Large Scale Central

Bachmann C-19 opinions please

Modeling Motive Power
#41

Daktah John said:

Now that I’ve had my new C-19 for a few days I must agree with every opinion presented here. It is a beautifully detailed locomotive that runs like a Swiss watch. Once I had a grasp of the electronics, a non plug-n-play sound and R/C installation was simple leaving all of the stock electronics in place. I ran her on my outdoor track that has had no spring maintenance done. Not a single derailment on much less than perfect track. I am a happy camper!

First trials handling a road train were run today. I started out with a train longer than I ever run to see how she would handle the grades. No problem getting 8 cars up the straight 3.5-4% climb to Wall…

Not only do I need to get it lettered, I need to build a travel carrier. No way I want to disconnect those tender plugs any more than needed for maintenance. And speaking of the tender connection, how the heck do you get the pin into the close couple hole on the draw bar? The draw bar slams into the brake hanger when trying to do so. I didn’t spend much time with it, but a quick attempt to get the draw bar to slide over the top of the brake hanger didn’t fly.

Glad you like it. A couple more hints.

The C-19 was designed to go around 5 ft diameter (R2) curves. In order to accomplish this design goal the two blind center drivers are raised by a spacer so that they just touch the rail. These drivers are fully sprung. By removing these spacers you can get all 4 drivers to put full pressure on the rails and a little more pulling power. To remove the spacers just remove the bottom plate and grind them off. Once removed the locomotive is restricted to 8 ft diameter (R3) track.

Connecting the close coupled connection is a pain. You can shorten the drawbar by cutting off the long hole which makes it easy. I rise the tender and lower the front of the front truck a little to get the drawbar in place.

Hope that helps.

Stan

#42

Good hint Stan. I will consider that once I’m comfortable with making mods to it. Just need to break off a few more details so it qualifies as Used.

#43

@Stan - I broke off more detail parts and put a few gouges in the paint by not watching clearances at Ken’s, so I am ready to do this mod. Do I hear you correctly that the spacers are cast into the bottom plate? If so, sounds like an easy must-do mod for me. I had lots of trouble pulling two AMS box cars (rolling brakes they are) up my grade with two flats, an empty 3-bay and a caboose (6 cars total). I am hoping this will add just enough traction to get the job done.

#44

Daktah John said:

@Stan - I broke off more detail parts and put a few gouges in the paint by not watching clearances at Ken’s, so I am ready to do this mod. Do I hear you correctly that the spacers are cast into the bottom plate? If so, sounds like an easy must-do mod for me. I had lots of trouble pulling two AMS box cars (rolling brakes they are) up my grade with two flats, an empty 3-bay and a caboose (6 cars total). I am hoping this will add just enough traction to get the job done.

John

Sorry you broke off some details at Ken’s. I am surprised you had clearance problems as Ken has both a C-19 and a K-27.

Yes when you remove the cover from under the drivers you will clearly see that the center two blind drivers are raised by a spacer on the cover. Grind then off and you will get a slight increase in pulling power.

To solve the problem on our railroad of Accucraft freight cars not rolling well, we installed ball bearing inserts and replaced the wheels. We also insured that all trucks had the L bracket that keeps the sideframes properly aligned. They now roll great.

Stan

#45

Jon,

One thing you will want to do if you haven’t done it already is to glue a K&S angle (1/8" will work) , across the square plastic piece on the pilot. this was the first thing I broke.

Al P.

#46

Thanks Stan.

At Ken’s I just assumed the loco would run all the way to the end of track at an ore bin. Ken never figured on anything other than a gondola being spotted here, so the chutes extend into the clearance at about loco window height. Caught a corner of the cab and snapped off one of the wing windows. First thing I broke was at home. The low hanging plastic steam / air lines (not sure which they are) caught on my grade crossing which is nearly flush to rail height between the rails and one snapped off.

@Al - I think I may have cracked that part taking it out of the box :o Good suggestion.

#47

I’m curious, how steep is the grade that this loco will only pull 6 cars?

Seems others are getting more pulling power?

Greg

#48

It’s very steep Greg. I’ve eased it as much as I can, but there is one wide curve that pushes over 4% - the most of the rest is over 3%.

