The new V2 ep

[60027Merlin]

It was with some trepidation, bearing in mind the adverse comments it has attracted, that I collected the Bachmann V2 in B.R. green (60847) early today.

 

This afternoon I had a chance to run it round the layout and have a closer look at it.

 

Whilst I still have to run it in, it was a smooth and steady runner. The green finish looks fine and when looking at the points highlighted in the last month find that the raised bands on each side of the spectacle plate are not too bad and could with care be scraped down a bit if required. It would seem that the close up photos with a digital camera emphasises fittings making them look bigger than they are, perhaps a subjective judgement? As for the smokebox door, that definitely requires to be chamfered down as per the way shown by Tim in Gilbert’s Peterborough North section.

 

Similar to the Bachmann Director the rear cab window on each side can be knocked out (carefully!) to make it more like the real thing.

 

The real negative point though is the new drawbar set-up. The eyesore of a thick chunk of plastic drawbar detracts from the model’s looks, Being subjective again, the gap between the cab and tender is too much. The previous arrangement with a basic metal plate with two holes offering the choice of closer coupling had far more common sense. As it is a super detailed model then a realistic gap option should be available. The one size fits all approach is beyond comprehension and it is difficult to understand Bachmann’s thinking, The Hornby style with a separate plug fitting for the pickup wire is far superior begging the question, why change something that works.

 

I used the fitting supplied to uncouple the loco from the tender as per the instructions and then put the loco on the track, turned on the power and away it went! So, as quite a few of my locos run with pickups from the loco only, then it will be another job to make up a wire hook and bar for the cab rear and tender and do away with this large piece of plastic for greater realism.

 

All in all it is a good model now with the correct shape and with a few alterations will make it look even better.

[Chas Levin]

My 4791 arrived yesterday and I can confirm it's a lovely smooth runner... though out of the box, the middle tender wheelset had popped out of one side and the crosshead had slipped off the slidebar on one side, preventing any running at all until it was rectified.

Lovely looking model, but it's difficult to see how either fault could have occurred in transit, after the loco had been enclosed in what is undoubtedly extremely well designed packaging, which perhaps suggests poor assembly or packing.

While I don't like to criticise - times are tough for lots of companies all over the world - should the motion or wheelsets be quite so easily dislodged and rendered inoperable on a loco of this price?

It's only the second RTR loco I've bought in several years: the last one was the Bachmann J72, which I had to send back because of smudged printing of the red lining - not subtle, easily missed smudging, but the sort you could see through the plastic, without even opening the box.

Well, there we are. I may just have been unlucky of course, buying RTR comparatively rarely: statistically these occurrences may be very rare. I spend most of my modelling time building kits these days and only buy the occasional RTR for fun, so I don't mind too much.

I'm certainly envious of the very crisp lining, somewhat neater than my own attempts!

[31A]

4 hours ago, 60027Merlin said:

It was with some trepidation, bearing in mind the adverse comments it has attracted, that I collected the Bachmann V2 in B.R. green (60847) early today.

 

This afternoon I had a chance to run it round the layout and have a closer look at it.

 

Whilst I still have to run it in, it was a smooth and steady runner. The green finish looks fine and when looking at the points highlighted in the last month find that the raised bands on each side of the spectacle plate are not too bad and could with care be scraped down a bit if required. It would seem that the close up photos with a digital camera emphasises fittings making them look bigger than they are, perhaps a subjective judgement? As for the smokebox door, that definitely requires to be chamfered down as per the way shown by Tim in Gilbert’s Peterborough North section.

 

Similar to the Bachmann Director the rear cab window on each side can be knocked out (carefully!) to make it more like the real thing.

 

The real negative point though is the new drawbar set-up. The eyesore of a thick chunk of plastic drawbar detracts from the model’s looks, Being subjective again, the gap between the cab and tender is too much. The previous arrangement with a basic metal plate with two holes offering the choice of closer coupling had far more common sense. As it is a super detailed model then a realistic gap option should be available. The one size fits all approach is beyond comprehension and it is difficult to understand Bachmann’s thinking, The Hornby style with a separate plug fitting for the pickup wire is far superior begging the question, why change something that works.

