Williams GE 70-ton Diesel Locomotive

My WBB Rutland GE 70-tonner finally arrived. First impressions:

1. The detail is fantastic, compared to the Williams/WBB made from postwar molds. The paint scheme is lacking the yellow striping on the pilots and the front of the hood, but based on the early photos, that is not a surprise. Like the WBB scale 44-tonner, the handle rails are plastic. Handle with care. Otherwise, with it's diecast chassis gives it a nice heft for a small locomotive. The fixed pilots are nice.
2. Like most if not all Williams/WBB locomotives, it's geared to far too high. Rewiring the motors from parallel to series was easy. (Use care when removing the shell to avoid breaking the plastic handrails.)
3. The True Blast Plus sounds are nice, and the set volume is just about right, though the bell is a little hard to hear over the prime mover. (I forgot to look for a volume pot when I removed the shell to wire in-series.) It would be nice if the TBP had a battery or capacitor back-up to sustain the sounds of direction changes, maybe that's an upgrade for True Blast Plus II.  :-)
4. WBB rates it for O-27, however, when coupled to a consist, it failed to make the first curve without derailing the first car. Wheel slippage was audible. At first I thought that the fixed pilot was preventing the coupler from swinging far enough, however with upon inspection it turned out that it was the post on the coupler arm that engages the centering spring was preventing the coupler from traveling the full range of the hole in the pilot. It turns out that the groove in the chassis that this post travels in was the limiting factor. Solving the problem required a minor modification to the chassis—lengthening the groove. A Dremel tool would be ideal, a drill press would be nice, but careful work with a hand-held drill worked for me. A small piece of separately-applied detail, perhaps a handle of some type, that is on one side of the pilot opening had to be removed, too. These modifications were necessary to both the front and rear pilot.
5. With series wiring and the pilot modifications made, it pulls my small Northeast consist nicely.

It would have been great if the modifications weren't necessary, but overall it seems to be a terrific conventional locomotive. I'm delighted to have it running on my layout at long last.

(I know, I need to take some close-ups.)

Same problem with mine.  Even on 0-36 radius track most cars will derail the front truck when coupled to the engine.  Bachmann didn't test this much apparently.  Disappointing.

I'll have to rewire the motors to slow it down.  Otherwise it's a really nice model.

I have not yet bought one, but when I do, it will be a repaint in cream, orange, and black. The Salzberg family owned a string of shortline railroads. This color scheme was used on the Wellsville, Addison & Galeton....and the 70 tonner was one of the first to get painted. It was, however never lettered for The WAG....it went to service the UV...Unadilla Valley Railroad.

Tom Shirey posted:

I have not yet bought one, but when I do, it will be a repaint in cream, orange, and black. The Salzberg family owned a string of shortline railroads. This color scheme was used on the Wellsville, Addison & Galeton....and the 70 tonner was one of the first to get painted. It was, however never lettered for The WAG....it went to service the UV...Unadilla Valley Railroad.

Well, you are partially correct here. The Salzberg corporate colors were as you have stated. Many 70 tonners wore that paint scheme at other Salzberg shortlines. However, there was never a 70 tonner at the WAG. They did bring in a 50 ton center cab, battery electric. It did go to  another of their lines in NY. In fact, in later years there were two of those battery electric locos stored at the "new" WAG engine house/shop. They both were cut up for scrap many years after the WAG shut down. The centercabs at the WAG all were over 100 ton, and all came from one of the Ford motor Company plants in Michigan.

Jeff

bluelinec4 posted:

Very nice! Is this a custom run?

Dj'sOgaugetrains posted:

bluelinec4 posted:

Very nice! Is this a custom run?

No it was a custom repaint by Christene Braden

Matt GN027,

Thank you for sharing the video of your very nice layout. I'm curious about your track switches. It looks like you took Lionel 027 switches and substituted Ross switch machines on them. Is that what happened?

@tncentrr, even though I'm not Matt, I'm pretty sure those are the K-Line later production low profile 027 switches, which these days are becoming much harder to find. In part because they didn't have as long a production run time span. And in part because they are pretty popular with 027 guys: There are some train items that hit the switchbox housing on all the other types of 027 turnouts, but not on these.

Brianel,

I have always regretted that we lost k line. They really did do 027 right instead of treating it as a "second fiddle" to the larger trains. I have thought for a long time that 027 is under appreciated. There are things that can be done with 027 that could not be done with the larger trains. An interesting 027 layout could be done in less space, for example. I have quite a few 027 trains in my collection and would not even consider selling them.

tncentrr posted:

Matt GN027,

Thank you for sharing the video of your very nice layout. I'm curious about your track switches. It looks like you took Lionel 027 switches and substituted Ross switch machines on them. Is that what happened?

@brianel_k-lineguy is spot on. They are the the last iteration of the K-Line O27 switches, K-0265 (LH) & K-0266 (RH). Other advantages over the Lionel O27 switches include:

1. Instead of using a solenoid, they have a small motor. Once the switch is thrown, they don't continually fire like the solenoid-driven Lionel switches. (My understanding is that this is also true of the earlier K-265 & K-266 switches with incandescent bulbs, but I might be wrong about that.)
2. They can be easily run off of either accessory power or track power. (The earlier K-265/266 switches shared this feature
3. Unlike the earlier K-Line K-265/266 switches, they use LEDs instead of incandescent bulbs.

Bachmann can reproduce anything from K-LINE. You have to get to the management of Bachmann and tell them why these K-Line switches were great.

Andrew

Falconservice,

Maybe we could start one of those on-line petitions I keep hearing about. I have never signed one myself, and so, don't know much about them. I don't think it has ever been tried in our hobby.

Count me in if they can be convinced to build the switches again. The one thing I hate about my 027 layout is the buzzing 5121,22 switch solenoids.

I don’t think the customer should have to make these modifications.  How could they not have seen this?  I expect a locomotive to work out of the box without modifying anything, unless that’s your choice.  So glad I read this, and thanks for posting.  I’m not buying one.

IC fan posted:

I don’t think the customer should have to make these modifications.  How could they not have seen this?  I expect a locomotive to work out of the box without modifying anything, unless that’s your choice.  So glad I read this, and thanks for posting.  I’m not buying one.

@IC fan, you're right. But, the sad reality is that that would have meant no locomotive, and I was excited to have a Rutland diesel, which are hard to come by in O gauge.

Matt_GNo27 posted:

IC fan posted:

I don’t think the customer should have to make these modifications.  How could they not have seen this?  I expect a locomotive to work out of the box without modifying anything, unless that’s your choice.  So glad I read this, and thanks for posting.  I’m not buying one.

@IC fan, you're right. But, the sad reality is that that would have meant no locomotive, and I was excited to have a Rutland diesel, which are hard to come by in O gauge.

That's my dilemma.  Been excited for the locomotive since Williams/Bachmann announced it.  I was going to run it on my 036-radius, figure-8 track inside the mainline but I'd go nuts if cars derailed.  Your video was nice, btw.