It did much better with better rolling cars. I think I got a 7 hoppers, a combination of AMS and Bachmann up with no problem when the loco first arrived.

#49

Daktah John said:

It’s very steep Greg. I’ve eased it as much as I can, but there is one wide curve that pushes over 4% - the most of the rest is over 3%.

It did much better with better rolling cars. I think I got a 7 hoppers, a combination of AMS and Bachmann up with no problem when the loco first arrived.

Remember the prototype could only pull 2 or 3 cars on the 4% grade from Chama to Cumbres. Loaded cars often took 2 or 3 C class locomotives to make the grade.

Do check the problem cars for L brackets on the side frames. I recently got an Accucraft car that did not have them, without them the car is a brake. Some lubrication on the axles also helps.

With a 4% grade ball bearing inserts do help a great deal.

Stan

#50

With a 4% grade ball bearing inserts do help a great deal.

And just wait until it uncouples halfway up the hill!

#51

Pete Thornton said:

With a 4% grade ball bearing inserts do help a great deal.

And just wait until it uncouples halfway up the hill!

Been there, done that. Have the T-Shirt and got pictures…

How Coal Dump Curve got it’s name. This was the initial alignment and grade. MUCH steeper after the curve - probably close to or even over 6%

EDIT to add - On the new alignment, a run-away from the summit will round this curve and get half way around the indoor loop before stopping on it’s own.

#52

After everybody left when the Ops session was over, I ran a sweeper train and had about 15 cars behind and in front of the C-19. Picked up every car from Porter, Hesperus and Mancos, just to see what it would handle. It struggled a bit pushing them into the shed, as that has a bit of a grade, but a 5 finger helper was there to assist. Stan had mentioned that mod about the 2 blind drivers when I was at his house last year, but so far I haven’t seen the need to do it. I’ve been a little reluctant to do it since I take this engine to run on other layouts besides mine and I’m not sure about all the curves.

#53

Maybe I just need to change the operation a bit - for trains over 4 cars a helper will be required. If I run the Shay as a helper on the rear I can probably get 10 cars up the hill. The train would need to be split to run the wye as one tail is only accommodates 5 cars. On the plus side, that arrangement would allow working the industries at Indian Hill Junction without running around the wye first.

I just need to upgrade the RailBoss card in the Shay to a newer one so I can run two engines independently from the same radio.

EDIT to add: I tested them double heading tonight. Nearly perfect speed and stick position match. With the board I currently have in the Shay I can’t control the C-19 independently when the Shay is powered up, but I can put the C-19 processor off-line from the transmitter and control the Shay independently. The more I think about it, that situation might be more desirable than full independent control as when the Shay is powered up and the C-19 is on-line they both respond together to throttle and direction changes.

#54

Daktah John said:

Can we rebuild them? Have we the technology?

#55

Theoretically, the tractive effort of the locomotive has nothing to do with the number of wheels in contact with the rails. The equation for steam locomotive tractive effort takes into consideration boiler pressure, cylinder diameter, stroke, and wheel diameter, but not the number of drivers. Likewise, the advantage of 3-axle diesel trucks isn’t better traction, but spreading the weight of the locomotive out over more points, so it’s easier on the track.

I can’t speak to the drivers on others’ C-19s, but I’ve not done any modification to mine. My middle drivers are quite firmly on the rails bearing their share of the weight of the locomotive. The spacers keep the drivers from dropping below the railhead, but do not suspend it above it, as is common on un-sprung chassis like the Bachmann 4-6-0 and my Roundhouse live steam 2-6-0. There’s just a bit more springing on the front and rear axles such that they can rise up farther in the frame than the middle two drivers.

I’ve not had the opportunity to run my C-19 anywhere that has significant grades (>3%), so I can’t make any claims to its pulling power as opposed to other locos in that environment. The drawbar pull of mine is pretty significant, though, so comparing it to other locos which I have run on steep grades, I’d not expect there to be any concerns.

Later,

K

#56

Thanks Kevin. Try slipping a sheet of paper between the rail head and the blind driver. Mine look like they are touching, but the paper test proves they are not. I’m sure there are situations in vertical curves where they will contact the rail.