John, Something about great minds!
I'm getting ready to sell mine. I only put a Digitrax 123 in the engine
directly under the motor. In this way I only need one wire back to the
rear light. I did put some weight in the firebox and probably some in
the boiler, but that was some time ago. I have the UP version with the
rigid trailing truck. When I received the engine only one driver
actually touched the rails. The rear truck lifted the rear driver up,
so it could barely move itself.
The engine does fairly well on level track where it does okay with 5-6
cars I'm told. I will be selling it off mainly because the UP rid
themselves of those engines by the 30's from what I can tell. The old
style trailing truck and slide valves don't help on my 45-59 time span.
Second is obviously the pulling power on grades as you noted. I've been
happy with the smooth running of the engine in general.
Bob
On 7/27/11 10:18 AM, vito4cal wrote:
>
>
>
> Bob:
>
> I know we have discussed this before, but I am glad you posted the
> reminder. I find that the key is consistency - doing something every
> day even if it is only 15 minutes during a break between family stuff
> and/or "honey do" chores.
>
> I too have been working on my SWM 4-4-2 since the convention. It was
> supposed to be ready for the show, but I could not get the decoders
> installed in time. As you know, these engines are notoriously weak
> pullers. Despite the limitations of the engine (only 2 sets of
> drivers), I have significantly increased the pulling power by stuffing
> a pound of lead weight into the engine and balancing the weight over
> the drivers. I have also reduced the weight in the tender by 1/2. This
> engine can now pull 3 SWM brass Harriman cars up the grade on Ed L's
> layout (I think they are 1.75% IIRC). When I first acquired the
> engine, it could only handle one brass car.
>
> However, the drawback was that I had to put the two decoders (Zimo
> motor/Tsunami sound) and two the capacitors (one "stay alive" cap for
> each decoder) in the tender which resulted in two four-wire harnesses
> between the engine and tender. I wish I did not have to run so many
> wires between the units, but (1) I had no room for a decoder in the
> engine after stuffing (and I mean stuffing) the weight into the nooks
> and crannys, (2) I prefer my speaker mounted in the steam chest, and
> (3) I converted the engine to all-wheel power pickup.
>
> It was quite a task and took several of those 15-minute time slots
> between life events to plan and install the components, but I am very
> happy with the end result.
>
> Cheers,
>
> John Gibson
> Rocklin, CA
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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