My son's first diesel loco drama

On Saturday afternoon just gone, the baby was upset with teething pain. As a result my older son Lachlan was getting narky. So the missus gave me the approval to take him down to the club for an hour or so as it was only five minutes away and not far if I had to get back home quickly. Lachlan has received his first 'real' model diesel loco, a Bachmann EMD GP40 with Alaska Railroad livery about three weeks ago and wanted to try it out on the big layout at the club. So off we went without a moments hesitation!

It ran very well for about half an hour then trouble started. It ground to a near halt. The mechanism sounded as though it was jammed or something. So off I went to the club's workshop to get to the bottom of the problem, but how to remove the shell? I didn't have the schematics with me so it was a bit off a dilemma. Fortunately a club member, Jamie, had a similar GP40 model (I think in Sante Fe livery) so he had a go to see how his shell would remove. The trick was the fuel tank. The shell screws were concealed by this pull off component. So the screws were undone and the shell removed. A quick run on the test track and the problem was obvious. One of the universal joint 'cups' which marries up the drive shaft to the gearbox was splaying apart, and thus the drive shaft was free spinning and not engaging the gears.

So this morning I have put a service request into Bachmann to see if they will supply some replacement 'cups'.