Looking at what Terry posted it seems any decoder with an 8 pin plug should work. You can find good ones online for half the price of the one he posted.

Have you checked the flangeway width at the guardrails. A hacksaw blade makes a good guage for this. If the flangeways are wwider than the top end of the blade, you need to put shims in them to narrow them, because they aren't guiding the wheels away from the frog points. What number switches are you having trouble with?

WOuld this be what you're talking about?
https://modelrailroadnews.com/archives-debut-atlas-o-scale/

I'll have to pull one of my locomotives out and take a few pics. It's pretty easy to do once you see exactly how. It is similar to one of the older split frame diesels. You have a similar split frame adapted to a steam locomotive.

If the box says DCC OnBoard, then it is DCC without sound.

If you are referring to the dummy plug that converts it to DC only, look for the 8 pin receptacle the decoder is plugged into. Just unplug the decoder and insert the dummy plug and you're set for DC operation.

As Trainman has guessed, this is the dreaded pancake motor. I'll return to that.

Looking at the mechanism, it appears there are no worm gears in it. Therefore, you should be able to push this one down the track with the motor out. My friend and I did a rebuild of a Tyco Pacific a few years back, and we were able to roll it by hand. If it doesn't roll, look for something binding. It could be in the rods, or in the gears. whatever it is, find and correct it. Once you get the mechanism rolling the motor should be able to power it.

Now let me return to that pancake motor. In my opinion it is underpowered for the job. If you can get it to work, fine. Biut even if you do don't expect too much from it. Note that it is mostly plastic, including the bearings. If it overheats enough, those plastic bearings can melt and seize the motor up. I've seen it happen which is one reason I don't like them. If it seizes up, it's done. You can't fix it.

You asked about remotoring. It should be possible as long as the motor will fit under the boiler. many steam locomotives use a can motor with a worm on the end of the motor shaft. That worm should mesh with that giant gear in the chassis. The Tyco steamer I mentioned before came with an open frame motor in that configuration, and we replaced it with a new can motor from Northwest Shortline. You need something like this: https://nwsl.com/collections/repower-kits/products/repower-kit-tyco-mantua-2-8-2-or-4-6-2   I'd contact them directly and see if they can give any advice.

You have one of the ones with the can motor. This is good. They are good candidates for DCC. Here is a post I made on this subject in a previous thread, with a link to a tutorial on installing DCC in this locomotive.


"I have done the DCC conversion on several of these locomotives. I used a Z scale decoder, Digitrax DZ125, because it would fit in the space where the smoke unit sits. My 0-6-0s are the split frame type, and wiring it is pretty straightforward. The track power leads on the decoder go to the frame halves, and the motor leads go to the motor. I soldered mine to the motor brush caps, after removing them from the motor of course. I also removed the tabs that contact the frame halves from the brush caps at the same time.

This site has photos of somebody else doing essentially what i did. Scroll down through the various projects until you find the 0-6-0.

http://girr.org/girr/girr_ho/girr_ho.html#dcc "

Peacekeeper,
you wouldn't happen to have photos of it would you? If so, don't try to post them directly to the board. Upload them to FLickr or Imgur and link to them. I'd love to see what you're working with so I can advise how to proceed.

Quote from: Yard Master on March 03, 2025, 09:32:44 AMHi peacekeeper,

This particular 0-6-0 was last made in the 1990s and predates the development of DCC, so it does not have a dummy board or decoder socket. While we don't have specific instructions, DCC installation may be possible, but will require hardwiring the decoder.

This wouldn't be a pancake motored version then, would it? I assumed it at east had the can motor.

Do you see a removable chip on the circuit board? If so, is it 8 pint or 21 pin?

Quote from: trainman203 on February 23, 2025, 10:19:11 PMBachmann is still selling steel rail track?

Yes it is still in the 2025 catalog in some of the layout expander sets, and presumably the train sets as well.

I have done a number of these DCC conversions on the 0-6-0s and they are fairly easy to do. As I recall, there is one screw that holds the boiler and cab to the chassis. If you flip the locomotive over, you will find three screws on the cover plate. The rearmost one holds the body to the chassis. Remove that, and the boiler should slide back. There are tabs under the ends of the walkways near the smokestack, that slide into the cylinder assemblies, and once you slide those back out of the slots the body should lift right off.

You didn't ask but..... Remove the smoke unit from the chassis and you have room for a small N or Z scale decoder like a Digitrax DZ143 or DN126. Use the version without the plug. In the cab of the locomotive there should be a circuit board with 4 wires, two to the motor and two to the wheels. Unsolder those 4 wires and connect them to the appropriate wires on the decoder. There is also a headlight wedged btweeen the chassis halves just ahead of the smoke unit. Make sure you remove this because it will short out the decoder if you don't. You can hardwire a new headlight in its place, or solder the existing one to the appropriate decoder leads. Make sure you insulate all soldered connections using either heat shrink tubing, or electrical tape.

Rust is unfortunately one of the potential problems with the steel rail track in the Bachmann sets. Another is that it is very hard to solder to it if you want to add feeders, or if you need to jumper around a frog. Personally, I'd replace it with nickle silver if it's giving you problems. Better to do it now before all the track is in place, than to have to uproot the track later to remove it.

The only ones I am aware of are Peco ELectrofrog. There may be others, and in the past many switches were power routing. We as a hobby have gotten away from power routing switches because of DCC. On a power routing switch, both point rails are the same polarity, and when metal wheels roll through them it causes an instantaneous short. We never noticed it on DC as the circuit breakers were relatively slow to react, but on DCC it can shut the system down for a second or so before it resets itself.


I ran into this problem with my handbuilt switches, which used a metal bar between the points for a very robust design. I had to modify the throwbars to use PC board ties in order to make the points electrically seperate from each other.


Are you aware that using even one power routing switch in a closed loop can cause a short if you don't have a gap or insulting joiner in the rail somewhere? These are best used on a layout set up for block control, and problematic anywhere else.