44 tonners

[FrankCampagna]

They used the zero on non steam locomotives.It was later dropped on diesels.

Frank

[Chris333]

Victor put an Accumate on it. I tried and it worked, but it stuck out like a giraffes neck. Was going to try a McHenry, but I found a photo one next to an accumate and they looked the same length. The stock Bachmann coupler are very short, but also very ugly.

905's do work too with the box cut.

[Nato]

  I had a chance to break in my two locomotives and do some real world running. They do like to stall occaisionally on Peco switches regardless of the swith leingth, short ones or longer ones. My yellow one appears to run just a touch better then the red one, but speeds appear to be the same, paired together they are ok. Red loco is a bit more finiky on electrical pickup issues. Locos have a nice slow crawl speed on DC power, but come to an abrupt stop when power is turned off,of course no fly wheels, also would stop more smoothly in DCC operation. Wanted to see how many cars could be hauled on level track I stopped at 12 there was no wheel slippage. On the grade on my layout branchline one pulled four cars with only minor slippage, this would be similar to the real locomotive as they were small and could only handle shorter trains. Most of the ones I have seen pictures of lacked MU so were run as single locomotives or double headed requiring two engineers. I'am sure some had MU connections on some railroads. The semi auto coupler easly engages with all brands of knuckel couplers,MT,Accumate,Mc Henry. Nate Goodman (Nato).

[ñiao]

Thanks for your commentary, Nate. It helps me a lot.

[SkipGear]

I finally get to join the club, ours arrived at the shop today. Running/breaking it in now. What a nice little loco. It is currently pulling 4 ConCor/Rivarossi heavyweights around the test loop.

[Chris333]

A little late to the party, mines just about done being painted/decaled 

A see my original yellow one is one the way. I have some small tungsten pieces ordered that should double their weight as well.

One will be Erie #26, now what do I do with the other? I want to make it some kind of funky shortline loco.

[FrankCampagna]

One will be Erie #26, now what do I do with the other? I want to make it some kind of funky shortline loco.

Middletown and New Jersey?

Frank

[up1950s]

I will probably decal my 2 yellow units for the W&LG MOW/SHOP dedicated service and leave them yellow . Sometimes things are easy , and I am glad for that . Might add some personal touches though . Z's a must , and shades a probably .

[eric220]

My 44 tonner (or rather my GS-4) came in the mail today.  Not crazy about the blue headlamp, but other than that I am enjoying my new locomotive.  Here she is taking on fuel for her maiden run.



And here she is rounding the roundhouse with a cut of boxcars.



Unfortunately, her final home exists only on paper at this point.  Oh well, at least I have another occupant for my roundhouse!

[rtroop]

Bachmann really has a winner here.  I received my Pennsy version and set it on the DC test track and backed it up to 7 Kato 80 foot passenger cars that happened to be on the track.  I was fully expecting to see a lot of slipping and struggling but the diminutive pint-sized loco surprised me and slowly, smoothly, and quietly pulled away with the 7 cars. Performance was the same in both forward and reverse.

I then connected an MRC Prodigy Advance DCC system to the track.  The locomotive with no cars started to move very slowly at speed step 1. With the 7 cars in tow the locomotive started moving on step 4 and it responded well to either 14, 28 or 128 speed steps.  CV 2 (0-31) adjusts the starting voltage.  The default value is 10 which seems just about right. The locomotive seems to be a bit noiser when operating on DCC.  The headlights responds to F0 and can be dimmed with F1.  The amount of dimming can be adjusted by CV52 (0 to 256)

I reprogrammed the loco number (CV1)  to the cab number 9337 with no problems. 
Acceleration can be adjusted with CV3 (1-255) and Deceleration with CV4 (1-255).  The factory default is 1 (No Momentum).  I tried a value of 20 in both and it provided a realistically smooth momentum effect.  All of the programming was done on the main.

It’s interesting that the minimum operating radius allowed for the prototype is 50 feet! That’s only 3.75 inches in N Scale.  Here’s a case of a model that I don’t think will take a radius as sharp as the real thing.

The only oops I found with my Pennsy model is that the chevron stripes on the pilots are yellow.  So far I’ve only been able to find color photos of Pennsy GS4s with either white stripes or no stripes at all.  The bright blue white headlights do need to be tamed down and as joetrain59 says that’s an easy quick fix with Tamiya transparent orange paint.

The Pennsy owned 46 of these units.  The number 9337 was ordered in October 1948 and delivered in late 1948. 9337 never had MU equipment installed and by 1959 was assigned to Camden-PRSL service.  It was sold in1966.

I hope Bachmann does another run with a second number.

Bob

[sizemore]

CV 2 (0-31) adjusts the starting voltage.  The default value is 10 which seems just about right.
Bob

I noted that other than initial step off this guys are great. I assume with CV 2 set to 10 this is why they start at ~3 smph?

[Scott Lupia]

If anyone out there bought the yellow 44 tonner and is not using the headlights with the big hood could I buy them off you?  I need them.  Thanks a bunch.

Scott Lupia

[Denver Road Doug]

If anyone out there bought the yellow 44 tonner and is not using the headlights with the big hood could I buy them off you?  I need them.  Thanks a bunch.

Scott Lupia

Scott, I have one on the way but haven't received it yet.  I'm guessing they give you parts for two different configs?  First, that's  pretty cool, and second, I don't think my prototype had hooded headlights so I can probably part with 'em.  Just PM me your address.

EDIT: Checked the mail after lunch and my 44-Tonner is HERE!  Just did a cursory look at it but it looks really nice!  I checked out the headlights and confirmed that I don't need the hooded ones so they're yours, Scott.  Don't worry about payment...only a couple of bucks for shipping and I don't need them.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I just got mine today (c/o Chuck's wormhole shipping) and I can only imagine what alien technology Bachmann used to get these things to pull like they do.

I had mine, right out of the box, moving 15 modern 50' cars around the tight radii curves on my layout.

Whoa.

[Bob Bufkin]

Got my second one this weekend (PRR).  This one seems to stall at a couple spots that my other critter went without any problems.  No big deal.

I'm going to write to Bachmann and suggest that they do an SW-1 along the same lines as the 44 tonner.  Always wanted one of those little beasts.