Anyone have a Hawthorne Village locomotive? What are your thoughts on them? Someone decided to buy me an Hawthorne Village Coca-Cola F-unit locomotive in HO scale for Christmas. I cannot really tell who actually makes the locomotive. From my research so far it seems like Bachmann used to make them for On30 scale, but not sure about HO. I tried running it on my DCC layout, but it doesn't move and just makes some scary noises. I'm wondering if it only works with standard DC but I need confirmation.
Hawthorne Village?
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Hawthorne Village is basically just overpriced Bachmann, intended to appeal to collectors of Coke (or whatever the theme is) memorabilia rather than train people. If you're not paying for it, and don't mind the lack of realism, then it's not a bad loco.
Definitely DC only, though. Pop the shell off and slap a decoder in that puppy!
Definitely DC only, though. Pop the shell off and slap a decoder in that puppy!
Thanks for the info. I kind of doubt that they made it easy to upgrade to DCC, but I'll take a look. The coupler boxes look like they might be permanently attached, but I need to look more closely. They definitely have plastic couplers.
They aren't bad. Plenty of room for a decoder. One side pickup is a wire already, the other side goes through the frame for b both the motor and the headlight. I just put a bit of tape over that side. You could remove the contact from the truck to the frame easily enough.
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Looks like they may have changed this locomotive around more recently. See below photo. I was shocked to see a 21MTC connector and a speaker baffle, so that will make it a lot easier to upgrade. Looks like each side has a pickup too, so maybe the B unit is a dummy or completely powered. I don't have that one yet so don't know. The 21MTC has a daughterboard attached with some jumpers, as you can see in the photo. Not really sure what purpose of it is; any guesses?
No idea, that's clearly a generation of two up from what I have (I have 4 or 5 actually). Looks pretty nice actually. In mine, the B units are all dummies but have the same frame and weights. Get a motor and hard trucks and your off. But again, mine are clearly different
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Cool, I'm actually kind of excited to see what the B unit will be like now.
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The B unit is a Dummy. I did find a Bachmann Plus powred B and swapped the shell on my A&M one. Now, A and B are powered. I did fall the the advertising. I read to me, $79.00 for the set. Wrong. It was $79.00 per freaking piece. So I just got the locos. Fast Foward, and O found the complete set on Fee Pay for $100. So, I bought it.
So the second order is $79 for a dummy B unit and an ez-track set? Yep I would say that is a rip-off. Well that's disappointing.
Yeah, the msrp prices are a rip. I think it's $79 for each car. I've got several in auction lots pretty cheap. The last was $125 and it had three AB ( corvette, Giants and Yankees) sets and the John Wayne On30, plus some track and EZ commander, 4 of the passenger cars that go with the giants and Yankees, and a few other HO cars.
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I picked up most of a POW/MIA set with an A powered engine, 3 or 4 of the passenger cars and a flatbed for super cheap at a local show (something like $30-$40) and I purchased the unpowered B unit on ebay for another $20... All I'm missing is the caboose which is a royal PITA to find.
With my brother being a veteran and me being a first responder I got this set mainly for display only. It does run and I actually enjoy how the couplers move with the curve and wish all my passenger cars had this feature. I plan on mounting some of my old brass track on the walls of my layout or doing a full display case with this engine as well as a hand full of other similar "display" only trains...
I almost pulled the trigger on a few Dale Earnhardt and Earnhardt Jr ones I saw on FB for super cheap but decided to focus the funds on the actual layout...
With my brother being a veteran and me being a first responder I got this set mainly for display only. It does run and I actually enjoy how the couplers move with the curve and wish all my passenger cars had this feature. I plan on mounting some of my old brass track on the walls of my layout or doing a full display case with this engine as well as a hand full of other similar "display" only trains...
I almost pulled the trigger on a few Dale Earnhardt and Earnhardt Jr ones I saw on FB for super cheap but decided to focus the funds on the actual layout...
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It is, and was. But Now I have 2 A's 2 B's and the cars.
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I have one of these. The couplers are terrible and cannot figure out through the Kadee conversion charts what I need because I'm sure this is Bachmann. It almost looks like the coupler part might be the old Bachmann Plus set up. However, is it someone else? Another tell is Hawthorne Village now ships with Walthers track instead of Bachmann EZ with some of these sets and a non-Bachmann power pack. The sports team passenger cars are clearly Bachmann 89' dome cars, but the cars in my set with this loco are the 85' smooth side with two wheel plastic wheel talgo trucks. Unless they're old molds, i don't think that's Bachmann, right? Any help is appreciated.
Also, if you look on online sale or the HV website, you can clearly tell the shells on the F units are different. The fan placements and profile are different as are the number boards. These are certainly different molds.
I like to run them around on the layout when I find a good deal at a show or online. The kids like them.
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Walthers makes a cheap-ish line of locomotives called "Trainline". It does not use the same mechanism / molds as their higher quality "Mainline" and "Proto" locos, but they're still serviceable. Hawthorne Village may have changed suppliers.
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