Nominations for the most frustrating locomotive mechansim you've worked on

[randgust]

All of us have had 'issues' with different power since we got into N scale, those particular design features that seem inexplicable, but more importantly, have basically beaten us into submission over time to where no matter how good something looks, the performance quirks win out, and you find the power only VERY RELUCTANTLY brought out to actually do anything.

Most mechanisms are mechanical wonders.  But what have you had to deal with that just...will....not....stop.... annoying you, although the power itself may look stunning?

Mine is way to easy. 

The Atlas Shay.   Damn that thing.   I've never seen anything so wonderful and terrible all at once.  The ability of that thing to perform flawlessly, and then immediately scatter it's driveshaft parts, is only enhanced when you find out that the TINIEST micron of scenery ingested into the open gearbox from the bottom starts a mechanical teardown that is one of the seven ravages of Hell.    The universals pop off the cranks, the shafts get out of sync and bind, the wheel face tolerance has to be 'just perfect', on and on.

I had mine crap out at the Altoona Show, and I had Paul Graff sitting about 100' away.  Wow, that was tough to just park it, box it, walk away, and not make any more pain out of what had to be the most warranty-returned repair item they ever made.   

I'm sure there's more like this.   If it's just a POS and runs like it, no extra points.   I'm talking about the prettiest girl at the dance, who apparently had a dinner of beans and garlic shrimp.

I think this review qualifies for Mark (Spookshow).  You have really work to earn an F.
http://www.spookshow.net/loco/bli4884.html

[Ed Kapuscinski]

The Atlas MP15DC.

I love mine. I couldn't contemplate indulging my Hard Coal Country fantasies without them, but I regard their motor brushes as ticking time bombs.

[Tad_T]

The Life-Like SW. The original pickup scheme is just a PITA.

[C855B]

Athearn steam. Bloomin' nightmares to take apart and reassemble, and they don't want to stay fixed. I even sent a 2nd-run Challenger back to the factory, and their fix lasted maybe a week. I have a Challenger and a Big Boy on my workbench that have been there so long in the procrastination they've made permanent dents in the benchtop. Expensive frustrations.

[nscaler711]

Anything thats black and stamped Kader. Heres lookng at you Bachmann and Tomix.
I dont know what grease and plastic mixture they decided to use, but if you so much as looked at the gears and insulators wrong they would crack.
Then theres the dumbass drive shafts that go through the dumbass worm gears... god help you if the worm gear gets misaligned even a little.

Side note, I've had 0 issues out of my BLI Big Boy... I put that as operator error. 

[Rasputen]

If you think Life-Like SW pickups are bad, try working on a Model Power steamer.

[CRL]

Atlas/Samhongsa (Korea) USRA 2-8-8-2 Mallet — Pathetic POS.

[Tad_T]

If you think Life-Like SW pickups are bad, try working on a Model Power steamer.

I actually don’t have much steam.

Tad

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Early MP Mikes and Pacifics. If ever a mechanism could be named after Pandora's Box, this is it. The wiring harness being both embedded and outside the chassis. The tiny screws pre-stripped from the factory. Wires to nowhere. A single wire to the headlight? Why? F you that's why. Good luck keeping the wheels on the polished axles in quarter. Traction tires? Only available years after the first run, quickly sold out. Electrical gremlins? Oh yes, they took an AP course on that.

And after nearly 10 years of improvements, they close up shop. Never to be seen again.

Runner up: BLI Stealth SD40-2. BLI did a lot right with this model. But then they made the Next18 socket JUST offset from the removable dynamic brake blister. So one can not install DCC just by removing said blister. On no, you need to remove the shell. But you can't remove the shell without unplugging multiple connectors. And you can't do that unless you unsolder several wires. So the only way to add a DCC board is to remove the blister, raise the shell just enough to slide the board into position while not breaking any of the wires, then plug into the socket by feel alone and snap everything back together. Oh and the lighting outputs? totally different from any other engine so you need to re-map the damn decoder.

Runner up: 2nd generation C40-8Ws. Weird blue LEDs. Large PC board that's "DCC ready" but isn't. But the biggest issue is the electrical contact from the trucks to the frame. It is a very flimsy bronze wire. It connects directly to the frame. This frame is made of some sort of zinc alloy that oxidizes rather quickly. There is no easy fix for this. By the time I had screwed bronze contact strips to the chassis, Atlas had announced their C40-8W.

[jagged ben]

Mine would be Athearn F45s adn FP45s.  At this point my working theory is that the motors are going bad from overheating.

[Southern1970]

I have several.   

Atlas MP15.  I thought I had issues with the decoder only to get a replacement decoder and realised the motor contacts were really weak.  So I bought a replacement motor that had stronger contacts and it worked better, but never seemed to run as well as my other atlas locomotives.  The light shroud in the cab on that thing was painful to reseat perfectly each time (the lighting setup in the Kato NW2 is so much better).

Life like SW8.  Electrical pickup as already mentioned.

Atlas RS3.  If the motor mounts are not lined up perfectly it squeals like a pig.

Bachmann 2-8-0 dcc.  Wasn’t sure if it was the engine wheels or the tender wheels but they were just wide enough to keep shorting out in my PECO double slip and insulfrog switches.  That and also one of the drive rod pins would work itself loose every now and then.

[greenwizard88]

The Atlas ALP45-DP. I have opened mine up 3 times to fix the solder to the trucks, and it's a pain to solder everything without taking the entire mechanism apart.

Also, a Bachmann J. It's the spectrum version, not DCC ready. It looks like the tender is DCC ready, but the motor isn't properly isolated. I've had it on my work bench for a few years now, and just haven't gotten around to fixing it.

[JoeD]

Lifelike old time 040.   

[Kentuckian]

Bachmann 2-6-6-2, the first DC release with the rectangular tender. I know some people have gotten good ones and others have gotten the bad ones to work. Not me. I put a lot of time into mine and ended up with a very expensive surplus tender. This was a significant fraction of my annual hobby budget at the time and quite frustrating. I just wouldn’t run, perhaps a few inches and then bind up, over and over and over again.

I do credit Bachmann with correcting this abomination. The later release DCC 2-6-6-2 with the Vandy tender is pretty good. Bachmann is about a third of my steam fleet so I can’t complain too much.

[reinhardtjh]

Bachmann 2-6-6-2, the first DC release with the rectangular tender. I know some people have gotten good ones and others have gotten the bad ones to work. Not me. I put a lot of time into mine and ended up with a very expensive surplus tender. This was a significant fraction of my annual hobby budget at the time and quite frustrating. I just wouldn’t run, perhaps a few inches and then bind up, over and over and over again.

I do credit Bachmann with correcting this abomination. The later release DCC 2-6-6-2 with the Vandy tender is pretty good. Bachmann is about a third of my steam fleet so I can’t complain too much.

I wish they'd run the H-4 again.  They're getting to be upwards of $300 on Ebay when they do show up.  Most I've seen are the USRA H-5's. I have plenty of those.  Of course, I'd still go for a few H-8's if anyone (Bachman or BLI) wanted to do it.  Making a Hinton or Handley yard N-Trak or Fremo-N module would be a fun undertaking with a dozen or so H-4, H-8 and other C&O steamers laying over for their next assignment.