trailrider
Well-Known Member
Several years ago, I purchased a 3-truck Bachman Climax. It ran for awhile but I got busy with other things and let it sit on a siding. Apparently, the plastic gears shrank around the axles and cracked. I sent it back to Bachman and they replaced the plastic gears with metal ones. Fine. I didn't run it for a few months, and when I went to run it this afternoon...plenty of choo-choo-choo, but no movement! I have a nice place for it on my display shelf...where an old Roundhouse 0-6-0 that I built as a kid, adding a lead and trailing truck for a 2-6-2. Aside from the wheels needing cleaning, it runs pretty well for a direct drive, open-frame motor. No, it doesn't have sound, and I have no plans to convert it. It appears to pull two small open-platform passenger cars up my ruling 3 percent (?) grade to the ski resort.
No plastic gears to fool with.
OTOH, I finally got around to painting the sideframes on my Burlington E-5A and B. I had left these black, fearing to gum up the wheel bearings with paint. Finally got some other things finished. Upon examining the trucks, I realized the bearings don't move with the axles. There is no connection between the axles and the sideframes! So, using some old Floquil Bright Silver, I finally painted them as was correct for Burlington E's. (My E=3A and its B unit (either an E-5B or E-7B, take your choice, were lightly kitbashed out of P2K E-6's, to which I attached thin corregated panels. While I did not mess with the side windows of the E-6 shell, which are somewhat differently placed compared to the E-5, the results are close enough for my purposes. This lashup pulls my Denver Zephyr or Texas Zephyr (take your pick, depending on the origin, either Galesburg, Illinois to Denver, or Denver to (imaginary) Dallas. My layout is a folded dogbone, and the train usually sits on Track 2 in Denver. (I think it's Denver...never have quite made up my mind! )
No plastic gears to fool with.
OTOH, I finally got around to painting the sideframes on my Burlington E-5A and B. I had left these black, fearing to gum up the wheel bearings with paint. Finally got some other things finished. Upon examining the trucks, I realized the bearings don't move with the axles. There is no connection between the axles and the sideframes! So, using some old Floquil Bright Silver, I finally painted them as was correct for Burlington E's. (My E=3A and its B unit (either an E-5B or E-7B, take your choice, were lightly kitbashed out of P2K E-6's, to which I attached thin corregated panels. While I did not mess with the side windows of the E-6 shell, which are somewhat differently placed compared to the E-5, the results are close enough for my purposes. This lashup pulls my Denver Zephyr or Texas Zephyr (take your pick, depending on the origin, either Galesburg, Illinois to Denver, or Denver to (imaginary) Dallas. My layout is a folded dogbone, and the train usually sits on Track 2 in Denver. (I think it's Denver...never have quite made up my mind! )