Bachmen spectrum issues

[lmackattack]

I bought a mountain type steamer a month ago. It was running great pulling 10 car trains at home and 30 freight cars at the club. it has Ran great for about 10 run time hours total..Then last night I was running it in a double header with my BLI mike with 40 freight cars in tow. The mountain was not pulling its share of the weight in the train. on the straights the mountain was running ok but in a grade The BLI was spinning its wheels wile the mountain was slowing but keeping traction. Then tonight i placed it on my home layout and double headed it with the same BLI Mike. this time full speed with no cars in tow. with them uncoupled but running one a few feet behind the other the spetrum slows to half its speed in a tight turn or grade. and then slowly gets back up to full speed shortly after the turn or grade ends?

is this a bad motor?

Thanks
Trent

 

[Selector]

Much more likely is that that drivers are binding in the rails due to their curvature. Even though models are designed to take horrendously sharp curves compared to the real engines, they do still have only so much sideplay. Otherwise, the rods would eventually have angles that cause them to run into each other or their own cranks.

I have the same thing going on with my BLI Pennsy J1, a 2-10-4, and my NYC Niagara, a Mountain-type 4-8-4. Both bind in the curves at some points, and slow, with the J1 being noticeably worse. You'd expect that with its longer wheelbase. As for the grade slowing, that is probably just due to the difference in weight. I'd bet their electric motors are about evenly matched, but your Mountain will be quite a bit heavier than your Mike. If you are giving each the same throttle setting, whether in DC or DCC, and each is getting the same voltage, or close, at the same speed step, then the Mountain should slow more than your Mike.

Some decoders, like the QSI's, allow you to use the Sound of Power setting and throttle regulation so that an engine will maintain speed on grades. I haven't looked into it because I like to run my engine as if I were the engineer...and had to reef back on the throttle a bit and tighten up on the cut-off.