Northwest Short line used to sell replacement wheel sets for the PLUS F-units.  NWSL went bankrupt, was sold or something hapened.  Its current catalogue does not include those wheel sets.  There may be some out there as NOS.  Rumour has it that they will fit the Sharks.

Some modellers have had success gluing the axles back together.

Make sure that the track is clean and that the wheels are in gauge.

Another thing that you must do with this one is make sure that the lead truck of the tender is making proper contact.  the lead truck of the tender on this one is the only one that is live.  You must make sure that the split  contact post on the underside of the locomotive near the cab is clean..  There are two brass stiff wires on the end of the drawbar that contact the split post on the locomotive.  Make sure that those stiff wires are clean.  Make sure that they are making proper contact with the split post.  If you must bend them in, YOU MUST DO SO WITH WITH EXTREME CAUTION AND CARE.  The soldering point is EXTREMELY BRITTLE and breaks easily.  What I do is secure them ahead of the solder points with a small pair of needlenose pliers and push them in VERY gently.  Still, I would avoid doing this if possible.  In addition, there are tabs coming from the tender truck that must make proper contact with the underside of the drawbar.  The Standard Line drawbar is an economy version of the SPECTRUM drawbar.  The design of the front tender truck creates a tremendous amount of drag on the locomotive.

The best remedy, if you are so inclined, is an upgrade by swapping the stock tender for a B-mann SPECTRUM USRA standard tender.  You might have to do a little work on the original tender shell to get it to go onto the SPECTRUM chassis.  Further, you must invert the drawbar.  There are several tutorials out there on how to do this.  Once you do the upgrade, you are left with a superbly performing locomotive.  The pulling power improves markedly, as well.  I expect that the only reason that B-mann never did this upgrade was to keep down the cost of the locomotive.

Purchase a gauge and make sure that the pilot wheels are in gauge.

There is yet another manufacturer that offers a nice USRA light Mikado in N scale.  The detail and runnability are nice.  They do offer a USRA light Pacific in HO, but not in N, yet.  The problem with running that one on DC only would be getting it up to track speed.  The slow speed is good for a Mikado, but you want a Pacific to run at a faster track speed.

Only one road ever had originals of the USRA heavy Pacific:  Erie.  Erie also had copies.  B&O and Southern had some Pacifics that were essentially copies of the USRA heavy, but not quite.  The USRA heavy had seventy-nine inch drivers while the K-4 had eighty, so that difference would not be noticeable in N if B-mann were to do it on the K-4 chassis.  If B-mann had it constructed with the left hand lead of the Penn, that difference might be noticeable to those who know what that looks like.

The MP/MRC initial issues of the USRA light Pacific and Mikado suffered from the same out of date construction meithods as did the original MP:  half wheels live tenders.  Once you substituted a B-mann SPECTRUM or Kato USRA Standard for the stock tender, you got  a real winner in performance.  I understand that MRC has corrected that error in later issues, FINALLY.  With an all wheels live tender, they are excellent runners, but, are sorely behind to-day's standards as far as details.  The handrailings are cast-on instead of separately applied.  Before MRC, MP did make the upgrade to its moguls and eight-wheelers.  It escapes me why MRC did not make the upgrade to separately applied details when it absorbed the MP line.

The B-mann "smart" decoder does seem to respond better to DC than most other so-called "smart decoders", although there is a lack of consistency among models.  The EM-1 will crawl very nicely on DC whereas the B-mann ALCo mogul will not.  Further, the B-mann decoder does not stand up to DC as well as the others.  I have fried numerous B-mann decoders on DC.  I did manage to fry and MRC the other day, though.,  It is simple to wire around the B-mann decoder once you do fry it.  The MRC is not that easy.  The B-manns do run nicely without a decoder, especially at slow speed.

If you are running it on UniTram, those curves are too sharp for it.  What is happening is that it is climbing the rail on the curves which compromises the electrical contact.  Unfortunately, Kato made the curves and turnouts on UniTram too sharp for most equipment.  One thing that does run well on them, though, oddly enough, is the E-R Shark.

