God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
I recently bought an RS3 for my kids. It was inexpensive, and as you mentioned, it's light, almost all plastic, and has one or two can motors. But it hauls well, coasts to a stop like a flywheel equiped loco, and has a nice horn. I was very impressed with this cheapie. Still am. Reconnect the wires and see for yourself. These aren't bad.
Jim
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Bob Keller
Don U. TCA 73-5735
I have a Lionel RS3 Union Pacific made in 1989.
It too is equipped with two can style motors and can pull about 30 modern cars without slipping the wheels.
I was very impressed with this loco,my layout of course is just an 072 oval on the floor without switches.
Carl T.
Exploded diagram of the loco is avaialble from the Lionel web site under Customer Sevice tab. The wiring diagram for this specific loco isn't there, but any of the other dual truck mounted can motors will have the same wiring patern. The shell casting is well done and the unit looks like an RS-3.
I have a copy of an article from the March 1998 TTOS publication (The Bulletin) that has a wiring diagram for modifying a dual motored RS-3 to series and a mod to include voltage regulators for lighting control. If you drop me an email, I will send the a pdf file of the article back to you.
These locos are not bad locos for what they were intended to be.
The R3-3's made by Lionel through the 1980's up to around 2000, all came with dual DC truck mounted can motors and a sheet metal frame. There was a weight that was placed in the loco inside the hollow fuel tank. Yes, these engines are light as compared to other more expensive locos... Lionel could have certainly put a larger weight inside the fuel tank. But with the traction tires properly adhered, these locos will absolutely pull more cars than Bob Keller mentions. And with some added weight attached to the frame inside the loco shell, these locos can be very good pullers. My experience in this department is similar to Carl T. wrote.
As I have mentioned many times, though you can run these locos with a ZW or TW type of transformers (as I suspect Bob K. is doing), they are best run with either a modern made transformer that starts with a zero voltage to the track, or the original Lionel 1033, using the B-U voltage posts which put 0-11 volts to the track. This is perfect voltage range for any of these non-command, truck mounted dual DC can motored locos made by Lionel all through the 1980's and 1990's or the basic K-Line locos like the S-2, Alco FA and the MP-15. Same goes for the DC can motored steam engines, like the basic Lionel 4-4-2 starter set Columbia.
You can rewire these dual motored diesels and make the motors run in series, but you will reduce some pulling power by doing this. But they will run slower with traditional Lionel transformers that put a minimal 6 volts to the track.
The new post 2000 Lionel RS-3 is a slightly different affair. Lionel cheaped the loco with a plastic frame instead of a sheet metal one. All of these new plastic framed RS-3's have been cataloged with a single truck mounted motor, although a few came with dual motors despite the catalog saying the opposite: the Ontario Northland RS-3 is one that came with dual motors.
Sames goes for some of the other starter end tradtional locos. The U36B's were all cataloged with single motors. The Conrail one came that way; the WP and CSX came with dual motors. I'll wait and see what Lionel does with the forthcoming CR GP-20.
My experience and that of many others, is that these single truck mounted DC can motored diesels ARE YES exceptionally poor pullers. Dave Vergun has posted that here too. Lionel should absolutely discontinue this practice of cheapening these starter locos with single motors... they are a very poor advertisement to Lionel quality.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
I recently purchased a Lionel Susquehanna RS3 loco on ebay. I had really been wanting a RS3 because I've always like the looks of them. Anyway, the loco looked like it was from the late 80's early 90's and looked like it was old enough to have the pullmore motors and magnatraction wheels. Well, I got it today and was horribly dissapointed to find it has the small DC motors and plastic gears, and hardly any weight to the thing. What was even more disappointing is that when I put it on the tracks, it would not run. It lit up but no power. When I opened it up I found it has an Electronic reverse unit and three wires were not connected, two black and one red. Anyway, does anyone think this could have been a rewired engine? It has the black and white box from the Kuhn era.
yes, they were made that way.
Say it with me:
POSTWAR RULES!!!
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