Old Lionel Whistle doesn't work

[Anonymous]

My grandson's received a gift of an old Lionel Scout train set. The tender whistle doesn't work. On taking the tender apart, I noticed there are no wires going to the pickups on the trucks. How should the wiring run?
Gerry

[dwiemer]

Gerry,
I believe that Olsen's toy train parts, who has a web site, they show diagrams that should help. I would suggest getting the super flex wire from them as stiffer wire will either limit movement, or break. Hope this helps. If not, lots of guys with lots of knowledge here can assist.
Dennis

[jim22]

I just reconnected the whistle in my fathers 1949 tender. If yours is the same, and I dont know that it is, there should be a wire from the whistle to the truck center-rail roller/shoe, on each truck if there is one. The ground connection goes through the frame. The center rail wires connect to the lug on the upper motor brush. I could come up with a link to a wiring diagram if it would help. Note that my loco/whistle runs on AC power. The whistle commutator and field are wired in series with a relay. A small imbalance in the AC voltage is created by either a transformer with a whistle control or by a separate whistle controller. I dont have either of these, so to test the whistle, I connected a 1.5 vold D cell in series with the transformer to sound the whistle. I did this without the loco running. I wouldn't do this for more than a few seconds, since it seems to me the AC supply will try to charge the battery during part of the AC cycle.

Jim