Kato and Athearn do the western roads.  FVM did a midwestern road.  B-mann is in Philadelphia, so it does eastern.  B-mann even did a southern road (N&W J). These road specific, wel known steam locomotives do seem to sell.

SP GS-4, B&O EM-1, Penn  K-4, Large UP power, N&W J, Van Swerigen Berkshires all sell well.  There is a demand for a decent NYC Hudson.  A few years past, I sold my C-C Hudsons.  They fetched good prices on FeePay.  Even those that did not run fetched good prices.  The demand is there. I will not buy one, but, I  have little doubt that many will buy one.

I am not a DCC user.  I have fried several B-mann "smart" decoders.  I was using an MRC 2400 with the pulse OFF.  I just took out the decoder and re-wired.  What is really funny is that the creep on these things on DC, once you remove the fried decoder is EXCELLENT on DC, even without pulse.

I have had this happen on the ten-wheeler, mogul, doodlebug, 44-tonner and F-7.

You might have fried the decoder.  I have seen this on more than one decoder equipped B-mann and it has been a fried decoder every time.  Like you, I am not a DCC user.  I do not know what it is about B-mann decoders, but they do not seem to stand up well to DC.  If you know how to do it, simply remove the decoder and re-wire.  What is funny is that once you do that, the thing will run better without than it did with the decoder.

I do not know how to do it in a GP-7.  I have done it on the 44 tonner, F-7, mogul, ten wheeler and doodlebug.  It was not hard on those.

I did a test fit of the I-10 shell onto the chassis of a first run of the SPECTRUM 2-8-0.  It will go, but will require more than a little work.  I never did go beyond the test fit.

What you did was to work around the weak point in the SPECTRUM tender to locomotive electric transmission (although the Ten Wheeler is actually a Standard Line product).   It is something that I would not have considered, but it worked and it is something to keep in mind for future reference; overall, a good thought.

When the first SPECTRUM steam locomotive appeared, the 2-8-0, there were several people who noted the problem of electric transmission from tender to locomotive.  Several of them hardwired the locomotive to the tender by running leads from somewhere on the locomotive or the motor to the contact strips in the tender.  All reported favourable results.  The difficult part of that is removing then replacing the contact strips.  They are held onto the tender floor by melted plastic nubs.  If you can solder something to those strips without removing them and without damaging the tender, you are far more skilled with a soldering iron than many out here.

If you do find a later SPECTRUM tender, it has a plug'n'play decoder ready fixture.  You can solder a wire to the outer two prongs on each side and it will work for DC only operation.

The weak point in the whole business is the front truck/stiff wires/contact post assembly.  Both trucks have needlepoint axle pick-up.  On the front truck, the tab makes contact with the stiff wire.  Both tab and stiff wire can accumulate dirt, which must be removed.  Further, if the stiff wire is not bent properly, it does not make proper contact with the tab on the truck.  At the other end of the drawbar, the stiff wire and split contact post on the locomotive can get dirty, thus compromising the electrical transmission.  You must clean both stiff wire and both sides of the split post.  I use LL track cleaner on a Q-tip, let it dry then use a sanding stick.  Next, you must make sure that the stiff wires are making proper contact with the split post on the locomotive.  In fact, this is the usual culprit when these things do stall frequently.  Often, simply bending in the stiff wires and cleaning all contact surfaces solves the problem.

There are two important things to keep in mind when dealing with N scale steam:

1.  Enemy Numero Uno of all things N scale is dirt, Dirt, DIRT, DIRT, DIRT, DIRT and DIRT;

2.  Miranda's Maxim as explained by ke:  The poor performance of many N scale steam locomotives is almost always attributable to poor electrical contact.


The manufacturers' addressing Number Two has resulted in some very nicely performing N scale steam locomotives over the past few years.  More than a few of us can remember when the only decent N scale steam locomotive out there was the Con-Cor Hudson.  The first two breakthroughs after that did not come for many years.  Those were the Kato Mikado and the Bachmann SPECTRUM Consolidated.  In fact, those two are still the yardsticks by which N scale steam is measured.

