Broadway's Reading T1 4-8-4

[peteski]

This unit HATES Kato # 4 turnouts.  The visible portion of my layout is Atlas 55, but the staging area and its associated mainline tracks are Kato with #4 crossovers.  This loco picks every RH turnout, every time.  No other engine in my somewhat large fleet does this. 

Just RH turnouts?  Is it only when diverging route is selected, or even on a straight route?

[chessie system fan]

Kato #4 turnouts are known to be picky. That's why T Trak mainlines only allow the #6's.

[reinhardtjh]

My credit card just screamed as my supplier just charged me for my T-1 pre-order.

I'm glad to hear that, for the most part, people are really liking the loco.

[haasmarc]

Mine from Lombard was shipped Yesterday.

Al,  could you reply with the cost of the T-1 through Lombard?  I bought 3 through Factory Direct Hobbies and I need 2 more but I was waiting to see what Lombard's price was before I ordered more and they seem to be extremely slow to add them to their website.
 

[dem34]

Al,  could you reply with the cost of the T-1 through Lombard?  I bought 3 through Factory Direct Hobbies and I need 2 more but I was waiting to see what Lombard's price was before I ordered more and they seem to be extremely slow to add them to their website.

Stealth was $280.

[kscessandriver]

Stealth was $280.

Looks like N Scale Supply has them in now too, for $279 for the stealth version.

[prr7161]

On the other hand, #4 is pretty tight for a big 8 coupled locomotive...

Could also be tender size and coupling distance.  The BLI M1s were definitely unhappy with the S-curve generated by the first track of a #5 ladder which came down to the geometry of an 8-driver locomotive plus 12-wheel tender, relatively close coupled.  The BLI Mikes with shorter dimensions on both counts handled them fine.

[R L Smith]

Additional info,  the turnouts are set for the straight route.  The loco tries to take the diverging route.  At speed step 1, the pony truck sometimes makes it across but the drivers do not.  I will spend more time on it next week.

[peteski]

Additional info,  the turnouts are set for the straight route.  The loco tries to take the diverging route.  At speed step 1, the pony truck sometimes makes it across but the drivers do not.  I will spend more time on it next week.

Ok, so the tight radius of diverging route is not the issue.  Should be just like a tangent piece of track  I wonder if there is a problem with the track right before the turnout? Like others have mentioned, for the first step I would check the wheel gauge.  Probably the easiest thing to do.

[Mike C]

Additional info,  the turnouts are set for the straight route.  The loco tries to take the diverging route.  At speed step 1, the pony truck sometimes makes it across but the drivers do not.  I will spend more time on it next week.

  So these are #4 switches correct ?  There is a known problem with those switches , there is no "pocket" for the points to sit in when the points are set to the main route . I think what you may need to do is pull the curved rail out enough to file a small notch for the points to set in and then slide the rail back through the spikes . That should fix the problem .     Mike

[dem34]

For awareness with DCC installation in the stealth version. If you are using a LokSound Micro as your decoder of choice. You may need to cut a notch in the coal bunker back wall bracket and reglue the back wall to the bracket itself. The bracket knocks the decoder out of the socket when the tender shell is reinstalled. 

Took 10 minutes to correct but just a pain in the  .

[propmeup1]

Ok after a week of running the three of them I noticed at speed the chuffing is too fast.  At a low speed it’s right on.  I forgot about the smoke house early because I never had smoke in N scale.  I may try it just for the sake of trying it but if it’s like the other scales where the oil makes a film on the engine then I’d prefer not to use it except maybe in a demo running for others.      As I said I probably would I done ordered a fourth T1 and an Atlas Trainmaster 🤦‍♂️.   There’s my other hole in the head.

[bbunge]

Ok after a week of running the three of them I noticed at speed the chuffing is too fast.  At a low speed it’s right on.  I forgot about the smoke house early because I never had smoke in N scale.  I may try it just for the sake of trying it but if it’s like the other scales where the oil makes a film on the engine then I’d prefer not to use it except maybe in a demo running for others.      As I said I probably would I done ordered a fourth T1 and an Atlas Trainmaster 🤦‍♂️.   There’s my other hole in the head.

With our Big Boy, we use smoke quite often, especially at shows, either for the kids or for people shooting video.  It sometimes results in drops/spots of oil landing on the boiler.  We use Mega-steam oil and a syringe to measure and put the oil into the stack.  I suspect it tends to spit more often when it's close to being over filled.  Using the syringe (easily available in bulk off Amazon) made a HUGE difference and ease of the operation since you know exactly how much oil and the needle is easy to put in the stack and greatly reduces the chance of spilling onto the boiler.  You do NOT want to overfill the unit.  There are a number of youtube videos about BLI HO smoke units.  The n scale version seems to be the same basic design.  Usually after a run session, we clean up any spots of oil with alcohol. 

I haven't counted, but if I did, I suspect the chuffing is way off at higher speeds on the BB.

Bob

[nstars]

For awareness with DCC installation in the stealth version. If you are using a LokSound Micro as your decoder of choice. You may need to cut a notch in the coal bunker back wall bracket and reglue the back wall to the bracket itself. The bracket knocks the decoder out of the socket when the tender shell is reinstalled. 

Took 10 minutes to correct but just a pain in the  .

On the BLI site the following remark is made about the Loksound micro.

http://www.broadway-limited2.com/support/58816%20w%20Next18%20ESU.pdf

No remarks are made about the Tsunami2 which is weird as the Tsunami2 is bigger than the Loksound micro, at least the wider version is. We did install the wider Tsunami next18 decoder without any problem.

Marc

[dem34]

On the BLI site the following remark is made about the Loksound micro.

http://www.broadway-limited2.com/support/58816%20w%20Next18%20ESU.pdf

No remarks are made about the Tsunami2 which is weird as the Tsunami2 is bigger than the Loksound micro, at least the wider version is. We did install the Tsunami micro without ani problem.

Marc

Its funny, this was pretty much my first attempt at a solution on Saturday night. It was a 1mm styrene shim and tape over the decoder. But still I had it knock it off and settled on the notching as a kind of nuclear option.