I still remember the New Haven 0-6-0 switching cars at the Shaw's Cove yard, long gone now, in New London, CT. A 2-8-2 would pull out with the seafood run to Hartford fairly early in the morning. And the New York-Providence-Boston passenger trains, New Haven and Pennsy, would pass through several times a day.

Sometimes we'd get a ring side view when we'd walk across the park behind our house to have lunch with one of our uncles who was in charge of the Great Northern freight house that was alongside the yard. The only diesel we liked was the occasional DL-109, they were being phased out by that time, that would run through with a load of freight. There was something different about the sound of those things compared to other diesels that were showing up.

Len

Jeff nailed it. To use 36" wheels on those old AHM/IHC/Reivarossi cars you have two options. Carve the brake shoes off the original plastic trucks, or completely replace the trucks with ones that accept 36" wheels.

Len

Whatever those numbers are, they don't compute as the number of track pieces or their lengths in inches, mm or cm. If it's not cost in some currancy beside dollars, I'm stumped.

Len

Same as the AHM car link, getting a blank page if FireFox and "corrupt file" from Adobe reader if downloaded.

Len

Link is coming up as a blank page in Firefox. Tried downloading and Adobe PDF Reader says it's a "corrupt file" and can't open it.

Len

DR, the OP says his loco already has speaker holes in the fuel tank, so there's no need for him to order a replacment chassis as shown in the link you give. And the TSU-BH1 decoder shown should be a 'drop in' replacement for the 'SoundValue' decoder board, without a lot of modification, if that's what he has.

Len

For the SD40-2 Soundtraxx offers two decoders and a speaker/baffle kit:

Full Tsumnami2 decoder: TSU-PNP8 (PN: 88513)
Cheaper Econmi decoder: ECO-PNP (PN: 882004)
Speaker/Baffle kit: PN: 810113

Sound decoders and speakers from other mfg's may also work.

Len

For DC operation of a "DCC Ready" loco, jumpers are needed to connect the rail pickups, pins 4 & 8, to the motor leads, pins 1 & 5, of an 8-pin socket. Commercially available jumpers/dummy plugs may also connect front and rear lights. This is typical:


Len

That's why I'd like to see Bachmann do a "Dixie". Aside from the operational issues, the brass "Dixie's" I've seen are priced well out of my budget limits.

Len

Check to see if there's anything in the flangeways of the terminal track that might be lifting wheels out of contact with the rails. Also check to see if anything on the bottom of the loco is coming into contact with the plastic in the center of the terminal track and lifting the entire loco.

Len

I have a few NC&StL early diesels and rolling stock for my layout. But the only HO "Dixie's" I've seen are all brass models prices well out of my budget range.

Len

How about a NC&StL 4-8-4 "Dixie"?


Len

If you have a DC power pack put them on a track and turn the power up. If you have to apply 5V before they even start moving, more than likely they have decoder installed.

The only sure way to know is to remove the shell and see if there's a decoder installed.

Len

As mentioned above, I have several old dummy 'A', 'B', and 'GP' units I've added sound modules to for use with other locos with regular decoders installed before sound was widely available.

Len

Shinohara did #4 and #6 Code 100 double crossovers at one point. The #6 is roughly 19.25" long, the #4 is a bit shorter. You can still find them here and there on-line. Some type of roadbed/shims would be needed to bring them up to the same height as EZ-Track.

Len