Hello, everyone:
I'm new here, but I hope you don't mind if I pick your collective brains with a question. This post will be long so I can give all relevant details; I apologize in advance. A little background: I've had a Lionel 8632 PA Flyer since the 90s, so while I'm not exactly a total newbie, I'm also not fully up on all the lingo for various train parts and whatnot.
I recently inherited two other Lionels upon the death of my grandmother. One is the Lionel 681 with the 2046W-50 Pennsylvania whistling tender from the 50s that was my grandfather's when he was young. It still runs great, including working headlight, except the smoke stack doesn't seem to be working (I think it might be clogged--it has build-up--and I also need to buy the smoke tablets, if they're even still manufactured). So my question isn't about the 681. The other Lionel I inherited is an 8901 (& 8902 dummy) Pennsylvania Double A Alcos (I'm assuming you can probably guess which state I'm from, lol) from 1988. This is the one my question is about: After I hooked everything up, it seemed to run great, except it was locked into forward, so I couldn't go into neutral or reverse; easy enough, I flipped the E-Unit switch and all seemed good. However, after two or three days of seemingly running fine, now any time power is interrupted for any reason, whether it's because I turned it off, there was a car derailment or I press the direction button on the TrainMaster KW transformer I also inherited, the locomotive simply will not move for a period of time. It's like it gets stuck in neutral, which also means no more reverse. I hoped if I switched the E-Unit switch back so I can only go forward--I figured only forward was better than it just sitting in neutral any time power was interrupted--but of course no luck. In fact, the locomotive will only go forward with the switch on one setting; if I flip the switch now, it just stays in neurtal with the headlights on, but not running. And even though I can still go forward some of the time, like I said, if I stop the locomotive for any reason, when I turn it back on, or press the direction button, it does nothing but sit in neutral with the headlights on. I have to let it sit for a while--sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes a half hour or more, and then when I try it again, it will go forward (until, of course, power is interrupted, then it has to sit again for a while before it will run again). Do any of you good, knowledgeable people perhaps know what is causing this? Is it a faulty E-Unit or perhaps a short in one of the actual motors? I hope I've supplied enough relevant information, but if there are any specific questions, I'll do my best to answer (but please remember: I'm surprised I even know what the E-Unit is, so if it's very technical, I may be lost, lol). Thank you very much for any advice you can offer.
-Dwayne
Welcome to the forum. There's not usually a lot of discussion of Lionel on this forum. Perhaps the Classic Toy Train forum would draw the eyeballs you need to find an answer.
http://cs.trains.com/ctt/f/95.aspx
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
The CTT forum will definitely help. for your smoke unit, you need to carefully clean out the wax residue. As long as element is ok, she will smoke. And you do not have to use pellet, you can use smoke fluid in that unit.