Ok gang, I need some help, advice and even opionins.... I will take anything.
So, out in the garage havein fun. For kicks, I thought bust out my favorite engine on the roster, my Broadway Limited, Cab Forward. Its about 2.5 years old, donest get run much. In fact, I havent run more than 6 feet in about 6 months. But tonight, I thought what the heck, brough it down and fired it up....
Man, did I get depressed. I sat on the track, did a quick test to make sure I had the program number right, hit the power wheel, and bam, fell on on its face out of the gate. It has always been a hard starting engine, takes some power to get those 8 wheels moveing, but ti seemed so much worse. Off it came, oiled all the joints on the rods and drive gear on the outside of the engine, (Pardon me, I dont know the exact name of it all) Put it back on, seemed a little better.... I guess....
I put on a small train, roughly 15 cars and let it go. All the cars are some of my best older era cars, metal wheels and all free rolling. I had it full throttle and it was maybe doing 30-35 MPH scale speed. It was maxed out and going no where. This bad boy used to fly if I let it get away from me. I get the feeling it was running so weak. It slowed down on the transtion up to the main line. it used to pull 20 cars up the 2 percent grade and grin about. What the heck? Back when I ran on my Prodigy system, I never even thought about full power. It was too fast and it scared me to see it go that quick.
I am now running a NCE Power Cab System. There were no other engines running at the time I was running the CF.. All of my other engines run fine, I checked to test the system. Includeing the 4 other QSI based DCC engines I have. Only other thing, it sat out in the garage all summer, pretty hot, might have played havoc with the oil and lube. But, all other were fine.... Just thought Id share that bit of info
So, any ideas? thoughts? Man, I sure could use some. I am one sad modeler right now
Best Regards, Big John
Kiva Valley Railway- Freelanced road in central Arizona. Visit the link to see my MR forum thread on The Building of the Whitton Branch on the Kiva Valley Railway