hauling power (or lack of) of Bachmann 2251 class loco.

[snowy1051]

I have a Bachmann Collett goods, the one with the ROD tender and it wont pull the skin off a rice pudding. At the moment i just use it on my one coach locals, but would like it to pull more than just a dozen wagons. Is there a way I can add more weight? I have yet to remove the body as my fingers don't always go where I want them to! Many thanks for any info. 

[The Johnster]

I’ve got fingers like that as well, and fully understand…
 

You shouldn’t have too much trouble taking the top off, following the instructions on the service sheet and being careful.  If you don’t have the sheet, it’s available as a free pdf download from Bachmann’s website.  You’ll need to know which version of the model you have before downloading.  Tip; keep the small screws in a lump of Blutac, Milliput, or chewing gum to prevent them sacrificing themselves to the Carpet Monster should you sneeze, breathe heavily, or look away from them for a nanosecond…

 

 Check that the chassis is running freely to give the motor the best chance to pull, and look for free space onside the boiler.  The tooling of the chassis changed over versions, but IIRC the basic ballast is a casting which represents the underside of the boiler that fills most of the available space.  But the smokebox is empty inside and extra ballast here will do no harm, as will any you can cram in elsewhere.  Milliput is ideal for this.  
 

Then put a cast whitemetal crew in the cab, along with more Milliput beneath the inside of the cab roof unless you frequently view the loco from a low perpective such as from under a bridge or up an embankment.  Every little helps and you can easily increase the loco’s tractive weight by 50% or more by this sort of combination of methods.  You could even replace the chimney and safety valve cover with cast items. 
 

Then look at the tender, particularly checking that the wheels are able to turn freely even on your sharpest curves, and are not providing a drag to the loco.  
 

If the loco is stalling for lack of power as opposed to spinning it’s wheels for lack of grip, then extra ballast won’t solve the problem until the loco is developing full power.  Motors do lose power over time and high mileage, because the magnets deteriorate.  There are firms that can remagnetise the motor for you or it may be cheaper to replace it.  That said, the old Mainline mechanisms never had a reputation as pullers, and while Bachmann have improved them they are not always as powerful as we would like them to be.  
 

The matter is sometimes compounded by the bright alloy they use on wheel rims; easy to keep clean but the surface needs to wear and roughen up at a microscopic level before they grip properly; if this is a low-mileage loco and the wheels slip and spin under load, stay with it and play the long game, tholings may well improve in time.  Don’t try to roughen up the wheels yourself, though!

 

Consider your stock as well.  This should be free-running and I recommend replacing any plastic wheelsets with metal, which will also help keep your track cleaner and last longer before the axle pin points wear.  The loco should manage a reasonable prototypical load, 3 or 4 coaches at scale 60mph or 20 wagons at 40, but this will be affected by any gradients or tight curvature. BR classified them 3MT. 

Edited July 27, 2022 by The Johnster

[DCB]

We have one with Collet tender and its gutless but pulls 4 X Bachmann suburbans or 2 X 2coach B sets as standard.   It was supposed to replace one with a Mainline Body and Hornby Dublo chassis which regularly hauled 17 Hornby Dublo metal chassis wagons, but it could barely shift 9  and there was not enough room for substantial weight, this was a vertical motor chassis. If yours is worse than this then

I suspect the tender,  First does it pull better backwards?  If so its the tender drawbar angle  shifting loco weight onto the tender,   ideally the loco should try to lift the front of the tender not the tender lift the back of the loco.

Next

  It probably has tender pick ups and a decoder / decoder socket in the tender , so it won't run without the tender.   If not try it without the tender.  I expect double the power.  If it won't run without the tender make sure the tender wheels spin, maybe delete some of the pick ups, I routinely delete the lot but mine is live frog DC with live point blades. Many DCC layouts have dead frogs and dead point blades hence the need for extra pickups.       

[Quarryscapes]

Are you DCC? Unless they've changed things recently the DCC decoder is in the smokebox, the weight in the locomotive boiler having been cut away to make room vs the earlier DC only models. If you're not DCC then the obvious answer is to remove the decoder gubbins and fill up the space with weight. In fact swapping out the existing mazak casting for a a lead replacement would be a good start regardless of control method. 

[snowy1051]

Many thanks, for the info. excellent stuff as ever. Cheers.