All locomotives coming from China use small plastic clips to hold the wiring in place on the trucks, circuit boards, and decoders. These clips work loose and cause erratic electrical contact. The best solution is to remove all of them and solder every connection. I have encountered brand new locomotives that have had the clips slip completely off during shipping and handling..
First, thanks to all of you for such prompt assistance! I appreciate your time in responding. I did immediately clean the track, but no change occurred. Then did the wheels on alcohol soaked towel, but as these were brand new out of the box, not much deposit left on the toweling. I think the carbodies will have to come off next to check wiring connections. Not familiar with the method used on Athearn Geeps to get current from the wheels up to the decoder, but I'm about to learn. All my other Athearn locos are six or eight axle. (love the DD40's) On the SD trucks, I found that conductivity between the square bronze axle bearing block and the metal truck sideframes was an issue and I corrected that.
An interesting tech report from Tony's Trains. http://www.tonystrains.com/technews/loconews/athearn_genesis_pickup_problems.htm . I wonder if it has application here?
Joe
I second the second poster.
Richard
Good thoughts.
Victor
I have four of theses units and clean the wheels as Paul said in his post. I noticed a similar problem as you mentioned and cleaned the wheels. When I ran the front truck over the paper towel the engine stopped. When I turned it around it spun the wheels over the paper towel as it should. I realized that the engine probably wasn't getting power pick up on the rear truck so I removed the shell and re-secured the power pick up wires to the decoder. That solved the problem. Something you might want to check.
Marty C
One of these GP9's was my first engine last year. I'm running DCC also. When issues arose, my first ack is to clean the track (to rule that out), then 2nd to clean the wheels. I do the latter with a denatured alcohol wet paper towel running the loco over it several times with the wheels spinning. Once that's done, I know remaining issues are not track cleanliness or loco wheels ditto. Usually after I do this, problems are very minimal, or specific to a proble track location (e.g. a short at at turnout...talking about other locos here).
Also, realize that if a track cleanliness issue (which may cause a locl wheel contact issue) that the source of these issues may become your issue. I've "gleamed" my track to give me a minimal problem track corrosion issue, use a CSX car (expensive) to periodically alcohol clean the track, and have converted all my cars to metal wheels to minimize crud buildup and re-depositing.
My suggestion...clean the track and loco wheels thoroughly. If they all act the same, then start to act up, there's an issue about track cleanliness and which loco becomes affected first.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
I recently purchased a set of four Athearn Geeps (all the DRGW road numbers) with factory Soundtraxx decoders. I run them in consist. Two of the four frequently loose power momentarily, as evidenced by headlamp going off, and then sound of engine re-starting. Makes for lousy train handling. They do this even when running light (no cars) and separated (uncoupled) but running a few inches apart from one another.
Seems like a track power pickup issue, but not trackwork since it happens randomly and the other two pass over the same section without incident. Anyone have a suggestion?