Why write a dedicated page for a plug-n-play decoder installation? Well, it proved to be one of the more difficult installations I have done to date! No kidding!

Looking back at the process, this locomotive is wrought with problems. The exploded diagram that comes with the locomotive looks like it has been copied a few times too many, so it is very hard to see any detail. The "documentation" has lots of photos about how to correctly position the plug-in decoder, but absolutely nothing about how to take the tender shell off! There is only ONE WAY the decoder can fit in this tender. Helloooo!!!

I went to my computer and searched my personal archives of e-mail messages from the various mailing lists to which I belong, and found one where someone gave some hints about how to remove the tender shell. I will try to describe it here with the help of some photos. The tender shell is held to the bottom of the tender at four points. There are two tabs, one at the front and one at the rear. In addition, you will notice that the two rear ladders are inserted into the back of the tender body. Pry the ladders from the tender body. The front of the tender top popped loose right away for me (and the extra piece shown in the photo fell out right away). The rear tab is visible under the rear truck. Push the tab toward the front of the train and then the shell should come off. I had to pry the top of the shell off with a slight persuasion of a small screwdriver.

I unplugged the dummy plug and inserted the decoder as far in as it went. The circuit board in the tender is in there quite loose, so you will want to provide some kind of counter force while removing the dummy plug and installing the decoder.

By this time I had spent a good 20 minutes already. I figured that re-installing the tender body was going to be easy. WRONG! This part took even longer than the disassembly. There were a number of problems that I encountered. The e-mail I referred to above didn't indicate these problems, so it might be different for your model. I snapped the piece that had fallen off of the front of the tender body to the tender body. This guides the wires to the locomotives, so it helps to have that stay in its place.

Problem # 1 - The tender body didn't fit anymore.
When I attempted to install the tender body, I noticed that I could get either the front or the rear tabs to engage, but not both. Something was blocking the path in the middle. I suspected that the decoder wasn't in all the way. I tried to push it down into the socket, but it didn't budge. What I noticed was that there is a weight glued to the underside of the top of the tender shell. This was interfering directly with the decoder.



I decided to remove the weight from the body. It looks like it is glued in place with some rubber cement like Walthers Goo, so with a small pair of plyers I was able to break the weight off without damaging the tender body. Before I did that, though, I disassembled the rest of the tender body, which helped in figuring out the problems. This photo shows the parts. After removing the weight, the part that held the weight fit over the decoder nicely.



Problem # 2 - The tender body still didn't fit.
I reassembled the three pieces shown above and noticed that the tender body still had the same problem. It turned out the middle part (in photo above) didn't fit with the decoder installed. This next photo shows the problem.



I marked off the area of material to be removed and grabbed a knife and a file. The inset below shows the material removed, and the adjusted part installed on the locomotive.



Parts reassembled.



Problem # 3 - Walkway on top of the tender body didn't fit.
As shown in the photo below, the walkway didn't slide back into the notches in the top of the tender body because, again, the decoder is in the way.



Back to the knife and file and I removed the two clips and filed down the remaining stubs on the walkway. There are two tabs on the right-hand side of the walkway, so they provide the grip to the tender body.



Problem # 4 - Locomotive doesn't run worth a flip!
I previously reported here that I had problems running the engine. What I thought was a contact problem turned out to be two problems. First, I had completely forgotten to clean the wheels prior to running the engine. The wheels were literally covered in grime! Secondly, my model has a serious mechanical problem with its running gear. The side rods fall out and bind up the wheels. The DCC install appears to work fine now, though (when I get to run the model briefly). See the other articles on this model to further solve the problems I encountered.