I picked up my new Accucraft Southern Pacific 2-10-2 loco Thursday
afternoon at the Train Shop. There were minor items I noticed while
unpacking the loco from its typical Accucraft cocoon of tissue, plastic
sheet, strapping tape and foam.
The bell was loose in the packing and a few of the more delicate details
had been bent a little. A bit of adhesive took care of the bell and
some delicate work with a fine pliers straightened out the bent bits.
The tender has ball bearing wheels, a nice feature, since the tender is
quite heavy even without water and has six axles.
The pressure gauge fitting was just hand tight and the coil of copper
tube attached to the gauge needed some bending to avoid interference
with the Johnson Bar. The pressure gauge is only visible by opening the
cab roof - one can't view it from the outside otherwise.
As the most all 1/32 live steam locos, the backhead and cab is very
cramped and full of plumbing. The loco is equipped with the new style
of adjustable lubricator.
The gas supply, water supply and water return tubing between the tender
and loco all needed trimming to allow the loco and tender to couple
up. The connections are very close and really should be replaced with
quick-release fittings and rerouted to give more flexibility. The water
supply connection is particularly difficult, and in fact I wasn't able
to fully mate it up for the first run.
With no pressure in the boiler, I was still able to use the tender hand
pump to fill the boiler but found that the connection leaked profusely
when I tried to add water under pressure. Fortunately, that connection
is just an unpressurized supply for the axle pump while the engine is
running, so worked OK in that mode of operation.
After lighting off the dual burners, it appeared that one was being
starved for air, as it had a distinctly green color. Accucraft has
provided adjustable dampers on the burner air supply holes so a quick
adjustment evened out the two burners. Pressure came up in about 10
minutes and the single pop valve released at 65 psi. The cylinder drain
cocks made the first start easy, with no spitting up the stack.
I ran the loco light for about 10 minutes. With the throttle barely
open to keep speeds down, one noticed definite slowing in the one 10
foot radius curve on my layout, but very little on the 12 foot radius
curves. Throttle position sensitivity is much better (that is, much
less sensitive) than other Accucraft locos I own, as is the fuel valve
setting and no hysteresis in the valve seals, either.
I hooked up 14 cars for the remainder of the run - six brass and the
rest plastic, none with ball bearing axles. The loco had no problem
starting these out of the hole, but generated much louder stack talk and
smoother running, with little noticeable slowing in the 10 foot radius
curve.
The axle pump bypass needed to be almost completely closed to keep the
water level in the boiler up while running with a load and this loco
does need the tender supply for sure as it does boil a lot of water
quickly. Without the pump and tender supply, I think that runs would be
limited to about 15-20 minutes on boiler water capacity alone.
I ended the run after about 45 minutes as the temperature outside was
up to 95F. The manual claims runs of over an hour with one fill of
butane, which I can believe, given the significant fuel load.
All and all, a very satisfactory debut. Accucraft keeps improving their
technology and quality with every new model.
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