 

I used the fitting supplied to uncouple the loco from the tender as per the instructions and then put the loco on the track, turned on the power and away it went! So, as quite a few of my locos run with pickups from the loco only, then it will be another job to make up a wire hook and bar for the cab rear and tender and do away with this large piece of plastic for greater realism.

 

All in all it is a good model now with the correct shape and with a few alterations will make it look even better.

 

Completely agree with all of that!  I've been fitting the 'extra bits' to mine today, but have not fitted the nameplates yet as I haven't decided whether or not to renumber it.

 

I found it easy to uncouple the loco and tender, but more difficult to couple them up again.  The coupling arrangement is certainly obtrusive.  Plus, I have also noted the 'crabbing' tendency of the tender when the drawbar fails to re-centre itself when pulling a train, as was mentioned further up thread.  Closer coupling would also work on my layout, but I would want to retain the tender pickups.  I'm thinking of a solution.

 

I'm not sure whether I'd be brave enough to attack the smokebox door, although it's a pity it hasn't been done a bit better.

 

But on the whole, I think it's an excellent model and am very pleased with it.  Wrestling with my conscience as to whether I should splash out on a second one!

 

[CrazyRS]

Has anyone devised a plan to rid there V2 of the horrid drawbar yet?

[Nimbus]

On 26/12/2021 at 07:52, 45568 said:

I always hoped Hornby would follow-up the B17 and B1 with a V2; even now, assuming they could get a correct BR green, I still think a Hornby V2 would be superb.

 

And since there exists a Meccano engineering drawing of a V2 bodyshell, which never made it to production, Hornby could claim "it's always been one of ours".

 

The Nim.

[Dominion]

On 23/01/2022 at 18:19, CrazyRS said:

Has anyone devised a plan to rid there V2 of the horrid drawbar yet?

Not the drawbar, but I have got rid of the crabbing.

The white part in the attached photo is a piece of evergreen strip.

6.2mm wide, 0.4 thick and about 13.5 mm long.

It is just inserted between the front of the tender draw bar and the tip of the petal shaped 2 lobe hole at the front of the tender chassis.

It has the effect of making a flat bearing face for the tender draw bar, so load does not create any tendency to pull left or right. 

So far it has stayed in place nicely with no fixing mechanism, just a snug fit.

The bottom edge is sitting just above the forward projection of the draw bar.

I inserted it with tweezers from the top as I had the top plate off anyway.

There is a fine spring in there which I have not bothered to reinsert as the plastic strip is holding the draw bar to back of its travel anyway.

The loco just pulled 10 Bachmann and Hornby lit Pullmans with no crabbing.

Tom

PS 0.75mm was too thick. 0.5mm might work but I didn't have any in stock.

Also it may be possible to insert it from the underside without disassembly though I have not tried that yet.

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Dominion
Adding back photos

[Dominion]

I tried inserting the new plastic flat "anti-crabbing" bearing face without disassembly, and I could not manage it.

I had to remove the cover plate to insert it. Reassembly was not difficult though.

You can see the spring wire that the Bachmann mechanism relies on as designed.

It is very fine.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Dominion
Adding back photo

[The Black Hat]

On 23/01/2022 at 23:19, CrazyRS said:

Has anyone devised a plan to rid there V2 of the horrid drawbar yet?

Quick question - how many of those thinking of getting rid of the 'horrid drawbar' are running on analogue.... ?

I think the answer for that will be everyone, where as digital modellers will readily accept it and like the extra ability for sound in tender. 

[The Black Hat]

On 23/01/2022 at 23:19, CrazyRS said:

Has anyone devised a plan to rid there V2 of the horrid drawbar yet?

Quick question - how many of those thinking of getting rid of the 'horrid drawbar' are running on analogue.... ?

I think the answer for that will be everyone, where as digital modellers will readily accept it and like the extra ability for sound in tender. 

[31A]

On 23/01/2022 at 23:19, CrazyRS said:

Has anyone devised a plan to rid there V2 of the horrid drawbar yet?

 

I have!

 

Not for the faint hearted, or not the way I did it anyway.

 

Basically, I cut two plates from 10 thou sheet brass approximately 25mm x 9mm, with holes drilled in two corners to fit beneath the retaining screws under the cab, and under the front of the tender.  Then made a drawbar from a piece of brass etch scrap; I think it was a bit thicker than 10 thou, but not important.  Made holes in the plates for pivot bolts and soldered 10 BA nuts above these holes.  The pivot bolts are 10 BA bolts with a washer and a slice of tube soldered to them.  So far so good.

