HELP! My Brand New Toby is Running Too Slow

[railtwister]

I just picked up an HO "Toby" to run on my club's modules for the upcoming season (Thomas and Friends are real crowd pleasers), and during a test run on a 3' section of track set up on the dining table, I see Toby is very slow, he can barely crawl along, even at full throttle. Thomas, James, and Percy are three to four times as fast at the same power setting. He runs quietly and seems pretty smooth, so I removed his shell to see if there was a bind somewhere, but found nothing. I was surprised to find him wired up with a circuit board containing two resistors and a couple of diodes, and even after a short run one time back & forth on the 3' track, the resistors get too hot to touch (this cannot be right). This circuit board doesn't appear to be for interference suppression, and Toby has no lights, so I can only guess that this is a circuit to drop the voltage going to the motor, but given the heat it's generating, it can't be long before it melts the surrounding plastic or burns itself out. I checked the Bachmann parts list and photo of this circuit board on the Bachmann website, and the resistors seem to have the same color code value (red-green-black-gold). Is it normal for Toby to be so slow moving? I can't imagine any kid running his train at this speed, so it seems like this can't be normal operation.

Bill in FtL

[GordonPacific04]

Toby is one of the slowest models in the range if that means anything.

[really called Thomas]

About a year ago, I made an oval of track (about 6x4 foot) and timed how fast my locos would go around it at full speed. Here are the results (average 5 runs):

Duck 8.3s
Henry 8.4s
Thomas 8.4s
Gordon 8.5s
James 8.5s
Percy 9.8s
Edward 10.2s
Toby 14.0s

So yeah, Toby is slow.... ****ing slow! But thats his character and why he is the first loco I bought along with Henrietta!

[railtwister]

Thanks guys! Your replies help a lot, but I'm still concerned about the very high temperatures of the components (resistors) on the circuit board after a run of less than a minute. Their stripes indicate a value of 25 ohms and their size looks like they might be 1/4 watt. Since there is no capacitor or choke on the board, they probably aren't RF interference circuits, but I'm no expert when it comes to electronics. However, I don't have to be an expert to see how quickly these things get too hot to touch, and I really don't want poor Toby to suffer a meltdown!

Bill in FtL

[Sodor Engineer]

I hope this review help how slow Toby is.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkzeGrb0Rm0

[AJW98Productions]

I just picked up an HO "Toby" to run on my club's modules for the upcoming season. I was surprised to find him wired up with a circuit board containing two resistors and a couple of diodes, and even after a short run one time back & forth on the 3' track, the resistors get too hot to touch (this cannot be right). This circuit board doesn't appear to be for interference suppression, and Toby has no lights, so I can only guess that this is a circuit to drop the voltage going to the motor, but given the heat it's generating, it can't be long before it melts the surrounding plastic or burns itself out. I checked the Bachmann parts list and photo of this circuit board on the Bachmann website, and the resistors seem to have the same color code value (red-green-black-gold).

Bill in FtL

If it's of any help, a few years ago, my Bachmann Edward's motor burnt out, and I was able to send it back to Bachmann, who were able to replace the motor. It was much cheaper than the alternative (buying a new one). I'm not sure where you got your Toby from, but if you got it recently, and have your receipt, perhaps you could ask whatever store you picked it up from, if they could fix or replace the model for you? Or alternatively, if you got it from Bachmann, perhaps you could mail it to them, for replacement, or fixing, and they may send it back.

As for the slowness issue, Toby is by design slower than the other engines. However if this comment about Toby's speed is accurate:

I see Toby is very slow, he can barely crawl along, even at full throttle. Thomas, James, and Percy are three to four times as fast at the same power setting.

And if we presume the figures given by Really Called Thomas are accurate, then the Thomas, Percy, and James models should not be 3-4 times as quick. Like with before, I would advise seeking help with this issue. If however you're unable to get a refund or replacement, or mail Toby to Bachmann and get him back working, within the time frame you're hoping for, I'd suggest placing Toby on a siding as a static model.

My old model railway club used to have some Thomas and Duck models (though they were quite old - and by a different company), to run a little mine section of the layout, they were big crowd pleasers and halfway through an exhibition, our Duck models were struck by a series of motor issues. Not being able to do anything about this in the middle of an exhibition, we parked a Duck on a siding as a static model. Not an ideal situation, as we had to replace him with a Jinty, but we were able to fix our Duck models after up afterwards. Sorry, I know this isn't an ideal answer or situation, but I still hope this helps in some capacity.

-Alex

[railtwister]

I hope this review help how slow Toby is.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkzeGrb0Rm0

Hi track master,
Thanks for the link to the Hornby/Bachmann Toby comparison test. While the video does show how much slower the Bachmann model is than the Hornby, I would swear that my Toby seems even a good bit slower than the Bachmann Toby as shown in the video. However, since my own Toby appears to run smoothly throughout its speed settings, I'm going to take a chance and run him, but only for limited durations while keeping a close eye on him for any problems that may arise. At some point, I may try to change out the 1/4 watt resistors for some with a higher wattage rating, perhaps a full 1 watt if I can get them to fit. Since Tby's Speed doesn't seem to change much from anything above 1/4 throttle, a friend who holds a college degree in electrical engineering seems to think is because of the resistors. As an aside, my local hobby store has had a Bachmann Thomas loco running as a "demo" on their shop layout for several years now, and everyone is quite amazed at its durability, especially since it is a toy. One shocking thing the video did show was the MSRLP for the Bachmann Toby in 2011 was $55.00, which seems cheap compared to today's (2019) list price of $95.00!

Bill in FtL