Micro-Trains is now selling Bachmann locomotives?!

[up1950s]

I'd be willing to bet more Confederatesets sell than Union sets.

Then that would be a Confederally .

[DKS]

... 
Sometime in the future Atlas or others may climb on the bandwagon wth more products that fit this under represented era.

Atlas has indeed announced their own 4-4-0, BTW (if you attend Disneyland during a certain period very soon, you can get one of their new limited edition Americans lettered for Disney--watch eBay for the "scalpers"). And I agree that B-mann is improving, but sort of randomly.

[ljudice]

The Confederate sets better be marked for the "War of Southern Independence" then...   

[TiVoPrince]

Aternately 
'The War of Northern Aggression' would be incredbly popular around here...

[Chris333]

Another photo of the Atlas 4-4-0:
http://www.facebook.com/LowellSmith.SignatureSeries#!/photo.php?fbid=10150878106473870&set=a.383520323869.170165.182239268869&type=1&theater

[martyscustomn]

During the Micro-Train tour we saw some of the GP-7's in the screeningarea. I ask when Mt was going to do Geeps and was told that they were Bachman's. I was SURPRISED...BUT the bodies looked VERY GOOD. Know NOTHING about the B-Man 4-4-0's, BUT 2 Prototype ATLAS DISNEY unpowered 4-4-0's from Lowelle Smith were auctioned.
   Bachman's have always been the butt of jokes when it comes to quality, BUT, To be fare...it's been getting BETTER...MUCH BETTER. Their 2-8-0 Consoidation, for me is an Excellent runner and SURPRISING puller...17 cars. I do not know, BUT I've read that their Northerns were pretty good.
   Model Power is another considered to be a weak sister. Again, I have no complaints. At the Denver show, my Mikado was run for over and hour pulling 20 cars on one of the Modular layouts there....and it is a well detailed good looking locomotive....and...shame on me, but I prefer it to my Kato 'Mike'!!!!!!!!!

[CBQ Fan]

I have never seen these sets as something I would buy to run on a layout.  I have always seen them as a collector item on desk or in a display case.

[sundowner]

The Bachmanns  quality should have gotten better now after they kick Atlas out of there factory

[DKS]

I have never seen these sets as something I would buy to run on a layout.  I have always seen them as a collector item on desk or in a display case.

I use them both ways. When I had full-sized layouts, I'd modeled tourist lines, thus giving me the excuse to pull them out of the display case and see them running just the way they should. I know tourist lines are highly unpopular among proto-ops-oriented modelers, but for rounders like me it's a visual feast. Plus, I can store anything I want in my yard--any era, any condition, even some foreign prototypes. It's kind of liberating to not have to slavishly adhere to some mandated era/locale/schedule. </semi-rant>

[up1950s]

It is because of Bachmann that I have been able to pump out UP steam . Stop knockin' 'em or I will give yens such a virtual smack .

[CBQ Fan]

I use them both ways. When I had full-sized layouts, I'd modeled tourist lines, thus giving me the excuse to pull them out of the display case and see them running just the way they should. I know tourist lines are highly unpopular among proto-ops-oriented modelers, but for rounders like me it's a visual feast. Plus, I can store anything I want in my yard--any era, any condition, even some foreign prototypes. It's kind of liberating to not have to slavishly adhere to some mandated era/locale/schedule. </semi-rant>

I hear that, in my world all my favorite passenger lines used Union Station, those I don't want to model used others!!

[brokemoto]

[peteski]

First of all, thanks Shipsure for your comment. There is nothign like getting the info right from the horse's mouth (so to speak). 

There sure are lots of other interesting "food for thought" replies.

But let me repeat what I mentioned in my initial post: I'm not trying to bash Bachmann (or Model power or Life Like for that matter).  They all have dramatically improved quality of their N scale locomotives.  I own many of their offerings and I can see why Micro Trains would be be willing to put them in Micro Trains boxes. But in this specific example, IMO Bachmann 4-4-0 happens to be one of their models which has not improved enough to be considered a model good enough to be put in Micro Trains box.

