Well, I opened it up Saturday and sure enough, it's the gear. 

You really need to buy a motor to get the gear? 

I did plan to take it apart to diagnose it before ordering anything. 

I was expecting whomever answered my email to answer my question, which is, how are they handling fixing these right now given no belts in stock, do they have belts in the repair department, or would they just swap out the chassis?

I got a standard line because the folks who answer email don't know anything about the repair side.

Quote from: w.r.mischlerraildata on November 08, 2014, 06:57:46 AM
Not much HO action on N track in the U.S. since the AHM Mini Trains of the (was it that long ago?) 1970's Leave it to the Brits, with limited space in their abodes for such trivia as layouts...

I did some detailing  on the saddletanker, chopped and detailed the little "diesel", and had some ideas for cars...  On30's really the ticket though, with incredible creativity coming from a lot of folks.  One of the guys at the local hobby shop is giving the Wiscassett, Waterville and Farmington a "rebirth" in the WW II period, with HO switcher mechs under his larger "critters".  He's smiling every time I see him, and has a new piece either in process, or completed !

You do know the Roco-made Minitrains were re-issued a few years ago with improved drives, right?   

Found a diagram; fix doesn't look too tough, but repair department was less than helpful when I asked what current policy is on a fix, given the belts show as out of stock right now.

Picked up a New York Central consolidation, older run, in the box at a show that appeared to have been test run only - the couplers were never installed - for a good price.

Went to test it and it lights up, motor spins, engine does not move. 

Any idea what headache I'm looking at here?  It doesn't free roll so I presume it's a belt issue, but there isn't even a diagram of the thing here on the site to get an idea what I'm dealing with. 

I expect I'm probably on my own to fix it, since while boxed the paperwork was absent so no warranty card. 

The first one would be relatively easy to do given it shares a lot with the GE 70T end cab already done in HO.  As I noted with the C&TS engines, if done right they could get an O-gauge engine out of it too. 

Which honestly I would think is going to be the way to go on another On30 locomotive, something that shares parts with other products to get more milage out of the tooling. 

I was quite surprised, given Bachmann has done GE 44T center cabs in HO and N, that they didn't do this version for On30.  It seems as though the hoods and frame could have become the basis for a crossover to an O gauge locomotive as well and be sold under their Williams line. 

No reason you can't make up new bodies with Evergreen car siding.  It's not hard.   Just copy the Bachmann cars and make them longer -

I think mine was under $20 from TFS, I took my chances with their service because they were going off so cheap. 

Until about 1982 Athearn used motors that were wide and all hood diesels prior to the Trainmaster have hoods one scale foot too wide to accomidate it.

So long as the newer motor is used it's not a hard swap, the side pins to mount the Athearn shell either need to be removed, or holes added to the Bachmann shell to accept them. 

The Athearn frame allows use of both newer Athearn China motors as well as some LLP2K motors.  Heck at this point they may be the same motor since all that stuff is made over there. 

Some Bachmann units go from a closed pilot and fixed couplers as originally sold, to swinging truck mounted couplers (generally with the pancake motor), which may result in an odd appearance if an open pilot shell is used on a frame with fixed couplers.

Not that hard to just make if you need them. 

The way they do these Baldwin catalog locomotives it's a wonder they couldn't almost do a "build your own loco" deal.  One boiler, with optional extension at the front, made with provisions to fit multiple chassis - say inside and outside frame 2-6-0 and 2-6-2 - which come with the drive and wiring, then your choice of a cab and detail set - wood cab or steel cab - and last but not least, either a set with saddle tanks and decoder provisions (plus tanker cab or coal bunker) or just give us an existing tender for it. 

As long as it all can be built with a screwdriver and the hard work is already done, why not? 

Reverse image search tells us that's the BLH plant switcher for their Austin-Western plant, seen working in 1964.  Model is a 45-DE-??, last two numbers would be the number in a series starting from the first of that type. 

My previous hunch is right, it's essentially another Baldwin catalog locomotive, just like the steam is.   Whitcomb became associated with Baldwin in 1929, although if I read this right they didn't fully purchase the company until 1940.  May even be a one of a kind; it would look better on your narrow gauge road with the cab chopped down a couple of feet (and change it to arched in the process). 

Which probably isn't that hard to do, make a template, scribe the upper end cab walls through, cut the sides level, glue on a piece of .010 or .020 styrene and rubber bands to hold it until the glue sets, then paint it.  Might even be able to get away with retaining the factory paint if you're careful.  Will help if the cab is easily removed from the model.   

That's the first exact match to the Bachmann model I've seen.

One wonders why they didn't choose more common options for it.