DCC & Sound Mantua 0-6-0 sent back


Gdelmoro

Gdelmoro

Member
Hi all, last week I purchased a new DCC & Sound Mantua 0-6-0. It arrived with a part broken off (but I could fix that). although I was disappointed about the broken part I was anxious to try it out. Ok on the layout speed step 1 - nothing, 2, 3, jerk move jerk, 5 moving, 6 moving steady then stop dead at a non-powered frog. So they tell me to try adjusting the voltage CV now it did start at Speed step 3 but still jerky. Nothing you would want on your layout. The vendor "Crazy trains" was very good. He tried to help me to get it to work and when I decided that was enough he agreed to take it back AND sent me a shipping lablel. I could have changed the decoder to a TCS w/KA but why do all that.
Searching the internet I found people really liked the Proto 2000 0-6-0. This loco has a tender with all wheel pick-up and a QSI decoder. Cost twice as much but you get what's you pay for.

Anyone else have a Mantua 0-6-0? Do you have any problems with smooth running at low speed? After all it is a switcher.
 
I ordered a Mantua 2-6-6-2 tank engine with DCC & Sound and was very disappointed! Not unlike yours it was very jerky and actually sparked as the side rods and linkage moved around causing the loco to stall. The sound was very poor! I returned to M.B. Klein for replacement and the second loco had the exact same problems. I returned this one and asked for my money back, which was no problem with M.B. Klein.

These models although stated as Mantua, are not Mantua, they are Model Power products. The actual "Mantua Metal Products" company of old, did a much better job of product development and made good model railroad products. I won't touch anything Model Power makes, with a 10 foot pole!
 
Don't feel pregnant. Mantua is not the only one. I bought an Atlas RS-1 painted for the Northern Pacific with DCC and ESU LocSound. I am a DC operator, but the model railroad club I go to is DCC so I bought it mainly to run there. Got it and tried it out on my DC layout. Ran really nice, impressive. Took it to the club, got it all programmed and again, it ran like a dream with the exception of being a bit weak when pulling the grades at the club. Brought it back the following week and it wouldn't run. The connections to the front truck were not making contact.

Sent it off to Atlas and they fixed it (NOT). Put it on the tracks on my DC layout and all it would do is go through the start up sequence. Figured that If I reset the factory default maybething would work. The club's DCC guru reset the factory defaults and still nothing. It would go through the start sequence and then just sit there. Couldn't control the lights, horn or make the locomotive move.

It should arrive back at Atlas by the end of the week.

Think I'll stick with my DC stuff.
 
There is no question that there are some neat features to DCC, sound being the main reason I have any DCC locomotives. IMHO, however, DCC can be a super pain in the klarn. Want to run a pair of A-unit diesels back to back? With DC you just turn them around and the trailing unit runs in the same direction as the leader. With a pair of DCC motors, you have to reprogram the trailing unit so it will run backwards. True, there may be an advantage to matching speed by "consisting" in DCC, whereas getting two "identical" units to match speeds in DC can be a matter of luck. The complicated electronics of DCC means that any sort of short can be destructive. I had a WOWSound steam decoder burn up and burned a hole in the plastic tender shell. (I patched it so as to make it look like a prototype patch.) TCS replaced the decoder package at no charge.

So far as your 0-6-0 stalling on Atlas turnouts is concerned, the short wheelbase is a headache on some of these loco, even or especially in DC. There just isn't enough pickup span to get over the insulated frogs.

I've got a Model Power/Mantua 2-6-6-2 with tender and sound that seems to run fine, except at one point on a very sharp curve where the rail joiner loosened up causing the lead truck to derail. That wasn't the locomotive's fault, of course.
 
I will totally have to agree with you Trailrider. I got my first DCC locomotive, a little Bachmann 2-6-0 as a gift from my son. He knows nothing about trains but did know that I prefer smaller steam locomotives. Then I got a Bachmann S-2 switcher painted for the Milwaukee Road. Being a big fan of, and connection to the MILW also got it. The sound is a bit of a novelty. When I'm working on the layout, I'll usually let a train run around the layout and I find that after a while, a sound locomotive drives me nuts.

Then I picked up a BLI heavy mike which is a beautiful looking locomotive. Mikes are the largest steam locomotives that I run and I really liked the chunky looks of the heavy mike. I have run it at the model railroad club in Livingston but with the grades that they have on thee layout limit the number of cars that it can pull.

Then I saw the RS-1 painted for the Northern Pacific. I am a big fan of early Alcos, have a dozen early Atlas Alco RS units custom painted for my railroad. I got this mainly to run at the model railroad club. When it runs, it is quite impressive. Here it is running on my DC layout right after it arrived. Without DCC needless to say multiple locomotives would be very difficult to run on large layouts. At the club, there is open house for the public and we can have as many as a dozen trains running around the layout at the same time.

[video=youtube;p7u1TaUkXAw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7u1TaUkXAw[/video]

Unfortunately that didn't last very long. I am a fan of Atlas with the great success that I have had with my DC Alco locomotives. They are the original ones that came with the Kato drive. All have many hours of operation and I have had to do very little to them. This DCC unit really soured me.

I have purposely put some grades on my layout to limit train sizes and a single DC atlas unit can usually handle around 15 cars. (the DCC RS-1 can only handle 8 on the same grades). If I want to pull longer trains, I just put another Alco at the head end. They all run at almost the exact same speed. I also have some early Athearn locomotives that I heavily modified and remotored with can motors and thay also happen to run at almost the exact same speed as the Atlas locomotives.

One thing that I did find out in a hurry is that DCC locomotives are so much more sensitive to dirty track than DC locomotives. I can run a DC locomotive areonf the layout and it will run flawlessly and then put a DCC locomotive and run it over the same track and it sputters around the layout. Guess the is an incentive to keep the track clean.

Like Trailrider mentioned, a short wheelbase locomotive can have problems going through turnouts. I believe that some Atlas turnouts I have seen have a plastic frog. This can really be a problem.
 
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I had similar issues with the Mantua 0-6-0. I couldn't even break it in because it derailed every 2 feet down the mainline. It wouldn't track correctly even on the straight sections!

I ended up sending it back to the retailer. I was upset because it is a heavy (diecast) locomotive that should be able to handle sharp curves and steep grades. Exactly what the doctor ordered for the
'nightmare' branch on my layout.

I have a 2-6-6-2 and I probably wouldn't recommend it either. It stalls out on powered frog turnouts. The split pickup system is a pain to correct.

Modeling the roaring 20's
President of the Lancaster Central Railroad
President of the Western Maryland Railway
 
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