Help on charging MTH battery in Railking tender

[Anonymous]

Hi all. I just bought a new MTH Railking set (new but a 2001 left over) which will be set up late Christmas Eve around the tree as a surprise for my boys on Christmas morning. My problem is I need to charge the battery for the Protosounds (ver 2) before then - without them seeing the train. And the set has been on a store shelf for over a year it will definatey need charging.
I went to my local hobby store Sunday to pick up more Realtrax and an AC/DC charger but they didn't have the power adapter in stock. However they said I should be able to get one at Radio Shack (and I have a drawer full of good but unused adapters). The only problem is I do not know what the voltage is nor the center pin polarity. Anyone out there have the MTH AC/DC adapter they can tell me what those two things are?
I know I could set up a section of track and with the power pack I could charge the battery by going "live" but that's too harder to hide - not to mention cumbersome and a potential accident waiting to happen.

Thank you,
Ken

[Anonymous]

Ken,
You could have purchased a BCR that's advertised in this months magazine (February 2004) page 48. It replaces the battery, and after one minute of charging the engine is ready to run.
Wayne

[Anonymous]

Thanks Wayne. I'm thinking about getting one of those but wouldn't have had it in time. I also hadn't wanted to open the tender at all yet either. I was hoping to just plug the power cord into the tender and tuck into my bottom dresser drawer for a day. Quick, easy and out of sight. I didn't want to remove the battery but I'll have to in order to charge it on a generic 9v wall charger or put in a regular battery for a day or two at this point.

Thanks for the reply though! It was the only one on two different webboards and I *do* appreciate your idea.

Have a great Holiday! :)

Ken

(Happy Holidays to all....see you in a few days)