Rumor has it that the top of the boiler between the tanks is the only bit of the boiler there. If the tanks come off, we’ll have to re-boiler the whole thing! 
Dang
What’s the diameter of the boiler? Maybe you can just replace it with some PVC pipe.
Now that it has been announced by the Phine Pholks that they are “shipping”, and at least one of the enthusiastic children happens to have a shop near enough to him where he can drive and pick his up, no matter what the drawings say, it’s a Meyer, not a Mallet.
How many safety valves, again?
Graham Ash said:Just dish it back!
I get too much **** on here mate - not worth it Graham
It seems the new Mallet? does not have Pitman motors after all.
The problem here is that the original poster suffers from a rather common malady prevalent on another site, called ego or is it simply bragging rights. A common viewpoint on another forum site is to regularly upstage another by firstly, posting a photograph of the original packaging that the item arrived in. Over a series of postings, the box is gradually unwrapped and the contents revealed to much oohing and aahing. The unwrapping and oohing and aahing extend over several pages of complete and utter c**p. There is very little actual modelling carried out, simply chest pumping. In the case of this poster, the recipient received a package early in the morning and rather than unwrap it, he posted to the world that he had received it, no doubt in a state of excitement at being one of the first to possibly take delivery. He took offence when other forum members goaded him a little about not posting photographs and then seemed to assume this intolerant tone through the thread on that site.
On this site he posted his obvious excitement and when pressed for photographs did not supply (possibly unaware of the posting procedure). When Brian did him a courtesy and posted his photographs, he seemingly took offence and then in his second last posting on page 1, he took a cheap swipe at members (Quote: “The building of this loco - for those who seem hard of hearing - or cant read - these locos are built simply off plans.”) Anyone can read the blurb available on the B’mann site, so the cheap swipe is inexcusable. The section is called a ‘Review’ but in reality it seems that bragging rights were the motive. Is the hobby now little more than ego, bragging rights and teasing others because their wallet is thicker than others? I tire of the childish bragging rights behaviour on the other site and hope that it does not pervade this site. The original poster then decided to pack his bags and go home citing receiving too much ****** (whatever that is). Perhaps he needed a little oohing and aahing to calm things down. Honestly, if I purchased one of these, let alone two, I would not tell the world.
Back to the topic at hand–the boiler. I’m trying to recall exactly, but I believe the one I saw at the store the other day had a “floor” going across the entire width of the boiler and tanks. Again, I’m going from memory here, so I could be wrong, but I think there were slits in this floor, presumably where one would mount a speaker. I was looking more at how the two chassis were attached.
If that’s the case, then it doesn’t bode too well for simply removing the side tanks and having an exposed boiler. It will very likely require a length of PVC pipe. The good news is that you can then fix the rear chassis hard to the locomotive, and pivot the front one for proper “mallet” operation.
Later,
K
Kevin: That bears out to what I’ve heard as well. I’d realy like pictures, but I believe we will either have to re-boiler it with some tube, or skin it at least. Bummer
When is Dave Goodson to receive the “Articulated Tank Engine”?
Has he received it yet ?
Has it been “Gutted” and documented yet, as in a REAL review, by him yet ?
VERY nice review of the Mallet here: http://120pointme.blogspot.com/2009/01/bachmanns-1203-baldwin-2-6-6-2.html
I sure like the level of detail provided.
Excellent review! Very thorough, fair and informative.
Yup, though dismayed at what you may have to go through to replace the boiler. Sigh…
Tim Brien said:
The problem here is that the original poster suffers from a rather common malady prevalent on another site, called ego or is it simply bragging rights. A common viewpoint on another forum site is to regularly upstage another by firstly, posting a photograph of the original packaging that the item arrived in. Over a series of postings, the box is gradually unwrapped and the contents revealed to much oohing and aahing. The unwrapping and oohing and aahing extend over several pages of complete and utter c**p. There is very little actual modelling carried out, simply chest pumping. In the case of this poster, the recipient received a package early in the morning and rather than unwrap it, he posted to the world that he had received it, no doubt in a state of excitement at being one of the first to possibly take delivery. He took offence when other forum members goaded him a little about not posting photographs and then seemed to assume this intolerant tone through the thread on that site.On this site he posted his obvious excitement and when pressed for photographs did not supply (possibly unaware of the posting procedure). When Brian did him a courtesy and posted his photographs, he seemingly took offence and then in his second last posting on page 1, he took a cheap swipe at members (Quote: “The building of this loco - for those who seem hard of hearing - or cant read - these locos are built simply off plans.”) Anyone can read the blurb available on the B’mann site, so the cheap swipe is inexcusable. The section is called a ‘Review’ but in reality it seems that bragging rights were the motive. Is the hobby now little more than ego, bragging rights and teasing others because their wallet is thicker than others? I tire of the childish bragging rights behaviour on the other site and hope that it does not pervade this site. The original poster then decided to pack his bags and go home citing receiving too much ****** (whatever that is). Perhaps he needed a little oohing and aahing to calm things down. Honestly, if I purchased one of these, let alone two, I would not tell the world.
I did send Graham a note that I pilfered his pics and posted them and mentioned there were some questions here. I’m not sure what he took offense at. While I agree with most of your comments about that site they are a nice bunch of lads. The puzzle page is fun too
- http://www.gscalemad.co.uk/G%20Scale%20Mad%20Puzzles.htm
-Brian
Brian,
yes, they are a very nice bunch of fellas, perhaps a little too nice. They fall all over each other, telling each other how nice their latest purchase is. I would like a more modelling orientation, rather than ‘What the postman just delivered.’ To me it seems that bragging rights are more important than just getting down and actually making something. They also seem to have a large number of juvenile members and some definate, diehard LGB fans. They also have some extremely talented geniuses as regards the application of electrics to model railways and solving problems related to live steam locomotives.
