Those little train set bricks are rated seven VA (watts) - barely over 1/2 amp at full DC voltage.
Now you why mine have been relegated to structure lighting duties. My bigger locos have two of those old juice-hog open frame motors...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I don't know about the newest ones, but the old Bachmann black power packs with the red two-way handle could only handle about a half amp, and would get pretty warm if I tried using an engine needing more than that. They didn't have a nice linear control either. They'd start at about 3 volts and jump about a volt and a half at a time until they got up to around 16 volts. The rated current and all was molded directly into the plastic.
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I spent yesterday doing maintenance of a couple of new HO steam engines that I had bought recently. I took off the locomotive shells and removed the old lube, cleaned the gears, applied new lube and oiled the crossheads and valve gears and side gear. I then tried out the engines to see how well they moved.When I went to my test track I forgot that I had taken the MRC power unit off of the test track and installed it on my main layout to power the electric motors on a number of switches. I remembered I still had a few Bachmann's trainset DC power units in a box, I retrieved one in and hooked up to my test track.I then placed on of the new engines on the test track to see how it ran, the first locomotive would barely crawl. I thought oh well the engine is 35 years old, another candidate for either new magnets or a replacement can motor,.I then tried the second locomotive, and it too would hardly crawl,, well another candicate for magnets or a can motor, I then tried the third motor and it too would hardly crawl. I thought I should give the test track another look and went over to my layout and grabed a Bachmann DCC engine with sound, the new mogul, The Bachmann 2-6-0 ran great, the sound was fine.I then remembered I had another MRC DC power unit in my misc box, I hooked the MRC unit to the test track, and placed the first locomotive that I had initially tried. It ran great, same with the second and third locomotives.I then realized at how little power the Bachmann DC power unit had in comparison to the MRC units. Does anyone know the rating of the Bachmann's trainset power source?Well, a lesson learned, it turned out that the three engines I had recently purchased did not need to be remotored at all. The locomotives were old brass engines with the open frame motor.