No.44 Streaks and Highlights– Weighing up Bachmann A4s

I noticed a thread this last week asking if anyone had comments on the ‘new’ Bachmann A4s – I like mine!




I have fond memories of A4s speeding past Darlington Station hauling the Elizabethan.  So it did not take much persuasion for me to buy one of Bachmann’s A4s with a new chassis.  Initial impressions are of a well engineered model that I think looks the part and compares very favourably with the latest Bachmann A1s and A2s.




Bachmann A4 DCC Ready Chassis



Out of the box with a weight of around 335gm the engine is I feel a bit lightweight.  The motor has lots of power but when hauling seven coaches on my steep gradients there was too much wheel spin.  The reason for the low weight is obvious – there is big gap for a decoder.  Yes I removed the front bogie and Cartazzi axle springs but there was still a lot of wheel spin.




With so much space it is relatively straight forward to add extra ballast in the shape of lead shot and lead sheet.




Bachmann A4 DCC Ready Chassis plus lead ballast.



With the ballast shown the engine now tips the scales at around 365gm – a decent improvement.




Bachmann A4 split axle chassis



How does the new model compare with the old model with split axle chassis.  Straight out of the box the early A4s weighed close on 380gm.  Removing the front bogie and rear truck springs gave the model I thought a half decent haulage capacity.




Bachmann A4 early Body Shell with added lead ballast



However on my layout there was still far too much wheel spin so I needed to add some extra weight.  As shown above the split axle chassis model plus ballast tipped the scales at 405gm – pretty useful.



Bachmann A4 Bittern with split axle chassis



I like my Bachmann A4s.  Suitably ballasted they all perform very well.  My new model of Willie Whitelaw is perhaps smoother and quieter than the early split axle models.  The new motor appears to have more torque.  Certainly the control knob on my Gaugemaster controller has to be turned further round compared to operating the split chassis models.

For those of you who can bear to watch trains traversing unfinished layouts there are a couple of videos on YouTube:


Bachmann A4 Seagull – split chassis model.

Bachmann A4 William Whitelaw – new DCC ready chassis
Location: Dumfries and Galloway, UK

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