Well at an undisclosed location a few days ago I had a good look and a trial run with the new Bachman Mallet. So here are my personal neophite observations:
I liked it’s looks. I like logging railroads and it doesn’t bother me that this locomotive was never actually built in reality. I also don’t care that both trucks pivot so technically it’s not a Mallet. I think it would fit in just fine with my Bachman Shay and Climax. Some errors with the locomotive’s details were pointed out to me. In particular some areas have diamond plate where adjacent decking does not. Since there is no prototype you can’t really call it wrong but it sure looked strange. The odd stuff with the builder’s plate is kind of humerous I think but easily fixed.
The locomotive I ran was using RCS/batteries set up in a trail car. I was satisfied with it’s running at slow and typical speeds. I did not notice any wheel slipage despite running on a foggy night (damp track) on a grade where I have experienced problems in the past although with a heavier load. I did not have any clearance problems with this locomotive on the friends railroad I ran at other than not using one of the turntables due to the trail car.
The most disconcerting thing I noticed was the noise. I am admittedly not an expert in the mechanics or electronics of model trains but it just sounded like something was wrong to me. The locomotive made a gear grinding/ rattling kind of noise that if it had been one of my own locomotives I would have stopped and tried to repair before damage could occur. Some of the other people present didn’t think it was so bad, others did.
The headlights were of the LED type. This run was done at night and I do not like them at all. If it were mine I’d change them to incandecent. They were not bright enough and had an annoying blue cast.
Later the locomotive’s boiler was removed by an undisclosed person for a brief critque. The boiler and side tanks are one piece so kitbashing will require a entire boiler to be fabricated and likely extensive modifications to the frame as there is a very large hole for a speaker that was covered by the side tanks. This does not bother me either. I think it is kind of silly to expect manufactorer’s to engineer their products with kitbashing in mind. There was some coment about the boiler/side tank part being somewhat flimsy. It certainly is not as robust as other similar parts on other Bachman locos I’ve seen. I noticed that there is not enough room for batteries with the supplied electronic boards in place. Odd for a locomotive this size.
In short if it was mine I’d be really concerned about the mechanics of it holding up. I have never heard a locomotive sound like that before. I’d think about having a pro do any sound and battery/rc conversion. I thought this universal socket was supposed to make it easier?! Plug and Play? If I were seriously thinking of purchasing this locomotive I would wait to see how things shake out. Even at it’s current internet price it’s still out of my range but if I could I would want to let someone else do the testing.
So these are my personal observations. If I have offended anyone, sorry I have no ax to grind with anyone. Someone was nice enough to let me take it for a spin, I did and this is what I noticed. Hopefully this is helpfull to someone.
John
Good comments, John. Thanks for the report.
-Brian
Not much going on here for a while, I guess the review on 1/20.me must have put a lot of folks off on this critter. I recently bought one with thoughts of mayhem on my mind. I can only repeat the comments about loose hardware, it abounds everywhere. Almost all of the crank pin screws were loose and if left unattended would have fallen out along the right of way. The one I got would have failed almost immediately as the two screws that secure the front motor to the motor mount had completely fallen out and were inside the gear box. This required way more dis-assembly than most modelers would have wanted to under take and though one was readily apparent the second was stuck in grease and took considerable effort to find. To their credit Bachmann does provide instructions on how to remove the superstructure and exploded assembly diagrams that eliminated a lot of guess work. Greasing the gears would not be an easy task on this engine. Since my intentions for this locomotive lie in its underpinnings I went a bit further than just removing the superstructure. I have not run mine yet but will probably run the engines separately first on a set of rollers to check for other problems before pairing them up. I found it interesting that both engine sets included sound cams. I also notice that the makers of sound systems include sounds that duplicate the dual sets of exhaust beats going in and out of sync. While this might be correct for simple articulateds I do not believe that one would hear an exhaust beat from the rear engine as its exhaust goes to the the front engine and not up the stack. Beats would only be heard from the front engine. It has been a while since I witnessed a Mallet run in person so I could be wrong but I don’t think so. As to the issue of the eccentrics mine came with two forward and two to the rear. While it appears that most logging Mallets built for domestic use had the eccentrics facing forward there are always exceptions to the rule. I may be wrong but it seems to me that the direction they faced depended on the type of valves used, i.e. inside or outside emission. On standard locomotives they can be found facing either forward or back. To further muddy this issue this photo and data sheet for a 3’ Mallet sold to a Cuban sugar company clearly shows the eccentrics facing one way on the front engine and the other on the rear engine. While I’m sure Bachmann wanted to stay with a logging theme with the locomotive I think many modelers dislike tank style Mallets and would have been happier had Bachmann duplicated the Manati Sugar Company locomotive.
(http://www.lscdata.com/users/gary_buchanan/2662_Manati.JPG)
The Little River Railroad was all standard gauge and purchased two 2-4-4-2 Mallets. The first #126 did not handle the curves in what is now Smokey Mountain National Park, and was returned to Baldwin. #126 was resold to West Coast logging operations and at one point named Skookum. Parts of 129 are lying around, rusting I think somewhere in Washington State. The second engine #148 was very successful but scrapped in the late 1930s.
If would be nice for some manufacturer to actually model one of these locomotives to scale.
Pictures of both locomotives are available on the Little River Museum website.
Gary.
It is nice to know that the one I had through here was not the only one with loose motor mounting screws.
My customer was horrified when the motor came loose as I was demonstrating it for him.
Very embarrassing.
I managed to get it disassembled, repaired and reassembled in about 20 minutes whilst he waited.
That was the same loco that had a bent crankpin boss that Bachmann kindly replaced.
Mt Rainer SRR has the 126 at their shops…