 

 

 

The drag beam beneath the cab has a slot in it which the drawbar of the real loco would pass through and I hoped to use this for the new drawbar.  Obviously I had to remove the close coupling system.  The one on the tender was easy enough (see @Dominion pictures above) but the one under the cab has a cover plate which is attached by screws which are under the can floor.  I couldn't reach these screws so I demolished the close coupling drawbar with Xuron cutters!  If the drawbar is to pass through the slot in the drag beam, the pivot bolts have to be on the top side of the plates and hence unreachable once everything is in place.  I had to cut a notch in the tender drag beam to accommodate the new drawbar.

 

I did some running trials at this point.  Initially all good, but there was binding on the sharpest curves.  I found the cab doors (on the tender) were fouling the edges of the cab, so I took about 1mm off their edges.  It also seemed that the fall plate was binding on the handbrake and water scoop stanchions on the tender footplate, so I trimmed some metal off the fall plate.  But mainly the binding was because the drawbar needed to swing more than I'd expected and slot in the loco drag beam was too small, so I had to extend it to either side, in fact into the other slots which exist on either side of it.

 

If I hadn't tried to fit the drawbar through this slot, but underneath the drag beams (as is often the case with model locos) things would have been a lot easier!

 

I wanted to keep the tender pickups but didn't want to risk soldering in that area of the tender, so I ran new wires from the PCB on the loco and terminated them in slams washers.  These are then clamped to the tender pickups by small self tapping screws, tapped into holes drilled through them into the plastic tender floor.  They have to be small as they mustn't be able to cause a short circuit by coming into contact with the weight block above the floor!  One is painted red to identify which pickup it goes to.  These wires have to pass from the PCB beneath the cab floor by passing through the space previously occupied by the close coupling arm, so you have to get this out somehow, by brute force and ignorance!  The wires then pass through the same slot in the loco drag beam as the drawbar.

 

 

 

Anyway after all that, all is now well.  As well as getting rid of the plastic lump, I was able to reduce the gap between loco and tender to 4mm, which is normal on my layout and will go round the sharpest curves (Peco Code 75 Double Slips).  If I was to do it again I would probably fit the drawbar lower down, which would save a lot of bother.  And also do it before I'd fitted the additional bits from the bits bag!

 

 

 

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by 31A
Just spotted a couple of typos!

[31A]

1 hour ago, The Black Hat said:

Quick question - how many of those thinking of getting rid of the 'horrid drawbar' are running on analogue.... ?

I think the answer for that will be everyone, where as digital modellers will readily accept it and like the extra ability for sound in tender. 

 

Well I use analogue, but that doesn't make any difference - there is no DCC equipment in the tender at all, all the drawbar does is pass the current from the tender pickups to the PCB on the loco - only two of the connector's pins are wired up.

[The Black Hat]

42 minutes ago, 31A said:

 

Well I use analogue, but that doesn't make any difference - there is no DCC equipment in the tender at all, all the drawbar does is pass the current from the tender pickups to the PCB on the loco - only two of the connector's pins are wired up.

 

Does the sound model not have the speaker in the tender?

[Dominion]

The speaker is in the loco, as is the decoder and socket. 

[davidw]

13 hours ago, 31A said:

 

I have!

 

Not for the faint hearted, or not the way I did it anyway.

 

Basically, I cut two plates from 10 thou sheet brass approximately 25mm x 9mm, with holes drilled in two corners to fit beneath the retaining screws under the cab, and under the front of the tender.  Then made a drawbar from a piece of brass etch scrap; I think it was a bit thicker than 10 thou, but not important.  Made holes in the plates for pivot bolts and soldered 10 BA nuts above these holes.  The pivot bolts are 10 BA bolts with a washer and a slice of tube soldered to them.  So far so good.

