Gavin Sowry
Garden Railroader and Raconteur

Some of you will be familiar with the Bachmann spring loaded pickups on the trucks of some Climax and Shay locomotives. You may have also discovered, like I have, that if you remove the wheelset for cleaning/maintenance, that the the little ball bearing part of the pickup is liable to spring out, and, Murphy's Law, never to be seen again.
I have since found that the carrier for the pickup can actually be levered out, thus allowing the wheelset to retain, to some extent, the ball.
So, after much messing around, I've ended up with 3 balls missing from one of the trucks. Even though the trucks are theoretically electrically joined through the frame, the one with missing pickup balls was stalling (this happened to be the truck driving the valve gear), so replacement of the balls was imperative.
So, apart from ordering from Bachmann, where to get spares? Well, I just happened to try a Bicycle workshop, and voila, just what I wanted, 1/8 inch balls.
I have since found that the carrier for the pickup can actually be levered out, thus allowing the wheelset to retain, to some extent, the ball.
So, after much messing around, I've ended up with 3 balls missing from one of the trucks. Even though the trucks are theoretically electrically joined through the frame, the one with missing pickup balls was stalling (this happened to be the truck driving the valve gear), so replacement of the balls was imperative.
So, apart from ordering from Bachmann, where to get spares? Well, I just happened to try a Bicycle workshop, and voila, just what I wanted, 1/8 inch balls.
