

for Kenp - I used the Soundtraxx DSD-B3TSLC which was made specifically for the Bachmann 3 truck Shay. It has a plug in board that installs in the water tender and the small oval speaker installs in the coal bunker.

All: The discussion has mainly been about the chuff rate. Well last evening I used the programming track on my friends layout. He has equipped the programming track with locomotive "rollers". So the engine could be run in a stationary position. Also we had a laptop with the Decoder Pro software so all sorts of Decoder functions etc could be looked at,  tried, and eventually programmed and recorded in a data sheet. Well we tried a number of CV 116 settings. I previously had CV 116 set at 45. So we changed it to 120 and a couple of us counted about 10-12 chuffs per revolution of the drive shaft. So after trying a few other settings we settled on setting CV 116 at 60. A couple of us counted 608 chuffs per revolution of the drive shaft. We then ran the locomotive on the layout and this setting seemed reasonable given the locomotive speed and our memory of our rides at CASS Secnic RR. So my present settings are CV115-1, CV116-60, CV 120-192, CV121-128, CV122-240 7 CV 123-75 and I'm happy with them.
     Of course, I'm still hoping someone,somewhere knows the wheel diameter and gear ratio that I originally asked about and will share that with us as I'd still like to see what the Soundtraxx formula gives for a result.
R/Paul C.

The October 1997 Model Railroading magazine has an article about installing DCC in a two motor 44 Ton. They used a Lenz LE030 but recommended a Digitrax DZ120 be used as it has more speed steps.
Paul C.

Thanks for input. I'll check my current the CV settings against those provided. I did set the rate by watching and listening.
Why I wanted the gear ratio and wheel diameter is that soundtraxx has a formula in their manual for chuff rate. CV =115.9 x (top speed in scale mph / wheel diameter in scale inches) x gear ratio. For side rod  locomotives the gear ratio is 1.  I'm hoping this does result in 6 chuffs per drive shaft revolution for the shay.
As for the question about volume. It's been some time since I've run it but believe the volume was sufficient. It did get a little muffled when I put the "sound transparent" coal load in the bunker. I used some packing foam (like in the locomotive box) that is not very dense. So may have to adjust the volume. I won't get to run it till next monday evening and can report back with better information.
R/ Paul C.

I have installed the Soundtraxx DCC decoder made for the HO Bachmann Shay. I want to set the chuff rate but I need two pieces of information to use in the Soundtraxx chuff rate calculation. These are wheel diameter in scale inches and the gear ratio. They are probably readily available but I haven't been able to locate this information. Does anyone know these values?