 

 

 

The drag beam beneath the cab has a slot in it which the drawbar of the real loco would pass through and I hoped to use this for the new drawbar.  Obviously I had to remove the close coupling system.  The one on the tender was easy enough (see @Dominion pictures above) but the one under the cab has a cover plate which is attached by screws which are under the can floor.  I couldn't reach these screws so I demolished the close coupling drawbar with Xuron cutters!  If the drawbar is to pass through the slot in the drag beam, the pivot bolts have to be on the top side of the plates and hence unreachable once everything is in place.  I had to cut a notch in the tender drag beam to accommodate the new drawbar.

 

I did some running trials at this point.  Initially all good, but there was binding on the sharpest curves.  I found the cab doors (on the tender) were fouling the edges of the cab, so I took about 1mm off their edges.  It also seemed that the fall plate was binding on the handbrake and water scoop stanchions on the tender footplate, so I trimmed some metal off the fall plate.  But mainly the binding was because the drawbar needed to swing more than I'd expected and slot in the loco drag beam was too small, so I had to extend it to either side, in fact into the other slots which exist on either side of it.

 

If I hadn't tried to fit the drawbar through this slot, but underneath the drag beams (as is often the case with model locos) things would have been a lot easier!

 

I wanted to keep the tender pickups but didn't want to risk soldering in that area of the tender, so I ran new wires from the PCB on the loco and terminated them in slams washers.  These are then clamped to the tender pickups by small self taping screws, taped into holes drilled through them into the plastic tender floor.  They have to be small as they mustn't be able to cause a short circuit by coming into contact with the weight block above the floor!  One is painted red to identify which pickup it goes to.  These wires have to pass from the PCB beneath the cab floor by passing through the space previously occupied by the close coupling arm, so you have to get this out somehow, by brute force and ignorance!  The wires then pass through the same slot in the loco drag beam as the drawbar.

 

 

 

Anyway after all that, all is now well.  As well as getting rid of the plastic lump, I was able to reduce the gap between loco and tender to 4mm, which is normal on my layout and will go round the sharpest curves (Peco Code 75 Double Slips).  If I was to do it again I would probably fit the drawbar lower down, which would save a lot of bother.  And also do it before I'd fitted the additional bits from the bits bag!

 

 

 

 

Thanks Steve. 

 

I have at last seen a new v2 - "in the flesh". Overall it is  a far better model than went before. Shame about some of the issues higligted earlier in the thread

 

Thanks for showing us the drawn bar mods. This with the mods that Tim Easter made really lift the model.

 

[Chamby]

On 24/01/2022 at 16:14, Dominion said:

Not the drawbar, but I have got rid of the crabbing.

The white part in the attached photo is a piece of evergreen strip.

6.2mm wide, 0.4 thick and about 13.5 mm long.

It is just inserted between the front of the tender draw bar and the tip of the petal shaped 2 lobe hole at the front of the tender chassis.

It has the effect of making a flat bearing face for the tender draw bar, so load does not create any tendency to pull left or right. 

So far it has stayed in place nicely with no fixing mechanism, just a snug fit.

The bottom edge is sitting just above the forward projection of the draw bar.

I inserted it with tweezers from the top as I had the top plate off anyway.

There is a fine spring in there which I have not bothered to reinsert as the plastic strip is holding the draw bar to back of its travel anyway.

The loco just pulled 10 Bachmann and Hornby lit Pullmans with no crabbing.

Tom

PS 0.75mm was too thick. 0.5mm might work but I didn't have any in stock.

Also it may be possible to insert it from the underside without disassembly though I have not tried that yet.

 

 

I’m liking what 31A has done with the brass drawbar... looks like a good fix.

 

Like Dominion, I have achieved a simple fix to the crabbing, but a different way, by flattening the leading edge of the heart shaped hole in the tender.  The plastic is soft and easily trimmed back with a sharp blade.  

 

This does mean that the gap between tender and cab is about one mm larger when running on straight track, but this is much less noticeable than the crabbing.

 

 

[CrazyRS]

On 24/01/2022 at 16:14, Dominion said:

Not the drawbar, but I have got rid of the crabbing.

The white part in the attached photo is a piece of evergreen strip.

6.2mm wide, 0.4 thick and about 13.5 mm long.

It is just inserted between the front of the tender draw bar and the tip of the petal shaped 2 lobe hole at the front of the tender chassis.

It has the effect of making a flat bearing face for the tender draw bar, so load does not create any tendency to pull left or right. 

