Bachmann 2-8-4 Berkshire/Kanawha in stock at M.B. Klein

[mmagliaro]

Well, after putting in way way way too many hours for what this engine is worth, I think I finally have it running acceptably...
maybe good, depending on how generous you are.  I still consider it to be nowhere near how well it should run for what it costs.

It can reliably start and run under 5 mph, although not with uniform motion.  It's not bad, not great, a lot better than it was. 
And by 10 mph, it runs pretty steady with no lurching or tugging.

The motor, well, I've decided it's crap.   It just does not have enough torque for the job, and I think a bigger, stronger one would go a long way toward making this engine smooth out. 

Having said that, the more I run it, the better it gets.    It is able to climb my hill with a 20 car train at slower and slower speeds without stalling out, so the friction and binding is going down the more it runs.

I am hoping my soldered siderods hold up this time.  I made some important adjustments that were probably causing a lot of stress on them. 

Here now, the promised photos.



I heartily thank Victor for his observation about the idler gear.  Once he explained it, I realized how hopeless it was to
try shimming or otherwise using it, so out it came.

[peteski]

Excellent writeup Max!  This is just what I was hoping for.

So Bachmann tried to sort-of emulate Kato Mikado (by gear-driving a driver set with no crank pins.  But they messed it up because of the location of the idler? 

I'm also not so sure that removing the idler is the best solution. I'm almost compelled to buy one of these so I too could experiment.  Maybe I should see how much Chris wants for his....    But I really have no good reason to buy one of these (or to take on another project right now).

I see that you used the plastic spacer experience from the GS-4 here (but for a different reason).

The driver diameter looks awfully small!  I realize that the wide white-painted rim makes it look even worse, but even with the paint removed I think they drivers would still look out of scale too-small.

The stamped-metal valve gear and siderods look really crappy. Relief-etched ones would be so much better looking.  But I don't think Bachmann has graduated to that yet.

The full-depth spokes, while a huge improvement over the solid plastic disk spokes, are still not as good looking as the partial depth ones produced by most European N scale steam manufacturers. But in the overall scheme of things, this is not all that bad.

It was great to see the construction details of this model - thanks again!

[mmagliaro]

Peteski,
Actually, the drivers are the correct diameter.  I thought they looked small too, but I measured them with a caliper, and they are the same as the Lifelike Berkshire drivers, and they are correct.   But the white striping makes them look awful.

The thing that is off is the spacing between the drivers.  I wrote this up in another thread.... somewhere.
They are about .050" further apart than the LL drivers.   Think about how thick a piece of common .040" styrene is.
.050" is a lot of gap in there. 

Pretty much every idler-equipped engine I can think of off-hand has the idler set off the line between the driver gears.
And now I understand why (thanks again, Victor!)    Even the old Trix K4, with those metal gears along one side, has them
offset from the driver gears.  (Frankly, the Trix K4 with a good motor in it runs better than this thing).

I think the best solution would be to grind off the idler gear pin, then find another gear with the same module (I'm pretty sure
these are 0.4 mod, so it's very common), but a little bigger diameter.  Then drill a new hole and press in a new pin so
you can run a larger idler a little above the driver line. 

But it's running pretty good now, and I wasn't even supposed to "fix it all up"... and... I'm out of patience with Bachmann.

[peteski]

Yes, you did mention the driver spacing (now I remember).    Whatever it is - it looks awful.
One ting not yet mentioned is . . . white nylon gears. Remember those Bachmann splitting gears in the 80s?  These look just like those troublesome gears. 

[mmagliaro]

Yes, you did mention the driver spacing (now I remember).    Whatever it is - it looks awful.
One ting not yet mentioned is . . . white nylon gears. Remember those Bachmann splitting gears in the 80s?  These look just like those troublesome gears. 

Mark Peterson mentions this in his on-line loco review.  I hope that it isn't the same composition plastic
as the white gears they used years ago.   They look the same,
but who can tell?  White plastic could be a lot of things.

[peteski]

Mark Peterson mentions this in his on-line loco review.  I hope that it isn't the same composition plastic
as the white gears they used years ago.   They look the same,
but who can tell?  White plastic could be a lot of things.

Time will tell . . .
 

[Chris333]

I soldered the motor wires back to the decoder and put everything back together to sell. Took a quick vid just to show it still runs.

[mmagliaro]

You know, Chris, looking at that video, your Bachmann does not seem to run badly.    But I know that this
tugging/jerking phenomenon somehow doesn't show well in videos.  When I saw the engine run in person, it looked a lot worse than it does on video.

[Chris333]

If the boiler was plastic I would probably keep it and "mess" with it more.

BTW when If first got I cut the motor wires and just tucked them under the frame clips.

[OldEastRR]

So after a string of very fine locos, Bachmann produces a lemon? Well, gotta look at the percentages of what they got right. I love the 44T and the 4-6-0 (tho I have no use on my layout for one). But look at it this way -- with the inevitable bomb now out of the way, the next few B'mann locos should be really nice.

[SkipGear]

Yes, you did mention the driver spacing (now I remember).    Whatever it is - it looks awful.

Complaints about the driver spacing make no sense. The drivers measure out to within a few percent of scale. The flanges are almost touching. What more could they do? The white paint on the drivers is what makes them look so off, not the actual drivers. It's an N scale loco, compromises need to be made for it to function.

Kind of wondered that myself but chalked it up to the white walls being too wide making it an illusion.  The drivers measure at the tread.... .416" which scales to a 66.5" driver. At the flange they measure .463 which equals 74" in full scale.

Berkshires have 69" drivers.

[strummer]

Chris...seems to be running well.

 Not to highjack this thread, but I love the big grey building that appears at the 1:00 mark; what is that?

Mark in Oregon

[Chris333]

Berkshires have 69" drivers.

ERIE Berkshires had 70" drivers 

[Chris333]

Chris...seems to be running well.

 Not to highjack this thread, but I love the big grey building that appears at the 1:00 mark; what is that?

Mark in Oregon

Showcase Miniatures used to make the kit. I forget the exact name of the kit, but the signs say O.L. Wright hardware supply Of something close to that. This kit is no longer made by them, I found it on e-bay.

[mmagliaro]

(spelling edits...)
The driver appearance is caused by a few factors.  The white tires are part of it, but I do not agree that they are
all of it. 

Here are the other two issues:
1. If you lay the Bachmann Berk down, wheels to wheels against the LL Berk, you can definitely see that
the Bachmann engine's wheelbase across the 4 drivers is longer.  It's not much, but I can see it.   There is more space
between them than on the LL engine

2. More importantly, the wheel rims on the Bachmann engines are really thick.  Even if you remove the white paint,
you have thick rims, which means smaller wheel centers and shorter spokes in the center, which gives the wheels the
appearance of being smaller in diameter than they are.  The white paint accentuates the problem.  But the fundamental problem is that the rims are too thick.  If they were made to scale, and then painted white, they would look great.

(I really have to do something about that phllips head screw I put into driver number 2... LOL!)