Do you do stuff like this?

[hdtvnut]

Week before last, I installed an MRC 1626 into an older P2K E8/9 (not DCC-ready), being careful to make sure the motor was isolated and that I put heat shrink on each connection.  I've done maybe a dozen sound installs - no big deal - but no MRC's, mostly because they have a bad rep with some people.

After a short test period, I took the E8 to my club where it proceeded to derail at several grade crossing because of the low sideframes.  After about the 5th time, it suddenly would not move, only jerking slightly.  Sound still worked.  So I'm thinking MRC "glass jaw".  I took the shell off and there were two holes melted in the decoder's plastic wrap where the motor leads connect.  Suspicion confirmed.  Back home, I patched in a Digitrax for the motor, and only then noticed the center axle on one truck seemed jammed.  On closer inspection, I saw something barely peeking out between two gears.  It was a short piece of shrinkwrap I thought I had dropped on the floor during installation.

The club layout had no circuit protectors except in the booster, so the MRC has definitely been road-tested.  It still works fine!

Hal

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I once had a short snippet of wire get caught in the gears in the rear truck of a P2K E6. Broke two teeth off one of the gears.

[larak]

I once left a two inch piece of solder across the track in hidden staging. It was not flat so did not short the rails until a locomotive touched it - then sudden dead stop. Luckily everything is lightbulb protected.

Found and removed the solder (which I could not see) and everything worked again. 

Also once got a grain of ballast stuck between two gears. Loco would move a very short distance then bind up. Able to reverse the same distance then bind again.  

Yeah, wierd stuff happens to most of us I think.

Karl 

[Paul3]

Wierd stuff happens.

At my old club's location, we had an underground reverse loop that had been installed for over 40 years.  I was running a brace of club locos around the layout with a 20-car train, and I got the point where the train should be coming out of the tunnel...and no train.  Since this was old DC analog cab control, I couldn't hear the train, but I could see the amp meter working which meant the train was running.  The detection was lit in the block, but still...no train.

I got out of the cab and ducked under the layout.  The train was stopped going up our 4% grade in the tunnel.  I pulled it back by hand, and there was no derailments I could hear.  I told someone back in the cabs to apply power, and the train moved forward about 6 inches...then stopped dead and spun the wheels.  "What the heck?", I asked myself.  I pulled the train back again and felt around.  There was a bond wire that had somehow fallen down and was catching the loco, a GP38, right across the cab windows.  This bond wire had been installed since my father was in High School, and it just decided to flop down and catch a passing freight train.  Why?  Who knows...  But that was a weird one.

Paul A. Cutler III
************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
************

[tstage]

Yep.  One time a small piece of Kapton tape was stuck to the backside of a drive wheel on one of my new diesel locomotives.  Couldn't understand why I was getting a rhythmic "thump...thump...thump...thump" whenever the locomotive would move along the track.

Well, after some investigation, I finally discovered the cause, removed the tape, and the locomotive operated nice and quiet - just like it was supposed to.  I will admit that the first thing that came to mind was cracked gears.  Thankfully it was an easy fix.

Tom

[last mountain & eastern hogger]

 Sometimes a guy is just either dumb or asleep.

I have a Athern 1500 switcher that was a dummy and I motored and geared it, and of course  I was eager to see it running.   "IT DID NOT MOVE"   However upon further examination I discovered when the frame for the dummy was painted they had also painted the inside well where the motor sits and I, in my haste to get the job done, had somehow overlooked that fact and for that reason there was no ground . 

FIRST CHAPTER OF ELECTRICAL GUIDE---------

Where there is no ground, there is no go. 

Oh the things we learn by experience.

So I scraped off the paint, re-assembled it and it ran super.

Johnboy out.........................