Improved 2-6-6-2

[Stevelewis]

I bought  a  couple  of  2-6-6-2  Mallets  a  couple of weeks  back as  the main retailer had very few left in stock, one  is  a sound one  the other a 'silent' one ( in fact the  sound  one  was the last one in stock)

The sound  one  ran perfectly on initial  testing  but  the  'silent' one  was not up to expectations certainly not as good  as our  other mallets,  I did the  usual  tweeks  with  the   decoder altering  CVs etc  and  whilst  this  improved  perfomance quite a lot  It  still wasn't as good as it  should  have  been.

This  afternoon I was  removing some decoders  from  a couple of UK locos I had  sold. So I had some  decoders  going  spare!

I  had  noted  that  the 2-6-6-2  I was concerned about  had  a 21 pin socket  but  was  fitted with an 8 pin decoder via  a  8 to 21 pin adaptor  cable.

So I  removed the  8pin decoder and cable  and  fitted one of my  spare 21 pin  decoders ( this is a  Bachmann 4  function one)  I tested  the  loco with  the  relacement  decoder  and  the  running  qualities  were  perfect!

I have no idea  why  this  should  be  but  I am  quite  happy  with  the  situation,  some of  our earlier 2-6-6-2s have  8 pin  sockets and 8 pin decoders they run  fine!!

I have been  using  digital  for many  years, ( since '98) and  I have  become very  aware  that  strange things can occur  sometimes, which are not always  easily explained

[ScottyB]

I had this issue with the 2-8-0 as well. The stock decoder was not happy at all, so I replaced it and the engine ran just fine.

Strangely, I put the "bad" decoder in my shay where is works just fine to this day.

Makes no sense, but whatever works...

Scott