The weakest part of this model is the tender trucks (which BTW, are the only electric pickup for this loco).  I'm borrowing Mark's photos (from http://www.visi.com/~spookshow/bach440a.html )to present my point.



As you can see, the tender wheels (which scale out to something like 16" diameter - not even remotely prototypical) are more like little rollers, not wheels.  The relatively large diameter axles (which are cast from white metal) fit into the holes in the wheels.  The small wheel has a hard time actually turning on those large diameter axles and on many factory models those wheels simply slide on the track without actually rolling!  Then the power from the axle assembly is transfer to brass strips under the tender by very fine springs.  This results in a poor pickup (which is exaggerated by the very short wheelbase) and lots of drag on those "roller" wheels.  Other than that, this locomotive is acceptable (if one ignores the black plastic leading truck wheels which also seem to be about 16" in diameter).

As I said, this is not something I would have expected Micro Trains to use in their train set.

The one I own and which I made into a decent runner is from the 2nd run (3-pole skew armature motor).  I cleaned up all the parts of the tender trucks and lubricated them very sparingly with some light oil.  Then I glues the pickup springs to the metal truck pieces using some silver conductive paint.  Last thing I did was to polish the pickup strips on the tender floor (which come in contact with the springs).  I might have done some more work on the locomotive but that was many years ago and I don't recall all the details. 

I was also planning on redoing another one of those locos. This time I was thinking of replacing the little "roller" wheels with FVM 28" wheels (which at least would be closer to the prototype).  But since Atlas is now going to sell a 4-4-0 which appears to have more prototypical wheels I put that project on hold.

[DKS]

I've been tinkering with a redesign for this loco for some years now (one of those really old, dusty round tuits), and my plan was to make all of the wheels Kato-like in the sense that the axle ends turn in conductive dimples. The twist here is that they would all four turn within the same common two side pieces; in other words, there would be no trucks to turn. They don't need to turn! I've already run experiments to verify that they're just fine all mounted together--the tender is so short, it's not much different from a multi-axle truck. Then, the truck sideframes would be dummies glued to the body. Logic (mine, anyway) indicates this not only should drastically improve performance, but do so at a lower cost, since there would be significantly fewer parts: metal pickup sideframes (with tabs for the motor), four wheels and dummy truck sideframes. That's got to be cheaper (and easier to assemble) than the Rube Goldberg concoction they have now. Oh, plus I'd change out the motor for a coreless, perhaps, or at least something smoother and slower-running.

[peteski]

I've been tinkering with a redesign for this loco for some years now (one of those really old, dusty round tuits), and my plan was to make all of the wheels Kato-like in the sense that the axle ends turn in conductive dimples. The twist here is that they would all four turn within the same common two side pieces; in other words, there would be no trucks to turn. They don't need to turn! I've already run experiments to verify that they're just fine all mounted together--not much different from a multi-axle truck. Then, the truck sideframes would be dummies glued to the body. Logic (mine, anyway) indicates this not only should drastically improve performance, but do so at a lower cost, since there would be significantly fewer parts: metal pickup sideframes (with tabs for the motor), four wheels and dummy truck sideframes. That's got to be cheaper (and easier to assemble) than the Rube Goldberg concoction they have now. Oh, plus I'd change out the motor for a coreless, perhaps, or at least something smoother and slower-running.

Funny, I had a very similar idea. I got my idea from looking at the Atlas/MicroAce 2-6-0 loco as it has a similar size tender.  It has a rigid wheelbase (the truck's sideframes are molded to the shell).  You're right, with such a short wheelbase the trucks don't need to swivel.  I was also thinking of shaving the Kato-style axle-end pickups for low friction electrical pickup. Since FVM wheels have one wheel insulated, I was thinking of cutting the wheel set's axles in half then using the uninsulated half-axles connected by an insulating tube (again, like Kato uses in their caboose trucks).