This loco is very light, which is why it came with the rubber tires option. We have one at the club and we kept the rubber tires to give it some traction. On the Athearns, the solution was to glue some weights under the hood to give it some weight. Changing the wheels to polished nickel wheels did not help and only aggravated the situation....
But before opening your loco again, you can test the theory by putting some weight on top of the loco and see if it runs better (just let the gravity hold the weights for now). The next time you open it, check the wires as suggested, and see if there is room for some weight that you can glue on somewhere inside the shell.
Simon
Loose wire? Thous how something could just come loose sitting in a drawer is beyond me. Usually the full reset would fix any strange operational issues.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy,
I swapped out the traction tires a long time ago. The pickup issues started before I looked under the hood. In fact it went from sitting on the siding to the present state. The last time it was run a year ago all was fine.
I will check the pickups though.
CN Charlie
I think those came with a swappable set of drivers with traction tires - the set without traction tires will give better pickup, but poorer pulling power. They are fairly lightweight, and with the traction tire wheelset will be very picky about the track and wheels and pickups. Make sure none of the pickups has bent while you cleaned them, loss of any is going to really hurt the power pickup.
I have a Walthers PK2 SW900 of the 2006 run with factory QSI sound. I run DCC.
This engine had always run well however I started it up after sitting on a siding for about a year and it only ran intermitently with no prime mover sound. I cleaned ths wheels and track resulting in marginal improvement.
I then pulled the shell and gave it a light lube, did a reset of the decoder to factory default. The prime mover sound is back but it still stalls. I cleaned the wheels and track again. It will now run a few feet and then stop dead, no sound. A push and it starts again.
Any suggestions?