DUMMY picking up power????

[Yodarian]

Has anyone ever used a dummy to pick up power for the primary loco in a consist?

i have been tickering with the idea of installing wiring into a dummy to pick up power and actually make tiny connecting wires that can be removed when not in use. any thoughts or past experience would be helpful.

Thanks

 

[7j43k]

Yup.

 

I started with a Lionel FA-1 and FB-1.  The A was powered in a hybrid gear/rubber band drive.  The B was a dummy.

I put a Hobbytown drive in the B.  Hobbytowns are 4 wheel pickup, not 8.  So I dummified the A, which had 8 wheel pickup.  I electrically tied them together so that there was 12 wheel pickup for the Hobbytown.

It was/is a sweet running loco that never stalls.

 

On a slightly different tack, I have an Athearn cow-calf switcher set (both powered).  I put a drawbar between them and electrically tied them together to get 16 wheel pickup.  I used the drawbar as one electical connection and a jumper wire for the other.  Again, it never stalls.

 

Now, I will note that BOTH of these sets are drawbarred.  They can't/won't run separately.  I recommend going this route rather than trying to make the set "convertible".  If you NEED an extra pickup dummy, you'll pretty much ALWAYS need it.  So go the drawbar route or not at all.

 

 

Ed

[MisterBeasley]

What kind of engines are these, model and brand?  Most 4-axle diesels made now have adequate pickup and require only good, clean trackwork to operate flawlessly, without stalling.

Dummy engines, on the other hand, may not be designed for good pickup, so you will need to do significant work to upgrade them to provide reliable power.

[doctorwayne]

Yodarian

Has anyone ever used a dummy to pick up power for the primary loco in a consist?

Most of us who run steam do so, but the dummy in our case is the tender.
I use small plugs, like the ones below, to get the power to the locomotive:

On your diesels, you could mount the female plug(s) directly on one locomotive, and put the male portion(s) on the end of a wire(s) from the other loco.  When connected, it would look similar to mu connections.

Here, the female portions are mounted solidly on the front of the tender:

...with the wire-mounted male connectors in place, the wiring takes on the appearance of the water delivery hoses from the tender:

Wayne

[Yodarian]

i run mostly bachmann diesel locos, a couple athearn diesel locos, and one bachmann steam loco in the way on the hogwarts express. none were DCC when i got them. they have all been converted. the steam loco was a challenging effort, but persistence paid off. i quite happy with the results. i was mainly considering linking some of the dummys i have so that i can get some controled light ing without have to use a decoder in a dummy. plus i was really considering trying to make what looks like MU hose actually functional. just a crazy thought . i have a couple extra shells to mess with. 

[rrinker]

 It depends on the dummy loco. I have a Stewart/Bowser F3 dummy that has a sound decoder and big speaker in it, but those came with metal wheels and all the pickup stuff is in place except the wires soldered to the trucks, so that's all I had to do. Others use plastic wheels in the dummy so you've have to put in metal wheels and rig pickups. Mine isn't electrically connected tot he A, and since F3 and F7 A and B units got swapped around a lot, mine have regualr couplers. But the Bowser units are quite reliable at power pickup just running alone so the extra pickup of 16 wheels didn't seem necessary. I have an FT A-B set connected by a drawbar, but both are powered. I might add an electrical connection but really there has been no need so far.

                                       --Randy

[BroadwayLion]

There are not many un-powered dummy locomotives out there. I have several Atheran F7 units. I run A-B-A setups, the A units are powered, the B unit is not,  but it is built on a formerly powered chassis, since that seems to track better. It does pick up power, and all units are wired together.

LION finds this necessary since him uses track gaps to stop trains correctly, and it will not do to have a gap between a pair of powered locomotives.

Railroad of LION operates several work trains, all cars pass power from one end of the train to the other, for lighting and for and traction.

 

ROAR