So far it has stayed in place nicely with no fixing mechanism, just a snug fit.

The bottom edge is sitting just above the forward projection of the draw bar.

I inserted it with tweezers from the top as I had the top plate off anyway.

There is a fine spring in there which I have not bothered to reinsert as the plastic strip is holding the draw bar to back of its travel anyway.

The loco just pulled 10 Bachmann and Hornby lit Pullmans with no crabbing.

Tom

PS 0.75mm was too thick. 0.5mm might work but I didn't have any in stock.

Also it may be possible to insert it from the underside without disassembly though I have not tried that yet.

 

 

Thanks for the tip. I’ve done this modification tonight, an it’s worked a treat. 
 

 

On 25/01/2022 at 17:54, The Black Hat said:

Quick question - how many of those thinking of getting rid of the 'horrid drawbar' are running on analogue.... ?

I think the answer for that will be everyone, where as digital modellers will readily accept it and like the extra ability for sound in tender. 

 

 

Me. 
 

 

On 25/01/2022 at 19:16, 31A said:

 

I have!

 

Not for the faint hearted, or not the way I did it anyway.

 

Basically, I cut two plates from 10 thou sheet brass approximately 25mm x 9mm, with holes drilled in two corners to fit beneath the retaining screws under the cab, and under the front of the tender.  Then made a drawbar from a piece of brass etch scrap; I think it was a bit thicker than 10 thou, but not important.  Made holes in the plates for pivot bolts and soldered 10 BA nuts above these holes.  The pivot bolts are 10 BA bolts with a washer and a slice of tube soldered to them.  So far so good.

 

 

 

The drag beam beneath the cab has a slot in it which the drawbar of the real loco would pass through and I hoped to use this for the new drawbar.  Obviously I had to remove the close coupling system.  The one on the tender was easy enough (see @Dominion pictures above) but the one under the cab has a cover plate which is attached by screws which are under the can floor.  I couldn't reach these screws so I demolished the close coupling drawbar with Xuron cutters!  If the drawbar is to pass through the slot in the drag beam, the pivot bolts have to be on the top side of the plates and hence unreachable once everything is in place.  I had to cut a notch in the tender drag beam to accommodate the new drawbar.

 

I did some running trials at this point.  Initially all good, but there was binding on the sharpest curves.  I found the cab doors (on the tender) were fouling the edges of the cab, so I took about 1mm off their edges.  It also seemed that the fall plate was binding on the handbrake and water scoop stanchions on the tender footplate, so I trimmed some metal off the fall plate.  But mainly the binding was because the drawbar needed to swing more than I'd expected and slot in the loco drag beam was too small, so I had to extend it to either side, in fact into the other slots which exist on either side of it.

 

If I hadn't tried to fit the drawbar through this slot, but underneath the drag beams (as is often the case with model locos) things would have been a lot easier!

 

I wanted to keep the tender pickups but didn't want to risk soldering in that area of the tender, so I ran new wires from the PCB on the loco and terminated them in slams washers.  These are then clamped to the tender pickups by small self tapping screws, tapped into holes drilled through them into the plastic tender floor.  They have to be small as they mustn't be able to cause a short circuit by coming into contact with the weight block above the floor!  One is painted red to identify which pickup it goes to.  These wires have to pass from the PCB beneath the cab floor by passing through the space previously occupied by the close coupling arm, so you have to get this out somehow, by brute force and ignorance!  The wires then pass through the same slot in the loco drag beam as the drawbar.

 

 

 

Anyway after all that, all is now well.  As well as getting rid of the plastic lump, I was able to reduce the gap between loco and tender to 4mm, which is normal on my layout and will go round the sharpest curves (Peco Code 75 Double Slips).  If I was to do it again I would probably fit the drawbar lower down, which would save a lot of bother.  And also do it before I'd fitted the additional bits from the bits bag!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh wow, that’s impressive! I do like this idea. Maybe I’ll attempted something similar when I’ve completed some other jobs. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by CrazyRS
Spelling

[Dominion]

Glad that is working for you. Easy to reverse if you decide to try anything more permanent.

 

I wondered if there was an easy CV fix for the smoke box led brightness. 
Using a lokprogrammer I could see that the red and yellow leds are on aux1 and aux2 and each was set to a brightness of only 15 out of 31 max.  However higher values did not give any brighter output that I could tell. Lower values did give dimmer output.

