are sparks good

[Anonymous]

My train will only go if you give it a boost, and thats on full power. When it finaly does go, spark come out from the wheels. Whats wrong and how do I fix it.

[Anonymous]

Well, first thing you want to do is make sure that the wheels on the loco and rail are cleaned and that your engine is properly luibricated. If you are still having a problem, i would check the loco's wheels to see if perhaps one set was inverted. Some locos factory wheels can be reversed accidentally when they are removed for whatever reason, causing a short. What you may want to do is to hold the Positive and negative leads right from your power pack directly to alternating wheels on the loco to test that , if you dont have a meter to test with.

[Don Gibson]

NO. Sparks are not good. They show poor electrical flow. Your track and wheels are filthy. They'll get worse.

Track get's dirty from dust in the air, smoke, and carbon from sparks from your engines.
Dirty Track gets picked up on all your wheels, which then redeposits on cleaned track.

1. Clean your track with Alchohol on a rag, or a 'Brite Boy. eraser', or both.
2. Clean your Engine's wheels with Alchohol soaked cotton swabs
3. Clean the wheels of ALL your rolling stock with a paper towel across the track, with some alchohol dripped on one side, rolling back and forth between wet and dry. (The dirt will be deposited on the paper towel).
4. Do not put anything on your track that has oil in it.

There are 101 'cleaning' remedies, used by 101 modeler's, each with their favorite's. You can try all of them if you wish, but the above WORKS!

5. Last, but not least:: Replace Athearn's (not RTR or Genesis) sparking engine wheels with JB #101's - after doing 1 - 4.

[darth9x9]

Clean the wheels and clean the tracks!

BC