I have a straight length of n-gauge track about 7 feet long to serve a mine on an o-gauge layout. It is hooked up to a Bachman power pack and has a reversing switch. My little mine engine is from Minitronics - it ran up and down several times just fine. When I went to run it again, it was stalled - I pushed it a little and it ran but the same problem persists. I presumed it was the engine and therefore borrowed a small n-gauge switcher from a friend (he is doing the same mine track; he showed me that his engine ran fine). I came home, put her on the track - ran a couple of times and again would not start up. I therefore assumed it was dirty track. I used a cloth and goo-gone followed by alcohol - not much dirt came up. To be sure, I used some very fine grit sandpaper and polished the surface and cleaned off the debris with alcohol. Unfortunately, no luck! I did check the rails with a voltmeter to make sure I had power. At this point, I am out of ideas; any suggestions would be appreciated - this should be about as simple as it gets! Thanks; just call me "O-Gauge Var"
It is not a good idea to use sandpaper on track, it scratches it and dirt will get in the scratches. It could be you need to oil the engine, or it could have something stuck on the motor.
Harrison
Homeschooler living In upstate NY a.k.a Northern NY.
Modeling the D&H in 1978.
Route of the famous "Montreal Limited"
My YouTube
Have you cleaned the wheels on the engines? Have you tried the engines anywhere else?
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
He did say the borrowed engine was demonstrated working on the friend's layout, so I doubt it's the loco.
Sandpaper was a bad idea, but what's done is done.
I suspect the power pack is not really functional. Try hooking a couple of wires to the variable DC connection and touching them directly to the loco wheels, that will eliminate the track and layout wiring as a possible fault. If it still doesn;t run - probbaly the power pack is bad. One test would be to check the voltage WITH the loco connected so there is a load on it. Just because there is voltage when there is no load doesn't mean it's in good shape.
And you ARE using the DC output, right? N scale locos are all DC, feeding power from the AC terminals or from an AC three rail transformer will burn them up.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Hey Gents: thanks for your input. Power pack was tested and is not an issue. Because of the concern about sandpaper, I went back with 1500 grit water sandpaper to polish the rail surface followed by Flitz polish - believe it or not, the engine responded better than before but still not perfect. I then applied a drop of Singer Oil to each exposed gear and ran it upside down for a minute. The system now works very well - thanks to all of you for taking the time to give me suggestions! Best regards, Var