Now arriving at Holland Glade Road Station…

Well, I have done it again!

A little over a year ago Bachmann Trains announced an HO scale model of the Amtrak Next Generation Acela “Avelia” train set. Production of the train set was not certain, being dependent on the number of pre production orders. I need another train set like another hole in my head, but I ordered it anyway…and promptly, absolutely forgot about it. (Click here and here to get information about the Acela Next Gen prototype)

It showed up at the front door three days ago.

Bachmann Trains, for some unknown reason, has decided that in order to get a motorized power car (a locomotive by any other name) one has to buy their Amtrak Acela II Starter Set.

Photo: Bachmann Trains

The set contains 3 coaches, one motorized power car, one non-motorized power car, an oval of HO E-Z track and a power pack. The track and the power pack were of no use to me and were discarded. More coaches can be purchased separately, which I did.

The initial impression is quite good. The train set looks nice on the layout. The colors are vibrant. The separation between different colors is good. Printing is pretty sharp. There are some minor niggles like the green paint missing on the knob of the emergency access door.

As mentioned before, one of the power cars (2108) is motorized. Both power cars have pantographs. The pantograph on the motorized power car is operational and can be used with catenary. There is a dip switch on the electronics board of the motorized power car which can be set to catenary or track power. The default is track power.

The power cars have two conventional trucks (Bo-Bo). Two coaches, 3251 and 3451, have standard two axle trucks (bogies) on one end and a Jacobs truck at the other end. The standard truck side is coupled to the power cars, whereas the Jacobs trucks connect to the intermediate coaches.

The power cars are connected to the coaches with a swallow tail hook and have no electrical connection.

The intermediate coaches are electrically connected via pin and socket. The connection is secured with a snap on “tab”.

Four pin connector for the intermediate coaches

Press In tab to secure intermediate coach connections

This arrangement is a huge pain in the behind. Firstly, a few of the pins were bent and would not easily slip into the corresponding receptacle. Some delicate work on my part did fix this issue. Secondly, almost all of the pin and locking assemblies sort of  “drooped”, meaning, with the coach on the track, the whole pin assembly sagged towards the track and would not align with the pin receptacles on the connecting coach. Roco uses something similar on some of their coaches. However all one has to do with Roco is put the coaches on the track and push them together and they will connect and lock. No such luck with my new Acela set.

I managed to fix this problem by using a very small, bladed screwdriver to lift the pin assembly just a little, line it up with the other coach receptacles and push them together. A third hand would have been most useful…

Thirdly, this train is as much of a pain to disassemble as it is to assemble. Meaning you better have a place to park it on your layout.

All the coaches have LED interior lighting. A bit bright for my taste, but perfectly serviceable. The power cars have LED head and tail lights, changing with the direction of travel. The number boards are also lit.

The train set is described as “DCC ready”. Therefore it should have a built in plug for a DCC decoder. Problem is that there are no instructions on how to go about adding a decoder to the set. Much less about what kind of a decoder the locomotive requires: 8 pin, 16 pin, 21 pin? Nada! (For an exhaustive explanation of digital command control for model trains click here)

So it’s up to the lucky owner to figure out how to open up the locomotive and to find out where the decoder gets plugged in and what kind. Fortunately it was not all that difficult to remove the locomotive body shell. There are four screws on the underside of the body which need to be removed. One screw on each outward facing side of the two trucks. Once the screws are removed the body can be lifted straight up with a bit of finagling. Do be careful though. The pantograph on the body shell has wires soldered to it, which connect to the circuit board. The circuit board does indeed have a DCC socket with a “dummy” plug inserted, which allows the set to run on an analog train layout. The socket is for a 21 pin decoder. Removing the “dummy” plug and replacing it with one of my TCS 21 pin decoders was relatively straight forward. It can only be fitted one way. One might want to hang on to the “dummy” plugs, just in case.

Interestingly enough Bachmann does not offer any 21 pin decoders for sale.

“Dummy” Plug

Train Control Systems (TCS) 21 pin decoder

Just for giggles I opened up the non-motorized power car. It also has a 21 pin decoder socket with a “dummy” plug inserted. Since this power car does not have any motor or any electrical connection to the rest of the set I am not sure why there is a 21 pin plug. My suspicion is that it might just have something to do with being able to digitally control the head/tail lights. Figuring this out will have to wait until I get my hands on another 21 pin decoder.

The coaches and the non-motorized power car are ever so slightly below the NMRA weight recommendations. I added some sticky weights to the power car and have had no problems at all. The set runs well and looks good doing so. Keep in mind that I have yet to see an Amtrak Acela II Avelia in the wild. So I cannot speak to how prototypically correct this model is.

Now for the bad news. The Bachmann Acela II “Avelia” starter set will set you back $880.00 (MSRP) Each additional car is listed at $153.00 (MSRP). So a prototypically correct consist of two power cars and nine coaches would set one back about $1800.00! That’s ludicrous. It really pays to shop around or wait until the first used sets come up on eBay.

All photos by Ralf Meier, unless otherwise noted. iPhone 16 Pro and Sony RX 100 M7