Bachmann Jinty Adjustments

[rodshaw]

Having been somewhat disappointed with the noisy running of a couple of second-hand purchases of oldish locos, I decided to buy a brand new Bachmann Jinty from my model shop. It tested ok on a piece of straight track in the shop, but when I got it home it was faltering somewhat, especially over dead frog points.

 

A wiggle from side to side of the wheels revealed that some of the pickups were losing contact. I know many people have had similar problems with new locos. Rather than take the model back, I bent the pickups outwards so they were all in permanent contact with the wheels when moving them from side to side. Running was better but there was still some faltering over the points.

 

Oh, no, I thought, shouldn't have used dead frog points, their time has finally come.

 

But then, remembering tips from others, I thought to just slacken off the keeper plate a little, to see if I could create a bit of play in the up-and-down axle movement. This seemed to create a slight increase in play of the centre axle, which is sprung.

 

Lo and behold - perfect running, even at a crawl over the dead frog points! And so quiet too.

 

As had been observed elsewhere, you can't always rely on new models being properly adjusted.