0.87

i think you've been unlucky. I have three of these (different numbers), all bought for less than half the RRP as imperfect returns from Bachmann's stand at various shows, and they run really well. Mind you, I think the returns did get checked before they went back on sale and the "faults" were minor cosmetic ones. In one case the packaging must have rubbed a tiny bit of the paint off one of the domes' Easily fixed with a black marker f I can actually find the fault. 

Here is 1-140C6 shunting the winery's private siding

I know what you mean about small easily broken details. My least favourite job (with rollng stock fitred with NEM pockets in general)  is removing the oriignal couplers to fit Kadees. It always feels like trying to remove a bee sting without killing the bee. My other steam power for my current layout is a (new) Piko 040B from whatever they called their basic/junior/railroad range and it's a perfectly good scale model but a bit less detailed so I'm happy to use it for ordinary operating sessions. I do sometimes wonder whether scratchbuilding with brass would actually make operating less stressful.

Here are 140C6 and 040B315 together on the layout and I'm not that conscious of the ex Prussian G7's lack of detail.

I've long felt that there was something a bit fishy about the ALVF (Heavy Railway Artillery) orders built by North British as  don't think any of them were ever actually used to pull heavy rail guns around. The "official" explanation was that they wanted to avoid steam locos near the front giving their position away but by 1917 they'd have known that. Given that they were promptly "loaned" to thethen still  private mainline railway companies who were hauling a lot of extra goods for the war effort, I suspect that this may have been a way for the goverment to supply additiional motive power to private railway companies without actually breaking any rules.    

 

Edited April 23, 2019 by Pacific231G

Thanks! Well, it was second hand -- but not dirty or showing any sign of wear. Glad to think that my experience doesn't represent the normal standard.

Mine were new but haven't done that much work yet (my layout is quite small) so I hope your experience doesn't represent my future !  Perhaps you just got a "Friday afternoon" example

These were the last operational main-line steam engines in France, being operated on secondary lines near Dijon until 1975; SNCF hired them to one of the quasi-private operators. They were based at Gray, which is now part of the Eurotunnel empire.

I'm a lot happier with the running now than I was. As I mentioned, I'm really looking at how well it pulls away and runs at slow speed, because I want to play with it rather than just watch it run. Once travelling at line speed there has been no problem since the contact issue for the driving axles was solved.

 

This is tempting: ESU's LokSound for the 140.C. Pip pip!

Here it is, still incomplete, on the turntable at Neuhausen after the running session at today's UK FREMO group meeting. Note hand of God breathing life into the brewery in the background. A budget Zimo chip is now in the tender so it can run on FREMO arrangements which are I think exclusively DCC. I wonder if the loco had never run before I got it, as about three hours of test track circuits recently seem to have helped it become a smoother runner. The chip (added just a few days ago) rounds this off.

 

By the way there's a newly-published French-language publication on the 140 C from Le Train, with the descriptive title 'Les 140 C', and I was lucky to be able to pick up a copy at the French Railways Society Winter Rendezvous earlier this month. It has lots of good pictures (some colour) along with a pretty comprehensive description of the lives and times of these locos.

 

Ben

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by readingtype

I thought I would push the wheel question further and sent 140.C.6 to Holger Gräler in Germany. Holger has previously worked wonders with the wheels on my Roco ÖBB Reihe 93, by replacing the tyres and retaining the original wheel centres and rims. The Reihe 93 has plastic wheel centres. The 140.C has cast metal wheels and these have come back looking absolutely super. The carrying wheels and tender wheels are new.

 

I now have no reason not to investigate what can be done to tidy the model up -- for instance, the box under the cab is a Liliput invention that holds the tender drawbar and at least one modeller has found a way to do without it. The electrical connection also needs thought. The space beneath the frames under the cab should be basically clear.

 

3 hours ago, readingtype said:

I thought I would push the wheel question further and sent 140.C.6 to Holger Gräler in Germany. Holger has previously worked wonders with the wheels on my Roco ÖBB Reihe 93, by replacing the tyres and retaining the original wheel centres and rims. The Reihe 93 has plastic wheel centres. The 140.C has cast metal wheels and these have come back looking absolutely super. The carrying wheels and tender wheels are new.

 

I now have no reason not to investigate what can be done to tidy the model up -- for instance, the box under the cab is a Liliput invention that holds the tender drawbar and at least one modeller has found a way to do without it. The electrical connection also needs thought. The space beneath the frames under the cab should be basically clear.

 

I'd be interested to know more about Holger Gräler. A driving wheels has just fallen off the axle of one of my Jouef (Champagnole) 141Ps and it was fine when I cleaned and tested it a year or so ago. I think the plastic bush may have perished.

4 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I'd be interested to know more about Holger Gräler. A driving wheels has just fallen off the axle of one of my Jouef (Champagnole) 141Ps

 

@Pacific231G Sorry to hear about that! I see from this Jouef Trains site that their model has a long and multi-part history. You will know better than I do what spare parts are available; I have forgotten the name of the French supplier who seems to have a lot of parts for older Jouef models (can't have been AMR 87?) but I did notice that Pierre Dominique seems to have swept up everything from the very back of their storeroom and put it online -- there are items there that must go back a good four decades...

 

I can't speak for what Holger, or someone equally competent, would choose to do but fixing issues with plastic parts, particularly stressed items like bushes, could be more difficult than for metal equivalents.

 

Holger's details are on the AW Lingen web site. I write to him in a gruesome parody of German and he manages to understand my requests ;-)

Many thanks Ben

Champagnole 141Ps are only worth about £70 at the moment and I have at least one other (I have far more locos than I need!)  The motor and pick ups are of course in the tender and that's fine. In fact I've just paired it with a tenderless 241P (they used the same tenders which had their own numbers) though the shed names don't match. It's odd though because it was fine when it last came out of its box. However 241Ps are a bit long for my proposed Les Minories Francaise (possibly an enlarged Saumur Etat) the extra inch over a Petit P (141P) or a 231K really does make a difference and the latter look a bit less silly at the head of a four coach rapide.

The non self-loading goods are likely to be handled mainly by Lilliput 140Cs and Roco 040DEs (currently masquerading as Ep IV BB 63000s)  and an 040B that's somehow wandered from the Est to Ouest/Sud Ouest