malibu43
Active Member
Hi all. I don't have a permanent layout set up, so my locos and rolling stock get handled and unpacked/packed away fairly often (several times a year). On my bachmann GS4, the wire plug from the tender to the loco needs to be unplugged to place it back in the Bachmann packaging, and, because it's difficult to plug in and unplug, I have already pulled a wire out of plug once and had to do a lot of work to fix it. As a result, I've created a custom box to store the loco that doesn't require that the tender be disconnected from the locomotive. This will allow me to get it in and out of storage without risking breaking a wire/plug again. However, there is a pin on the tender that simply rests in a hole on the draw bar. The result is that the drawbar immediately becomes disconnected any time the locomotive/tender are picked up or handled. This creates more opportunities for breaking the wires connecting the tender and loco.
I'd like to come up with a way to temporarily fix the tender to the drawbar so that the locomotive will be easier to handle and more robust in case its not handled perfectly. I've thought about trying to find a very small O-ring to use as a retainer on the pin to hold the draw bar in place, but haven't come up with any other ideas yet.
Has anyone else ever dealt with something like this? If so, what kind of creative solutions were you able to come up with?
I'd like to come up with a way to temporarily fix the tender to the drawbar so that the locomotive will be easier to handle and more robust in case its not handled perfectly. I've thought about trying to find a very small O-ring to use as a retainer on the pin to hold the draw bar in place, but haven't come up with any other ideas yet.
Has anyone else ever dealt with something like this? If so, what kind of creative solutions were you able to come up with?
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