Mr. Bach Man
What is the anticipated delivery date of the CN 44 ton loco?

Mr. Bach-man
Can you please tell us the color scheme of this loco? Will it be green and yellow?
Also what is the estimated ship date?
Will a sound version be offered?
Thanks.

Mr. B-Man
Is there an ETA?
DaveS

Mr. B-Man
What is the ETA?
DaveS

I have the address of the site where you can get CV 17 & 18 calculated. It is :
www.2mm.org.uk.
Hope this helps.

I have a Prodigy Express and couldn't programme my Spectrum Consolidation with factory sound. I was stuck with address 3 and all factory settings.
You don't need a programme track booster.
On Programming on the Main:
1) programme CV 17 and 18. This will programme the long address. You will need to get the CV values for the address you want and there is a website that will calculate it for you. I wanted an address of 2425 so I had to use values of 201 for CV 17 and 121 for 18. I can't find the address of that site but may have it on my computer at work.
2) programme CV 29=34.
I did the above and now have the correct address and can change CV's at will.
A DCC guru on another site gave me these instructions and they do work. It has something to do with unlocking the long address if I recall correctly.
Hope this helps and saves you the cost of a booster.

For me it has to be steam and a CN Mountain class U-1-d to be precise. A close second would be a CP Jubilee, a beautiful little streamlined 4-4-4 that has a wonderfully balanced look especially the F-1-a version.
Dave S

I have 2 "towns" on my layout, more of a small village really and a station with an off layout town. Anyway the names are Upper Chuffton (no such place, just made it up) and Mortimer which is a little village near Reading in England where some friends live.
Dave S

I have a Spectrum Consolidation with factory sound and it is a great looking, running and sounding loco. Also have a couple of other Spectrum locos I like very much too but wonder if they might be a little bit too delicate for a six year old. That seperately applied piping looks great but it is fragile.
Just a thought.
Dave S

Yes Bob, I do mean the Spectrum Connie but I have to confess that mine has factory sound and I do love it. I have a few other steamers with sound and the Tsunami is by far the best. I did have to turn the volume way down as it was just too loud as most are from the factory. Adjusting the CV's on that rascal takes a few tricks I learned on the MR forum but once done the lower volume makes it a lot better.
Dave.

Personally I think that Atlas TruTrack is not very well made to be polite. I built a layout with it and found that my light mountain would often derail at turnouts but I couldn't seem to see how. I also had electrical issues with these turnouts.
My solution was to rip out the TruTrack and replace it with Unitrack and all derailment problems were solved. The light mountain goes through a #4 unitrack turnout with no problems. I must confess that I went to #6 on the mainline which of course is far better. Yes Unitrack is far more expensive but when you examine a turnout you can see why.
Space just doesn't permit me to go beyond a 4x8 and generally I stick to small locos such as that beautiful little Consolidation that Bachmann makes. Nevertheless I have a soft spot for passenger cars and I like to see the mountain haul a small string of Athearn heavyweights. I must confess that I do stick in a few express reefers too as they are only 50 footers.

NCE does make a drop-in board. I put one in my SW9. It was an easy install but you do have to solder the wires to the board. I got mine from Tony's Trains.

Hi Corey,
I can relate to your problem as I was at that stage 2 years ago. I put together a small layout using Atlas TruTrack. It was secured with Atlas track nails. A great tip from my LHS helped a lot in securing the track to largely plywood. If you get a #62 drill bit and a pin vise, use it to drill into the plywood through the guide holes in the track. If you do that it is easy to put in the nails with just a nail set and a light tap with a small hammer. As noted by others, don't bend the ties. If you don't drill, the nails may bend and you will have to use far too much force likely causing the ties, and hence track to deform. TruTrack is the Atlas equivalent of EZ track.
A year ago I ripped up the TruTrack and replaced it with Kato unitrack as I had some problems with the Atlas turnouts when I converted to DCC.  The Unitrack is far superior to TruTrack.
I sympathize with the cost as I too am in Canada. Luckily I have a good friend in Minnesota so I ordered the Kato track on line and had it shipped to him otherwise I would have paid $60 each for Kato #6 remote turnouts.
Dave S

Hello Art,
I've been reading this thread with some interest as I have been back into this hobby for about 2 years now after a 40 year break. In general I agree with all those who have commented about Bachmann engines as I have 3  Spectrum models and they are unbeatable for great detail and operating performance at a great price at least the steam ones are as I don't have any Bachmann diesels.
As far as track goes I wanted sectional track with roadbed as my present little layout hopefully will be just an learning one. I went with Atlas Trutrack and found many problems with the turnouts, not to mention rail gaps that you just couldn't fix. I switched to Kato Unitrack and it is vastly superior to Trutrack however if you don't have it fastened to a very level surface you will get roughness at rail joints because one rail is higher than the other. I suspect that would happen with EZ track too after looking at the few sections of it  that I use to store engines.
Perhaps you could give us some idea as to where and how the derailments occur?  What radius are your curves? Are the derailments only at turn-outs or do they occur at other spots?

I've been having great fun building kits of structures, rolling stock and I think that if you get more information your enjoyment will increase.

Perhaps my experience can help with your decision.
I got back into MRR after a 45 year break. I was a train nut as a lad but then in my teens other interests took over. I understood DC as I had  block control on the little layout I built when I was 12.
When I got back into the hobby, I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to invest a lot so I just went with DC as I was familiar with it and from reading some forum discussions on DCC it seemed very complicated what with talk of hexidecimals, etc. Besides I wanted to use my Penn Line Consolidation that I had taken out of retirement. In fact it does work but it isn't very smooth or well detailed compared to modern locos.
I built a small 4x8 layout with block control and it was fine until I discovered sound and found that I couldn't adjust it or control it well with DC.
I then went to a combination set up with DCC as Cab B. That worked fine but I was not happy with the performance of my Atlas TruTrack and found that in DCC any problems were maginfied.
I then decided to go all DCC with new track( Kato Unitrack) and a new layout
as I was using the DCC far more than the DC.
I found that in fact DCC is better on a small layout as you can stop several engines on one siding. Also the wiring is far simpler as there are no blocks and only a couple feeder wires are needed. I did as Gene mentioned and have my small service yard isolated from the rest of the layout with a simple on/off switch as even 3 or 4 sound engines all starting up can be annoying.
I usually only run one engine at a time and I like the idea of controlling the engine and not the track.
I agree that if I had a large fleet of DC locos I doubt that would want to convert a large number of locos. Also the control with the MRC power pack I had was nice. I'm using a MRC Prodigy Express and have found it very easy to use and programme CV's.
I hope that helps in some way.