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Well I went and bought a Ruby. Thought hard about the AML 0-6-0 but didn't get it. Quisenberry Station was not able to make it to the show, nobody had any roundhouse locos for sale, and RLD had a Ruby 2 in stock, so I went for it. It's fun, and it's really neat to watch it steam around the track, but I'm a ltitle discouraged and may end up selling it. It never managed to complete a single lap.
Ran it in the house a couple times on rollers and outside a couple times. Stayed up late reading various Ruby threads. I've noticed a few things and just want to see if my experience is typical of the Ruby and what I can expect to change. I'm not sure what's inexperience and user error and what is typical of the loco.
1. It's very hard to adjust the burner. It's difficult to get it to the point where the safety valve isn't blowing off a lot of steam. The flame wants to shoot into the smokebox, then tends to go out when it's at a level where it's not into the smokebox. When it's hot enough to stay steadily lit it's burnign fuel quickly and I'm losing steam from the safety valve at what seem to me too fast a rate. I read a bunch of archived threads on that and haven't decided what to try yet--need to run it some more.
2. It really doesn't function at all on a grade. It has two speeds, stalled on a grade and flying like a rocket, so fast that it wants to tip over on level 8-foot curves. Is this typical, to have very little speed control?
3. It does not run very long--maybe one lap on my short loop, which is maybe 120 feet. It either A: loses steam; B: runs out of water: C; runs too fast and derails on a curve, or C: the flame goes out/it runs out of fuel
4. It's very senstive to bad track--it derails easily. Maybe I'm just used to running electric engines with gigantic flanges. Not sure I want to devote hours to fixing my track if the loco can barely make a single lap or manage a 2% grade. I really can't fix the grade, I'm stuck with it.
So which of these are my inexperience/ineptitude and which are fixable? Would a loco with more pulling power navigate the grade more easily? Would installing RC allow me to manage the grades, or would it be throwing good money after bad? I didn't expect it to run like an electric, but right now it seems close to un-usable on my track.
I'd love to be out experimenting with it right now, but it's raining and the in-laws are coming over in half an hour...
Ran it in the house a couple times on rollers and outside a couple times. Stayed up late reading various Ruby threads. I've noticed a few things and just want to see if my experience is typical of the Ruby and what I can expect to change. I'm not sure what's inexperience and user error and what is typical of the loco.
1. It's very hard to adjust the burner. It's difficult to get it to the point where the safety valve isn't blowing off a lot of steam. The flame wants to shoot into the smokebox, then tends to go out when it's at a level where it's not into the smokebox. When it's hot enough to stay steadily lit it's burnign fuel quickly and I'm losing steam from the safety valve at what seem to me too fast a rate. I read a bunch of archived threads on that and haven't decided what to try yet--need to run it some more.
2. It really doesn't function at all on a grade. It has two speeds, stalled on a grade and flying like a rocket, so fast that it wants to tip over on level 8-foot curves. Is this typical, to have very little speed control?
3. It does not run very long--maybe one lap on my short loop, which is maybe 120 feet. It either A: loses steam; B: runs out of water: C; runs too fast and derails on a curve, or C: the flame goes out/it runs out of fuel
4. It's very senstive to bad track--it derails easily. Maybe I'm just used to running electric engines with gigantic flanges. Not sure I want to devote hours to fixing my track if the loco can barely make a single lap or manage a 2% grade. I really can't fix the grade, I'm stuck with it.
So which of these are my inexperience/ineptitude and which are fixable? Would a loco with more pulling power navigate the grade more easily? Would installing RC allow me to manage the grades, or would it be throwing good money after bad? I didn't expect it to run like an electric, but right now it seems close to un-usable on my track.
I'd love to be out experimenting with it right now, but it's raining and the in-laws are coming over in half an hour...