Hi from New Zealand Folks,
Stumbled across this thread while searching for info on Weaver O U25B, one of which I recently acquired off eBay.
Tom is there any chance of uploading some images of your Plymouth switchers, I have one that I will one day upgrade the drive on and convert to be a private operator plant switcher to be representative rather than completely prototypical. I'm interested in what you have done to yours, in particular to the motor which on mine has an incredible amount of motor drive shaft movement when changing direction i.e. the shaft moves about 1/4" up and down through the bushes and winds the worm gear across the crown gear causing a 'lag' it just needs a bush to take our the slack but I haven't given any real thought to how to do that. I'd also replace the pickups with phosphorous bronze rod running on the top of the wheels.
On the Weaver U25B, there seems to be very little coverage in the O scale space, forums or otherwise which is a shame as it's a great looking and running loco. This one, currently in a nice yellow and green Reading Lines scheme (but not far off being detailed and repainted into ConRail colours), has the 'infamous' China dual motor drive which I find can be simply made to run beautifully noting I use Digitrax DCC.
To do this I tweak the locos both mechanically where required (make sure the truck drives are free running) and through the hard school of knocks from running them at public exhibitions, I now always solder the motor and pickup connections to the dog bone CctBd (the little plastic wire retainers are just too unreliable). Where I've converted the loco from 3 Rail, the new CctBds I make use plugs with soldered connections to the pins, so they are 'plug and play' to allow easy disassembly if required.
Reds Brent
