Gettin my whistle whirlin

[Anonymous]

Greetings- This is my first post on this board.  Glad to be here! 

I have recently excavated my father's old Lionel trains/tracks/accessories from the dusty garage and have sucessfully figured out how to get them running again!  Ah that smell of ozone as those little things started up again, took me back to the day.  But I am for all intents and purposes a beginner.

So - some beginner questions (I apologize if these topics have been covered already somewhere else-please direct me to the thread...)

1) I have one of those older model transformers circa 1950-60s (i guess) with the lever handles on either side and whistle/reverse direction  But the air-whistle tender is silent.  Im sure I forgot to hook up something.  I remember being able to operate the horn from the transformer itself.  There are 8 terminal pins, labeled A-D and (4) U U U U at the top.  I have two tracks/trains running, and have attached the wires to the A&1st U and the D& last U.  So I have 4 terminal pins remaining.  Do I need to attach something to these in order to get the air-whistle tender whistling?  I have 3 a-w tenders in my dads dusty collection and none of them work yet, and i doubt all three are just broken.  What am i doing wrong?  Or, if the trains are moving, should the whistle be working, and I just need to get new air-whistle tender?  Thoughts?

2)Also-track switches.  How do you wire those to the transformer?  I seem to recall they got wired from the transformer to a controller, and then, from that switch to the track swich itself, which is operated from the controller, not the transformer.  But i dont want to wire it wrong and cause a problem.

3) It would seem im going to have to get better w/electricity and wiring in order to understand/maintain my set.  Any good books that would get me started on train wiring so i dont have to keep buggin you all here? 

Thanks - Sharpnack 

[jwse30]

Greetings- This is my first post on this board.  Glad to be here!

1) I have one of those older model transformers circa 1950-60s (i guess) with the lever handles on either side and whistle/reverse direction  But the air-whistle tender is silent.  Im sure I forgot to hook up something.  I remember being able to operate the horn from the transformer itself.  There are 8 terminal pins, labeled A-D and (4) U U U U at the top.  I have two tracks/trains running, and have attached the wires to the A&1st U and the D& last U.  So I have 4 terminal pins remaining.  Do I need to attach something to these in order to get the air-whistle tender whistling?  I have 3 a-w tenders in my dads dusty collection and none of them work yet, and i doubt all three are just broken.  What am i doing wrong?  Or, if the trains are moving, should the whistle be working, and I just need to get new air-whistle tender?  Thoughts?

Thanks - Sharpnack 

Welcome to the forum!

While I don't have many answers to your 2nd and 3rd question, here's what I can suggest to the 1st one:

It sounds like you all the wiring correct. The problem is likely either the diodes (that control the DC power that runs the whistles) or not enough voltage to run an assumed poorly maintained (as in, sitting in a basement unused for decades) whistle. 

I would start by removing the body shell from a whistling tender. On most tenders you will be able to see a small fan (turbine may be a better word) once you remove the shell. try to gently turn the fan. if you can, try blowing (rather hard) into the fan and see if you can hear the whistle. Sounds stupid, I know, but it will let you know if anything is binding up.

I don't what type of shape these cars, track,  or transformer are in, but if there is rust or any other type of corrosion that can be seen, get rid of it. My preferred method is a Scotchbrite pad and elbow grease.

Assuming you have at least one of your three tenders that the fan spins freely (you can blow on it and make it whistle), and there is no corrosion between the transformer and the tender, take everything off of either your A-U or D-U circuit except that tender. Power up your ZW transformer (souns like that's what you've got) and apply 1/2 throttle to that circuit. Press the whistle button. If nothing happens try 3/4 and then full throttle. If at any time you get a growling sound instead of a whistle, stop. That means the transformer and the tender are working (at least somewhat), and chances are you just need to lubricate the armature inside the whistle motor (inside the tender).

If you still get nothing, chances are the diodes inside the transformer (which make the DC power needed to run the whistle) are shot, and need to be replaced. This isn't an uncommon problem, and isn't terribly expensive to have done. To be on the safe side though, I would try out the other circuit (A-U or D-U) and see what happens. I believe that there are two sets of diodes on that transformer.

That's the best I can do for you from Portage, In. Hopefully, this will at least give you an idea or ten :)

J White

[Anonymous]

thanks for the tip mr white.  im off to open up that tender now!!! im glad to hear that i wired it right.

sharpnack

 

[lionelsoni]

Note that the DC voltage to blow the whistle does not operate the whistle motor directly.  Instead, it operates a special "slugged" relay in the tender, which applies the track voltage to the motor.  So there must be track voltage for it to blow.  You can easily test the whistle motor by putting voltage on the track and closing the relay contact with your finger.

The relay is a candidate for being the culprit.  If you put a few volts DC on the track instead of the transformer voltage, you should see the relay operate.  A flashlight cell should be enough; but take everything else off the track, including the locomotive, to avoid loading down the cell.

[Anonymous]

thanks bob...

ill tell you what happened: once i got the cover off the tender i saw the fan, on the side.  I blew into it really hard.  I heard the whistle.  I then replaced the cap again, with the suspicion that all the fuss of opening and blowing etc might have jogged it into working.  Sure enough, I treid it, and the whistle blew!  However, in addition to the whistle noise, the tender also makes a scraping sound like a bunch of bolts in a blender, lots of extra grinding noise.  I presume that a little cleaner, oil or something needs to be applied somewhere, but Im not sure where.  No matter: until I can get to the hobby shop with it, I at least know that it works. 

Thanks so much!  Great resource here! 

S. Ltd.

[phillyreading]

Sounds like the whistle unit needs to be taken apart and cleaned, the motors in most of the Lionel tenders before 1970 are similar to the motor brush set up for the engines, just a smaller version of a motor.  As for the switches if they are 022's the center wire on the control goes to the center terminal on the switch, either wire can be put to the other terminals, may have to trade wires if the wrong light in the control lights up or switch bulb locations.  If 022's switches there may be a small plug (only needed for low track voltage) that goes in on one side of the switch housing and this is wired to a constant voltage supply, use terminal B or C and turn power up to about two/thirds, the soleniods can handle a good bit of power on the older 022's. Otherwise the switches draw track power, even with the constant voltage plug the nuetral is derived from the track inside the switch.

If you can find it there are instruction manuals that were made by Lionel for those trains, paperback books are what they look like. Maybe you can get an instruction manual at a train show.

Lee F.