Problems with Broadway and Lionel

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine has a Lionel turbine and a Broadway E6 that stall on turnouts. These units are supposed to have all wheel pick up so they shouldn't stall, right? His other units, Athearn, Kato, and Proto all run fine. What could cause this? The turnouts are Atlas HO scale.

[cacole]

You're right, the Lionel and Broadway Limited locomotives should go through Atlas turnouts just as easily as other models. Atlas turnouts are problematic from the standpoint of their point rails not making good electrical contact with the outer rails, thus causing a loss of power; however, if other locomotives are running through them okay, that's probably not the problem here. Watch the locomotive wheels as they go through the frog, and insure that they are not derailing or lifting off of the track because of the wheel flanges catching on the tips of the frogs. Check the wheels with an NMRA standards gauge to make sure none of them are out of gauge. If you have a voltmeter, check the point rails as the turnouts are changed and insure that they are making electrical contact with the outer rails. I've never had this problem with a Lionel Challenger or Broadway Limited steam engine, because we use Peco turnouts almost exclusively on the Cochise & Western Model Railroad Club. We do have a few Atlas turnouts, and use either SwitchMaster stall motor switch machines or Caboose Industries sprung ground throws on them, so we haven't experience this type of problem with any of our locomotives.

[Anonymous]

I have a problem with the Broadway Limited Locos of which I have several. If there is a short anywhere in the block whether by the BLI or another loco the BLI units do not reset when power is restored. The manual seems to refer to this by adviseing to "cut the loco power to reset". Since I also use DCC I have not found a way to cut power without tilting the BLI loco off the track. I have yet to read any reference to this anywhere so maybe I'm missing something. All my BLI locos have the problem, not one of my other locos have this problem. Let me go on to say except,for this problem, I am extremely pleased: with the detail and paint, with the running ability, and with the pulling power of the BLI units. I too use PECO switches with the frogs wired and have no problems with locos shorting or loss of contact.
I hope someone will respond to this.
Ortice Atlanta, Ga

[cacole]

Don't let the term "reset" confuse you. The reset you're referring to is not the locomotives, but your command station that needs to reset after a derailment. When the manual refers to resetting the locomotive decoder, they mean that it changes every Configuration Variable and the locomotive address back to their factory default values, so any tweaking you have done to the sounds or address are erased and you have to start all over again.

Some DCC command stations need to be manually reset after a derailment by pressing some button on their keyboard or whatever. For example, the DCC system we use on the Cochise & Western Model Railroad Club is a homemade system that uses an Atari 8-bit computer as its CPU and for storage of locomotive data. If there is a derailment and the computer detects a short, it immediately shuts down the DCC booster, thus stopping everything. After correcting the derailment we have to press the ESCape key on the keyboard to reset the booster and restore power to the layout. Some boosters, such as the CVP EasyDCC System, automatically reset, and if you have this type, you should not have to do anything to the locomotives, but may need to reset the address on the controller before you can resume operations.

[Anonymous]

Ortice,

I have had some problems with Broadway limited locos and headlights. I hit "all stop" on my command station to reset....Worth a try. I have heard it suggested in some circles (not confirmed) that BLI used some irregular code to get a system to work in both DC and DCC. I have noticed that my BLI locos are a bit balky when switching back to DCC mode after running in straight DC. I often have to reset them.

There are several Yahoo DCC groups. I suggest you look ask your question there as well.

For the record: you do not have to re-enter the loco address in Easy DCC throttles after a short circuit shut down of the booster.

Curious to know what others have found in regards to your question.

Guy

[rexhea]

TravisR
I have only experienced your problem with a P2K FA&B and Atlas turnouts (DCC friendly). What I found out with this unit was the wheels had to be very clean and every little part of the turnout shiney clean. Then no problem. I agree that with all the wheel pickups, it seems impossible for this to happen---but it does.

OTHER:
I only run DCC using a Digitrax Command Station. I have three BLI's and do not experience the problems your talking about. All I have to do when any BLI loco or others derail is to reset the command station, activate power to the track, and all is ready to roll.

REX