Bachmann 44 Tonner N scale

[Chris333]

Here is mine after some changes 

[janbouli]

Dear Mr. Bach-Man:

     Please tell your superiors to consider manufacturing this thing without its decoder.  Many of us do not use DCC.  This thing is an excellent creeper on straight DC (or as 'straight' as recitified DC can be), and all this without pulse or flywheels.  Removal of the decoder would also allow for extra weight both to increase pulling power and improve electrical contact.

Thank you.  This is an excellent locomotive and a prototype that N scale has needed for some time.

It could actualy be possible that if they make with and without versions they'll be more expensive, and seeing they run on both and also dont need more pulling power ( they already pull 5 times  the prototype ) what would be the point of no DCC.

[brokemoto]

Dear mr. Bach-Man:

I have now purchased four of your excellent forty-four ton N scale locomotives.  They are good runners and all that, but to-day, I bought one that had some problems. 

I put it onto the track for break-in, and it began to stall immediately where none of the other ones had stalled.  I checked the track, and it seemed allright.  I tried applying electric to one set of trucks, and got results.  I applied it to the other truck, and nihil, rien, niente and nada.  I suspected some electrical contact problem in the trucks, as that has proved to be a weak point in the design of B-mann's better power over the years.  Even though I realised that I might be voiding the warranty, I opened up the thing.

UGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!  There was grease EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  No wonder the thing was stalling.  As we all know, overgreasing your model locomotives does two things:  first, it can ruin electrical contact; second, it attracts dirt.  As we all know, dirt is ogre numero uno when it comes to causing  problems for scale power.   I cleaned up the excess grease, made sure that the contact tabs were properly aligned, and put the thing back together.  It ran in excellent fashion, just as the other three do.  This really is a great locomotive.

What you might want to do,  Mr. Bach-Man, is contact your bosses and let then know that someone should call the Kader factory in China and have the line foreman given a good blessing out, so that they can give their subordinates a good blessing out for overgreasing the locomotives.  One of your competitors had a similar experience a few years back.  A member of their Senior Management had scheduled a trip to China, anyhow, so he simply put a good blessing out of the factory people on his 'to-discuss' list.  The line foremen and the line workers received their blessings  out, and the overgreasing problem went away.

Other than that, Mr. Bach-Man, this has proved to be a very good locomotive.  I hasten to add that this is the only one that I have seen that has been overgreased.  Thank you.

[the Bach-man]

Dear Broke,
Thanks for your post- I'll certainly pass it along.
Have fun!
the Bach-man

[davidone]

Picked mine up today and it is the best little engine you can buy. Smooth and quiet. Great job bachmann. Now if the DD40AX is just as good i'll be in heaven.

Dave

[hoyden]

Has anyone programmed this with a Digitrax Zephyr?  I tried ops mode and the programming track and in both cases the controller says the decoder did not respond. 

The loco runs fine with the default settings, I just can't program it.

[hoyden]

I just tried an experiment.  I disconnected rail power from my layout and fed my programming track from rail power.  I was able to program successfully in ops mode.

Works for me.

[eric220]

My little 44-tonner has found its place among my other pieces.  Unfortunately, its ultimate home is still only a distant dream.

Taking on fuel for a long day's work.


Bringing a cut of boxcars around the roundhouse.

[skipgear]

I just tried an experiment.  I disconnected rail power from my layout and fed my programming track from rail power.  I was able to program successfully in ops mode.

Works for me.

My programing track will be a siding near the workbench with a DPDT switch so it can be set to Program or Main. The rest of the main will have a block that you can turn off to keep from flashing the rest of the loco's on the main in such situations.

Here is a panel from another layout that I built with a similar setup. The red track is the combo DCC/Program track.

[hoyden]

I had a peculiar problem programing my 44t.  I could program all CVs except for the address by attaching my programming track to my rail power.   Tonite someone on another forum suggested placing a 1K resistor across the programming track.  I tried this and it worked perfectly.  I am finally able to program the 44t for the first time on the programming track and program all CVs. 

[r0bert]

just delivered to the TCC

[TCWORLD]

I was successful in using the 2004 coupler to convert the loco.