 So no solution there. 
 

I recently followed an Rmweber’s advice to line a black painted area around another locos led with aluminium foil and that worked a treat on that loco. Perhaps it was the J72. I may try that but only if I have to take the loco body off for something else.

[Chas Levin]

Well I have to say, after slight initial disappointment (details in an earlier post), following some more running and general admiring, it really is a gorgeous piece of work, isn't it? And to say it's an improvement over the earlier versions is a considerable understatement!

Now, to take a closer look at that pesky drawbar...

 

On 25/01/2022 at 19:16, 31A said:

 

I have!

 

Not for the faint hearted, or not the way I did it anyway.

 

Basically, I cut two plates from 10 thou sheet brass ... [snip]

 

 

As you say Steve, not for the faint-hearted but I like the solid look of what you've done there...

[31A]

16 minutes ago, Chas Levin said:

Well I have to say, after slight initial disappointment (details in an earlier post), following some more running and general admiring, it really is a gorgeous piece of work, isn't it? And to say it's an improvement over the earlier versions is a considerable understatement!

Now, to take a closer look at that pesky drawbar...

 

 

As you say Steve, not for the faint-hearted but I like the solid look of what you've done there...

 

Thank you Chas, glad you like it.  As well as getting rid of the chunky drawbar, I also wanted to couple the loco and tender more closely, which I have done.  If I was to do another one, I wouldn't be so fussy about having the drawbar in the right place vertically - if the brass plates were attached the other way up with the nuts on top and the drawbar then beneath the drag beams, some of the clearance problems I had would be avoided, and it would be easy to uncouple the loco from the tender, by taking out one of the bolts.

 

I agree, I'm very impressed with it as a model.  The criticisms voiced earlier in the thread don't seem important at all to me having seen it 'in the flesh', and it's a lovely runner as well.  It goes round my curves easily with the flanged trailing wheels fitted.  Pondering which one to get if I were to get a second; BR Black is currently favourite!

 

[SirNigel4498]

Hello,

 

I recently received my apple green V2  (Number 4791) With DCC sound from Kernow.  I have been having issues with the model running at slow crawling speeds and at yard operating speeds, where it jerks and stops before continuing on.  The mechanism seemed to be fine with no tight spots or anything jamming.  I then carefully removed the motor to let it run so I could see the worm drive move under power, and it looked and sounded like the motor was catching something inside the motor itself, on almost every rotation.  Fiddling with the BAC EMF did help alleviate the problem a bit, but didn't get rid of it entirely.  I have emailed Kernow about the problem and asked about getting a replacement motor if that is the problem.

 

Has anyone else had similar motor or BAC EMF issues like this?   

[Soul Survivor]

I have one of the V2’s with factory fitted sound. To date I’ve not experienced any running issues with it. If you are able to run it on DC I suggest swapping the installed sound decoder with the DC blanking plug which comes with the loco. If the problem still persists while running on DC then I suspect you are correct in your assumption that the motor is at fault.

 

 

 

[zr2498]

Sound available from Locoman sounds - clip of the sound project below. I'm planning to do the same as Mike Wild has done on his project (with Locoman sounds D & H decoder) where he also fitted a better speaker in the tender (HM 176 for details)

 

 

[paul 27]

On 02/01/2022 at 18:08, Chamby said:

I do not profess to be an expert about the details of the V2, so will refrain from adding comment to what has been posted already about this model.  As a purchaser I thought I'd post some of my own observations here, and show a comparison with Bachmann's previous model, which I also own.

 

I have purchased 60845 in BR lined black livery with the early crest, this particular locomotive spent 18 months allocated to Woodford Halse between Spring 1950 and Autumn 1951 - so apart from the shed code used on Bachmann;'s model, it is an ideal model to run on my Eastern Region (ex-Great Central) layout.  

 

First impressions are very favourable, it is crisply modelled and runs very smoothly straight out of the box.  As Bachmann's DCC sound version of 60845, first impressions of the sound file are good, perhaps not quite up there with the best but perfectly acceptable, although some adjustment of the relevant CV's will be required to properly synchronise the 'chuffs' to the wheel rotation.  Whistle sounds are crisp and bright, albeit unusually operated using F4 and F8.

