Engine Light comes on but train does not move!!!HELP!!!

[Lostandfound13]

I recently purchased a O gauge North Pole Central Christmas Set to place around the Christmas Tree. I have two 4 year old girls that absolutely loved it. One afternoon, I came home and they informed that they were playing with the train, the green light started blinking and then it stopped. I have read all of the manuals and looked on every website I can think of. Is this a common problem. As I stated earlier the light comes on on the engine, the whistle works and all other parts of the train light up, there is just no motion.

 My fear is they blew a fuse inside the box, and due to Lionel's greedy design, I can not get into the transformer to check. Does anyone have any advice or has this happened to you before?

Any help will be greatly appreciated, especially since we are 7 hours from christmas. I will not be able to check this till after one of the obligatory family gatherings, so thank you in advance.

[lionelsoni]

If the locomotive's headlight comes on, the problem is not with the transformer.  Do you know that there is a switch on the locomotive that turns on the reversing unit ("e-unit")?  When the e-unit is shut off, it does not cycle among forward, neutral, reverse, neutral, etc.  The problem may be simply that that switch got bumped and needs to be put into the correct position.

Failing that, it's worth trying to get into the locomotive to see whether the problem might be something simple, like a broken wire. 

Unfortunately, it is also possible that the e-unit itself has failed, in which case your only hope for Christmas is to get a bridge rectifier from Radio Shack, which is probably now closed, and temporarily replace the e-unit with it, for forward-only operation.

[Lostandfound13]

 

Thank you for your advice, Unfortunately the reverse switch was not the answer. I am not familiar with what the e-unit is, but that will be my next attempt. I am just shocked at how easily this occured. One of Lionel's claims is that it can withstand the use and be a treasured family toy through out the years. Ours lasted about 3 weeks.

 

[dougdagrump]

Normally the blinking "Green" is telling the operator that there is a short, this could be a result of a derailment or any other number of things. Under normal circumstances it would only be a matter of correcting the problem and restarting but if the power were left on for an extended period of time it is hard to tell what the problem mite be.

With only the engine on the track have you tried using the the power lever to change direction instead of the direction button ? 

[brianel027]

Lostandfound, as others have done, we all are trying to troubleshoot the trouble, by eliminating the possible problems one step at a time. Just so you know, it's not greed on Lionel's part: Laws and safety regulations have changed over the years, sometimes making changes necessary. During the 1970's many of the starter sets made by Lionel MPC had a special screw making access into the transformer not easy.

Now one thing we don't know, is how your girl's were playing with the trains. Don't get me wrong cause I love kids. But I do personally know of a youngster who used water or something other than smoke fluid in his engine while dad was a work... you know, kids want to see the smoke and waiting for dad to get home can be eternity to a kid. It was an innocent mistake for sure. BUT this move effectively screwed up their loco big time. You might want to gently prod the kids without being accusatory as to anything they might have noticed or remembered that seemed wrong to them... they might be able to help out figure this out!

If as Doug mentioned, the circuit breaker light was flashing was any lengthy period of time, permanent damage could have been done to either the loco or the transformer. It's possible that if a short happened while the girls were playing and they left the power on to the track, maybe some damage was done to either the loco circuit board or the transformer. Hard to say without actually seeing them. And actually, the Lionel instructions to the CW80 warn of this.

Your loco has a solid state circuit board which is more easily replaced than fixed. It's not just Lionel products: Circuit boards are sensitive. I've pulled apart other things that stopped working completely, like portable CD players and found the motors still worked, so it was obviously a circuit board failure that caused the player to not work.

PS: the Lionel circuit board for this loco is around $15. last I knew.

As Bob mentioned there is a lock-off switch beneath the cab of the loco. And as Doug mentioned, a flashing light seems to indicate a short of some kind. Maybe a lose wire off the lock off switch or the smoke unit switch if your loco has one of those too. Could something be on the track? Try removing all cars and the engine from the track and see if the transformer light stays on.

It's also possible the motor of the loco simply died. If you have a nine volt battery and are familiar with taking these locos apart, you could put a couple leads directly on to the solder connections off the motor directly. The Mabuchi motors Lionel and others use are normally reliable, but nothing is impossible. In my years back in the hobby, I've had one motor fail but I keep extras on hand so I fixed it right away.

If you had a neighbor who was into trains, a spare transformer would quickly answer some questions if that one was hooked up and got your trains running. That would point to the transformer being the problem.

Your set has a whistling tender and illuminated caboose. Check the wires coming off the pickups on these two cars, tuging on them gently to be sure they are still attached. They sometimes can come loose which can cause a short. Or just come lose on a curved section. Or they can be close enough in place to only cause a momentary short.

 Again, this is all trouble shooting.

And I know this doesn't help you in your spot, but I have a number of those type of loco you have, some being close to 20 years old and seeing regular use. Outside of a smoke unit needed to be replaced, they all still run fine. From one who has been in the hobby a while, Lionel's quality on starter sets is better now than in years.

If you bought the set recently, you could try calling the dealer or Lionel service. Lionel is actively going after new customers like you and wants to make you happy.

 

[Lostandfound13]

I want to sincerely thank all of you who took some time out of your Christmas Eve to try and help me with my train. The christmas spirit is alive and well.

Bob

Doug

Brian

 All of you went above and beyond what I could have expected. I have tried the quick fixes suggested and none of them have worked. The rest of the trains features still work, lights and whistle but the engine is not turning over at all. I fear there has been something fried on the loco itself. As for warranty or trade, this set is a couple of years old, I am owner #2. I will have to invest in a new engine for the year to come.

 

Again, Thank you for all of your help, and I hope all of you have a very merry Christmas

[brianel027]

Hey just so you know, I've seen those basic 4-4-2 steamers on sale lots of places. I bought a brand new one as a set breakup for $35 in the past year. Usually mail order retailers sell them for $55-$75.

You find one like that and you can swap out your more colorful die-cast shell on your set with a plain black one on another set. Check out choochooauctions.com. as there are some listed there (just the main loco, no tender) for around $45. The separate sale main parts would cost you nearly as much:

Smoke unit with light assembly $18 (that I know because I checked with Lionel who is out of stock right now). Mabuchi can motor with gear $10-12.

E-unit circuit board mentioned above.

Thanks too for the Christmas wishes, and to you also!

[Roger Bielen]

If you've only had the engine for three weeks the warrenty should still be in effect.  Before opening the engine and doing anything with the internals take it back to where you bought it, hopefully a Lionel authorized dealer/repair shop.  If you do anything internal you might void the warrenty.  Lionel service has become very picky.

[SleeperN06]

This happened to my Polar Express a couple of days ago and I suspected it to have something to do with the reversing switch and its getting stuck in neutral.

With the switch in the reversing position I could eventually get it moving by moving the throttle back and forth and then I would slide the switch back to non-reversing. I keep switching the switch back and forth and running it backwards until it started working normal. I don’t know what finally fixed it, but I also pulled the plug and reversed the wires.

Its running fine now. My 2 year old grandson is constantly playing with the throttle so I have to keep it in forward only mode.

Oh, I just wanted to add that I’ve seen a lot of threads about locos getting stuck in neutral, I don’t know if it is a common problem with Lionel because I haven’t read every post.