Chuck

I've tried that "fix" on numerous USA loco's and to be quite frank about it I wasn't impressed. Since the plastic can't expand when the axle is pressed back it has to shear the id of the hole. Usually that shearing effect happens only to one side which ends up throwing the whole axle/ wheel assembly off center which makes for bobbing or swaying from side to side drive block. Yes it works and will "fix" a cracked gear assembly but IMHO it's only a temporary fix until the proper replacement parts can be obtained. If the gears are in new loco's then USA will send replacement parts for free. If buying from the used market then just have to figure on replacing the gears and add it onto the purchase price. USA is well aware of the problem but just like any other problem with there products they ignore it. I quit buying USA Trains because of this. When the S4 was introduced USA Trains held off shipping them until all the drives were checked and any or all gears replaced. All USA would have to do is change the way the gears are made. Instead of using cheap injection molded gears use machinable engineering grade plastic and machine the gears. Or re-design the drives and use metal gears. Insulate the wheels from the axle then use all metal gears but that would screw up the electric flow from the axles to the side frames. In other words USA Trains has a crappy drive block design period and it seems that Chucky refuses to acknowledge it. As long as he's making a ton of $$$ by selling replacement parts at extortion prices he's happy..good for him. Like Mike Wolf of MTH said years ago.."Why use cheap plastic gears when metal ones only cost a few cents more?" (at the manufacturing level).

Well I wonder why 3985 has been sitting for the last 2 years instead of being out on mainline steam where it should have been? Maybe it's because of a certain ego that doesn't want to use the Steve Lee Challenger and/ or there is nobody left to do the repairs that it needs?? I think that it's both but I hope that I'm wrong. I know of folks in the inner circle with regards to steam and they're betting on whether or not the blinged out (sic) 844 steams this year. As of today there is no 2014 schedule posted for 844 http://www.up.com/aboutup/special_trains/steam/details.shtml

Wow!! That loco did take a severe beating! I doubt that even the real one that was laid over on it's side in a wreck was broke as bad as yours!

Here's the Lionel GP7/ 9 single motor drive

I seen one MDC Lackawanna hopper and that was it. Smooth side offset style that was painted grey and he had the later style Roundhouse box for it. Was at our local monthly trainshow running on a display layout. I asked the young guy that was running the display about it and he said it was his dad's and he was somewhere at the show. Kid wouldn't put a price on it and said his dad would be upset if he sold it. I should have offered the kid $100.00 for it as I've never seen one since. Jerry, You have his email addy handy as I lost it last year when my hard drive crashed?

Not as expensive as building a prototype 1:29 scale scale Dreyfuss then canceling all the pre-orders (if any) a year later.

Damn fine looking locomotives! I'd say you have the everything right as that Brunswick Green is a tough color to photograph!

These American Class High Level Switchstands look pretty cool esp. the lit ones..and at a reasonable price!! Crossing gates look nice as well http://www.sbsignal.com/Large_Scale.html

Jerry, Right as I've meet the owner at the local monthly trainshow. I sold him some of the ribbed hopper bodies as he was in short supply a few years back but now it seems that they're out of business? My bookmark for mainlineamerica.com is dead and a Google search brings up nothing. He is selling some MDC parts under the highrail_engineer1 name on eBay and I've sent him emails but I never get a reply. Now 2 years ago he claimed to have gotten the old MDC molds out of Hungary and that they were in Indiana but I think that was just wishful thinking. It's too bad if he did go under as he had some 1:32 locomotive molds he was working on as he had a machine shop that did the tool & die work. Last year I was speaking with him about possibly making a extrusion mold for 1:32 bi-level passenger cars out of aluminum...the cars that Amtrak and some commuter lines use. Would have been all USA Made cars.

Jerry, I'll keep you in mind but right now my stock on them is low...and to think at one time I had 132 of them

Oh I know and Trainland has some good prices on them right now but I'm looking for the older Made in America MDC as I'm putting together a long all USA Made train.

Joe, You got lucky catching where the Allegheny was shorting esp. with it being a O Scale die-cast metal locomotive. I mean the O Gauge manufacturers like using the body itself for the negative/ ground return. All it would have taken to blow the PS2 boards was the engine shorting on the positive rail unless of course all the wiring had been isolated from the body. That's what I don't like about all metal loco's being made of brass or die-cast...the potential for unseen shorts such as a swinging lead or trailing truck where a wheel can touch something or a brake shoe too close to a wheel that will rub when conditions are right like a high spot on the rail or bouncing thru a switch. I'll take a plastic loco any day.

Thanks Ray as I do try and make things look like factory...sometimes I get way too anal though! The bit I used is one of those Dremel burrs...this one I like as it has "teeth" on the end so you can come straight down and use it like a end mill/

I sometimes think that AML is acting like Aristo-Craft did, That is announce something and build anticipation then a year or so later cancel the idea with some bogus claim like we couldn't figure out how to package the thing for safe cost effective shipping to our customers. From what I've seen anything MTH catalogs in One Gauge does get produced...They may drop some paint schemes but the thing is made. Hey, 2014 is the MTH One Gauge Big Boy birthday as it was originally cataloged in 2004 I think we should start a letter writing campaign to MTH asking them to make a 1:32 Dreyfuss Hudson in the 2-tone grey paint scheme w/ the thin blue lines...and the matching passenger cars!

Oh, the cam/ microswitch is what tells the prime mover sounds to ramp up or down as the RailSounds are pre-TMCC era. The later engines are TMCC ready as they're setup to plug in all components...but I've never seen one of those.

I'm always looking for old MDC 2-Bay coal hoppers to buy esp. the Lackawanna version. Also looking for old MDC boxcars & reefers.

The GP20 uses a 2 motor drive but the GP9 uses a single motor with a o-ring going from the powered axle to the dead one. Why they did that is beyond me as they're both basically the same engine Here's the GP20 drive....

Few years back I could find Lionel Large Scale parts esp. for the engines conveniently enough on the Lionel website, But when they updated their site I can't find the parts anymore...and they used to have a real good supply of them Lionel does have the parts lists still available online which is nice! Brassuer Electric Trains located in Michigan is showing some stock..which is a good thing http://www.brasseurelectrictrains.com/service/gscale/lionel.asp If anybody knows where else to find Lionel Large Scale Parts please list them!!

Well at least they're coming! When I sell MTH One-Gauge stuff on eBay it's amazing the emails I receive that state MTH is out of the One-Gauge business. So many folks out there just don't have a clue as to what's really going on.

Okay as here's the new brushes installed on the bottom covers...even though they're mounted with a screw I used some hot glue to help keep them positioned, even though it won't really help as the glue doesn't really stick to die-cast. More pics... And here I'm testing the rear engine with it's new power pickups I also have completely isolated any electrical boards & speakers from the chassis by using plastic washers under them. I also installed plastic tophat bushings in the drawbar to electrically isolate the tender from the engine. Another modification I did was to remove the stock 6 wire electrical tether from the tender to the engine and install a custom Molex 12 wire tether..but that's a whole 'nother topic!

I never had any problems with those breaking but if the engine is rolled over and once up-righted the front square driveshaft will slip apart because the front engine assembly swung on way or another too far. I always remove the boiler top before working on it as makes it easier to handle esp. when it's upside down. Joe, That's very interesting that a O Scale Allegheny has the same problem..and that we came up with the same fix! Those kind of electrical shorts will drive you crazy trying to locate them because they're so intermittent.

Wow! What a mess with Ro, UPS & insurance!! That Big Boy in the pic sure looks nice though I've heard other horror stories about Ro's so called service...or lack of.