Quote from: Ton N on February 25, 2020, 05:40:50 AM
It's a simple case of availability and demand.
Most of the cars are not made any more and the demand is still there.

True. For a while, before On30 picked up in the mainstream of the hobby, $20 freight cars were the norm. Thankfully, when I decided to go to On30 I could buy them all day for that much.
That said, I saw a table of On30 cars at a show last weekend, all of them were 20-30 each (including passenger coaches), so the deals are out there if you want to be patient.
Also, the mail order places have sales, such as Trainworld and Micro Mark...

Last night I decided to test the pulling power of my new locomotive. I put almost all the freight cars on the layout behind it and it only slipped once I put a passenger car onto the end of that. Once I pulled that coach back off, I had 14 cars in tow, making it the longest train I've ever run here:

https://youtu.be/uCvJUXo2YcY 

I'm quite sure the real Baldwin Class 10s couldn't pull that many cars.

My Bachmann ET&WNC ten-wheelers, I'm sure, could handle this with ease but I've never pulled more than about 6-7 cars behind one of those.

Quote from: tweetsieengineer on February 14, 2020, 04:03:24 PM
Putting sound or changing sound modules in the 4-6-0 is so simple.  Ive installed TCS wow in all 4 of my ET 4-6-0's. 

Tim,
Is that the one that has ET&WNC #12 sounds on it?
I wish I knew more about electronics, as I'd love to buy one for each of my own ET ten-wheelers, as it's be great to have the real sounds of #12 coming out of my locomotives!

Quote from: Trainman203 on February 07, 2020, 10:55:36 AM
Any sound is better than no sound.  To me, running a silent engine (as all model railroads were for 60 years) is like pushing a corpse around.  Once you have it, there's no going back.

I agree. I never had sound locomotives when I was in HO, but once I got my ten-wheeler in On30 with sound, there was no going back. Sure, there are lots of other sound systems that are better, but anything is better than just the hum of the electric motor and the clicks of the gears and rods...

I really wish I was more adept in electronics. I know there's a sound decoder that has actual engine sounds from ET&WNC # 12 at Tweetsie RR. Oh, how I'd love to have those in my ET&WNC ten-wheelers, to have the actual sounds of the locomotives I model!

Quote from: RailMan63 on January 31, 2020, 09:17:18 AM
Any suggestions as to how to safely remove these pins without damaging them?

I used needle-nose pliers the one time I did that.

Quote from: RailMan63 on January 28, 2020, 07:48:47 PM
It's too bad that Bachmann primarily models their 4-6-0 loco after the ET&WNC 4-6-0 locomotive.

Well, I couldn't disagree more strongly. I've always loved the looks of that Baldwin class and frankly, it's the primary reason I got back into the hobby, when Bachmann came out with them in On30. I probably would still be out of model trains (having left from a series of horrible experiences with a modular group in my teens) if they'd not done that.

I saw 20 partially done when I was in Golden this past June. So nice to see she'll be back in steam very soon.
As for ten-wheelers, the Bachmann 4-6-0 is a Baldwin class, made for the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad (ET&WNC). By the time the 3-footer portion of the line went belly up in 1950, they still had three on the property (9, 11 and 12). All were built before WW1. 9 and 11 sadly went to the torch (11 was said to have been offered to Johns City for display but declined). 12 was saved and through a series of swaps, now hauls tourists around Tweetsie RR in Blowing Rock, NC (near where she ran before the line to Boone was destroyed by massive flooding).
A couple of very similar Baldwins were spotted in Cuba not long ago. Just as the Gringo tourists found out about them, they also went to the torch.
I remember a magazine article where someone made one of these into a SP narrow gauge engine with a whale back tender. I can't recall which magazine it was, but the author did a fine job on the conversion.
This Baldwin class really doesn't look like anything the Rio Grande had.
FYI, ET&WNVC 10 and 14, from the same class as this model, went to the White Pass & Yukon during WW2. Sadly burned in a roundhouse fire at Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, they were both crapped after the war at the NP yard at Auburn, WA.

Quote from: Larry_Tuck on January 15, 2020, 09:15:26 PM
So does anyone out there have a spare 4-4-0 oil tank they'd be willing to part with? There's none available on the Bachmann parts page.