 

A couple of issues emerged during running in.  Firstly, the model comes fitted with flangeless wheels in the 'trailing bogie' (Cartazzi truck), hanging low enough to run on the rail surface.  Surprise surprise, these bridge the insulation gaps on Peco Code 75 Bullhead turnouts, consistently shorting out and stalling the loco.  Fortunately the supplied replacement 'flanged' wheels were fitted and fixed this problem for me, though modellers with R2 curves on their layout will also find this fix problematic as the flanged wheels require a minimum R3 (505mm).  The second issue I'll come to later.

 

Some comparison pictures then, between Bachmann's new V2 and the model that it replaced:  Firstly looking at their faces: 4771 is the 'old' model on the left in LNER green, 60845 the new one in BR lined black.  60845 has yet to have its front coupling hook and vacuum pipe added, as it is still undergoing acceptance trials following its receipt from Kernow Models!  

 

The re-tooling here is obvious, much crisper mouldings, much greater detail and generally showing the level of refinement that you'd expect in 2021.  As I said before, I won't comment on its accuracy as a model, just those points that are obvious to the 'average' purchaser.  The only obvious thing to me on the new model is the minor loss of crispness in the rivet detail on the top of the smokebox, presumably a consequence of the moulding process.

 

 

 

A similar level of detailing is observed around the cab and tender area.  The tender itself is substantially different, although it bears a 'family resemblance' the detail differences are many and obvious.  To my mind the coal load is poorly modelled, though this plastic component falls out easily and will be replaced with the real stuff as and when the loco passes its acceptance trials:

 

 

 

I also thought it worth illustrating the revised arrangement between the tender and loco underneath - new model on the left (below).  This is very different - the Cartazzi (trailing bogie) arrangement is simply a fixed axle with a lot of play, it is lightly sprung and goes round R3 curves (20" radius).  On the right, the old 'swivelling' arrangement.  The tender wheels clearly have been remodelled to allow electrical pick-up, though why have Bachmann reverted to having a plastic section in the middle of the axle???  I can only see this giving reliability problems in years to come...  The electrical connection between the locomotive and tender is very different to the little white 4-pin plug we have become accustomed to.  The arrangement used here is large and unwieldy but mostly hidden from the normal layout viewing angle.  Its design will be familiar to modellers who also have the 'Blue Pullman'.  Bachmann have also supplemented this with the same pivoting arrangement that they use on bogie coaches, that opens up the gap between loco and tender on corners... :

 

 

That rigid connector and its pivoting arrangement leads me to my main issue with this model, from a running perspective.  As a light engine, the model runs very freely and well: first impressions were excellent and the model traversed the entirety of my layout without issue.  However after the obligatory 30 minutes running in, I put the new V2 on the front of a train, a freight totalling 34 axles of RTR stock (5x 4-axle bogie bolster wagons and 7x 2-axle open wagons).  This relatively modest load pulls on the tender to such an extent that the coupling between the tender and loco becomes stretched even on straight track, and consequently gets swung off-centre as if the loco is traversing a curve.  On straight track, this results in the tender 'crabbing' behind the loco, offset from centre about 4-5mm:  this effect is very obvious, occurs with both examples of the new V2 that I have seen, and occurs every time the train travels on a straight section of track after traversing a reverse curve.  I'm still scratching my head over how to fix this... any ideas?

 

 

Apart from that, it is a lovely model, runs well and it looks great in the BR black livery.  But I'm definitely scratching my head about what I can do to fix the dodgy tender coupling....

 

 

 

 Any pictures of the tender sides height with comparisons between the two models

not sure if the sides are slightly higher on the new model.

[Dominion]

On 02/02/2022 at 17:45, paul 27 said:

 

 Any pictures of the tender sides height with comparisons between the two models

not sure if the sides are slightly higher on the new model.

I lined them up with a straight edge behind.

New on the right,  interim new chassis version on the left.

[micklner]

9 hours ago, Dominion said:

I lined them up with a straight edge behind.

New on the right,  interim new chassis version on the left.

It confirms my suspicion since the first photos were shown on the new version release . The new version is too high or if I am wrong  the old version is too low ??