Garrett said:Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Nah, I thought by now you would have commented on the perceived quality of that butt ugly BR80. No such luck as that would concern trains, eh!?!Considering the review in Gartenbahn Profi and Garden Railways it would be interesting to know if the NA dealers will run these critters in i.e. to wear off all the black-finishing on the axles and remove all the surplus grease in the gear boxes … or just wait for the return of the frustrated customers.
HJ et al:Wasn’t the other theory (and one that reportedly corrected and improved the running) was excess oil/grease that leaked into the pickups? I remember reading this on another forum and MIBA (I think it was them or another German magazine’s website) and once removed, they ran much better. The ‘control’ to this experiment was that the 218 also has the blackened wheels without the running problem.
Garrett,
Actually there was too much grease in the gearboxes which then sort of insulated the wipers/pickups from the axles in the gearboxes (there are pictures of the “condition” on the Net somewhere). The running in period in order to get the black-finishing off the wheels applies to all their “G - wie Gummi” engines, the only mitigating factor being the number of trackshoe pickups on any given engine.
Not exactly what the family buyer will be looking for in a Christmas set that most likely runs under the tree and leaves a nice mess while running in.