According to this, it's part # OOX01:
https://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/dwg/dwgs/On30%204-4-0%20AMERICAN_INSIDE%20FRAME_Tender.pdf
Sadly, I looked for one, but couldn't find one anywhere. If I had an extra, I'd have sent it to you, but I don't run 4-4-0s...

Quote from: Ton N on January 19, 2020, 12:05:49 PM
I received my 2-6-2 today.
Nice little loco.
I find the WOWsound a bit disappointing to what i am used with the Soundtraxx sound.
it also sounds very high pitched.
Is there a CV list somewhere?
Not on this site after looking for it.

If you look through the paperwork that came with the loco (look under the piece of paper at the bottom of the box, under that), there's a guide on how to change things. If you go through the menu with your DCC controller, you can change the bell, whistle and other things very easily that way. I got rid of the "European" style shrill whistle and changed the bell to something other than what you'd hear on a WW1 London tram.
You can hear the difference in these videos I shot last night:
https://youtu.be/vrUnfQN7kYw
https://youtu.be/rt3AOIDfmqI

It's not tough to make a bunker over the top of a coal tender area. I did it with styrene on an old 2-6-0 tender to make a 'water' car out of the thing (with a couple of extra castings from various sources):

On the new On30 2-6-2T 'trench' engine, there's supposed to be an option for a firebox glow. I followed the DCC guide that came with it, and I think I hit the right buttons but nothing.
Has anyone got theirs to glow? How'd you do it?

Quote from: Terry Toenges on January 02, 2020, 05:43:46 PM
Did you elevate the front or is that the way it came? It looks like the boiler is jacked up compared to the real one.

It came that way and I think that's intentional. Note that in the model and this davenport copy, the drains are to the rear, so the front end would have to be just a higher than then front, right?

Yesterday, I did the weathering on my Army 2-6-2T and put a couple of GI figures into the cab of my Baldwin 1917 'trench' locomotive.
Notice the number plate, I created that myself on my computer.


If you look along the forward part of side water tank, you can see where I tried to re-create the look of recently added H2O to the tank, spilling over the side somewhat.
So, why a road number of 5069? Well, I just turned 50 and was born in 1969. This was a delayed birthday present to myself, and 5069 was a road number carried by one of these engines as-delivered from Baldwin, so why not? If not that, it would have been 5044, for my Jeep's deliver year of 1944...
The decals were one character at a time. That took a while with magnifying tools to get that right (keep in mind, this engine was just about the size of a GMC 2.5-ton truck, so even in O scale it's very small).
A few days before, returning to Atlanta airport from visiting my parents in Florida for Christmas, I swung through Fort Benning to take several photos of their Davenport locomotive. These were made as copies of the Baldwin design and most stayed here in the states. This is one of the few left:

I just wish they hadn't painted it in OD green (to include the running gear!), as none were painted like this in service.

I've had time to break in my 2-6-2T 'trench' loco and I'm very happy with it.

I've written a review of it for O Gauge Railroading magazine, so we'll see when they run that.
It needs some breaking in out of the box, so don't think you got a lemon when you first run it. Even 10-20 minutes later of running, I noticed it ran much smoother. I saw someone else saying they through it on test rollers for half an hour and it was fine after that.
The sound is amazing. When you cut the throttle, you're hearing the clanking of the rods, then the engine picks back up after a few seconds, just like a real steam loco. And when you accelerate, the volume increases, as it does on grades.
Mine is the black version, as I wanna make it into a WW2 era one (the OD green and 'Mash' style stencil one is inaccurate, based on the wrong-painted davenport engine on display at Ft Benning) with white "USA" and engine number down the sides.
She also pulls like a beast. Ten cars and not a bit of slipping.
My only complaint is only apparently the 6 drivers have electrical pickup, so it's unforgiving of dirty track. But at least they mounted a 'keep alive' inside to counter that for the most part.
The builder's plate looks great. That was the one thing about Bachmann engines that drove me nuts before this; the builders plates were the opposite of how they were in real life (black lettering on a bronze background on the model, the real backgrounds were black with bronze characters).
Anyway, they did a great job and I'm very happy with this!
https://youtu.be/oPs1xkBu0zo