Quote from: propmeup1 on May 20, 2018, 08:30:00 PMtriple head as seen in one photo. That must have been a sight for who ever seen that happen, three of them lumbering by,

I can just imagine the noise and all of the smoke, steam and sand as three of those things and one hundred hoppers slug it out with Sand Patch.

It was probably Wm. Price who took the photograph.  He might even have recorded it on movie film, as he made more than a few movies and took more than a few photographs of Baltimore and Ohio trains.

I bought only one, as I prefer small to average sized steam power.  I will buy big steam that is road specific to the B&O or P&LE, though.  I like mine.  In fact, it has the best slow speed control on DC that I have seen on B-mann's dual mode decoder-equipped power.  I am not a DCC user.

Is there a reason that you must use the Atlas relay instead of the Bachpersonn?

You have several choices.

B-mann sells dummy knuckle couplers that will work with any of them.

Go to the Micro-Trains website, look at the conversion tables and you will see what to use for your equipment.  The MT 1133 is almost universal for the older B-mann.  You can use 1134 for sharper curves, as the 1134 is simply a long shank version of the 1133.  If you use those couplers, buy the MT coupler tweezers.  They make working with 1133/1134 easy.

Red Caboose sells Unimates, that work with almost all knuckle couplers.

Kato sells different styles of knuckle couplers.  Some work better than others.

If you get hold of some older MDC rolling stock, they come with a knuckle coupler for which you can swap out the Rapido.  Those couplers are not the best.  You get unwanted uncouplings frequently with those.

When you mentioned couplers, you suggested another possibility:  are the coupler trip pins catching on the rails of the turnout?  I have seen this problem less on B-mann products that have whatever-those-knuckle-couplers-are that Bachpersonn uses.  This problem occurs frequently on Micro-Trains and Accu-Mate couplers (Atlas, for one, uses Accu-Mate couplers).  

The fix on the MTs is not hard:  you either move up or bend up the trip pin so that it will clear the rails.  Bending it is usually the better solution.  If you simply move up the thing, the part that sticks out of the top of the coupler may foul the shell of the car and cause derailments.  The trip pins on the Accu-Mates do not take well to moving or bending.  Usually, that causes them to pop out, which does not hamper their performance.

The Bachmann coupler trip pins do not take well to bending or moving, either.  In fact, you must take care NOT TO LET THE TRIP PIN POP OUT of those couplers.  If you do, the whole coupler discombobulates.  Break a leg on getting that external spring back into place.  Ask me how I know this.

It is unusual that the trip pin on the B-mann couplers fouls the track, but it does happen.  It happens far more frequently with the MT or Accu-Mate.  If you do not want to replace the B-mann coupler, you might get away with taking a pair of rail nippers (I have a beat-up pair I use for purposes such as this) and VERY CAREFULLY cut off a small piece from end of the trip pin, so that it clears the track---IF this is your problem.

You should convert your equipment to knuckle couplers as soon as you can and, henceforth, as you acquire any with the Rapido couplers, you should convert them as soon as you determine that they are satisfactory and do not need to be returned for defects.  The manufacturers have been getting away from the Rapidos for some time, now.   The MT website has a conversion chart for almost everything.  B-mann does sell some dummy knuckle couplers that will fit into the coupler pockets of most equipment that has Rapidos.

The GE U-boat is an older locomotive, so I wonder how much more performance you will get out of it.  Those older things can be quite noisy (the usual term applied is "coffee grinder") and the slow speed control on most of them is not the best.  The power that the manufacturers have put out since the mid-1990s is far better.  One of the posters to your topic, Spookshow, has a website that will tell you anything that you want to know about almost any power that is out there or has been out there.  There is also an encyclopedia of rolling stock.  Spookshow has rendered, and continues to render, a great service to this hobby and to N scale by his maintenance of his site.  He has gone as far as to dismantle new (and pricey) power just so that the rest of us could see how it went together.  All Honour to him always for services rendered to N scale.