Rusty --

Thanks for taking pity on a noob.  I think we've got the first two steps down at long last (the screw and the pilot braces).

The trouble is that the whole unit feels superglued together even after we've done these two steps.  My wife and I both tried pulling the cab end up and we get no wiggle, no separation whatsoever.  I'm just concerned that if I put one more ft/lb of torque into this thing something is going to bend/break and then here will be crying, and I think it would be awkward to force our young son to console his parents so close to his birthday .

Again, I appreciate the help you've given so far.

Cheers,

Eric

Hi, we just bought a Bachmann NY Central starter kit for our son's birthday.  It's the Bachmann HO 01307 Spectrum Explorer set here: http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BAC-01307&click=6206.

Although we are extremely impressed with the kit overall, it started squeaking almost immediately.  We watched the video, I've done searches here, but I can't figure out how to get the body of the train off of the chassis.  The video references a "tab" that I can't find, and there's this thread here: http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,9713.0.html that I thought would solve my problem, but not quite.  I did find the bridge pins (and of course I'd unscrewed the drawbar screw), but the chassis still seems firmly fixed to the outer shell and I'm afraid that if I yank it the whole thing might break (a larger problem than a small squeek, to be sure ).

So, if anyone has this train (or the Santa Fe equivalent), could you break it down in small baby steps for a complete noob?

It's much appreciated.

Cheers,

Eric