Greetings,
This is my first post to Trains.com. I have a Lionel O gauge train set from when I was a kid -- my late father who was a big train buff built the 8x4 layout onto a piece of plywood that we had mounted on the wall with hinges to raise and lower it. Pretty cool, and it worked great for many years.
That was the late 1960's, so fast forward to today. I'm trying to get the trains running again for my 8 and 10 year old boys. I'm using my original Lionel "Multi Control TrainMaster" 110 watt Type RW, 155v 60 cycle. Dual levers with a red indicator light on one side and green on the other. I seem to be able to hook the thing up properly to the clip on the track (3 rail system) because I'm getting power to the lights on the track and I can make the locomotives run briefly, but only for a few feet before they stop dead. I have three different locomotives and I'm getting essentially the same results from each. And the only part of the track where they run for even a brief period is nearest to where the TrainMaster is hooked into the clip. About 15 years ago my father had the TrainMaster refurbished by a local train store and we tested it afterwards and it seemed to work OK, but we didn't hook it up to the original layout, just a few feet of track.
The track is obviously very old and a little rusty, but I have taken some extra fine steel wool and gone over the entire track to remove any debris, rust, etc. It looks pretty good now.
My question is, does this sound like a problem with the locomotives, the TrainMaster, or the track? Could the clip be the problem? I suppose I could have the locomotives refurbished, that was going to be my next move but I wanted to see if anyone here had any thoughts.
Thanks for any assistance you can offer.
Mike
msh305The track is obviously very old and a little rusty, but I have taken some extra fine steel wool and gone over the entire track to remove any debris, rust, etc. It looks pretty good now.
Aaarghh! Never, never, never use steel wool on track or locomotives. It gets into the motor and other parts of the mechanism and causes serious problems.
That may or may not be responsible for the trouble you're now having with the locomotives, but if you've had them on that steel-wooled track, it's a good bet.
Well, it's too late to warn you not to use steel wool! The virtually invisible fragments get picked up by the Magnetraction and by the electrical fields of the locomotive motors and get into the moving parts. The best thing to use is Scotch Brite. All you need to clean (for electrical purposes) is the top surfaces of the rails. They are tin-plated; so you don't want to do any more than remove dirt. Once the tin is gone, the steel underneath will rust.
It sounds like your problems are related to the track joints, which get loose with time. They can be retightened by pinching the ends of the rails back together at the web, that is, the vertical part just below the railhead. By pinching just a little higher than the web, you can close up the hole enough to make it grab the mating pin tightly. If any pins are loose in their rails, pinch the web under them also; but also look for an indentation on the sides of the railhead where it is crimped to the pin. Tighten up that crimp too.
All of that works for me. Some folks like also to bend the ends of the center rail and one of the outside rails on one side of the joint very slightly in opposite directions, so that they fit tighter into the mating rails.
For long runs of track, it is often helpful to add additional feeders to the track; but you should be able to run farther than you have without resorting to that.
Bob Nelson
Welcome MSH! Let us know how you make out!
BTW.......Vacuum your brains out in the meantime to pick up any/all of the steel wool fragments, including under the track ties.
Jack.
IF IT WON'T COME LOOSE BY TAPPING ON IT, DON'T TRY TO FORCE IT. USE A BIGGER HAMMER.
Welcome MSH305, It looks like you got all good advice, just get rid if the steel wool dust and enjoy yourself. Take the time to get it to work right so that you keep the kid's interest.
John
After you have completed the suggestions listed above, get rid of that track and replace it with new Fast Track, MTH's Real Trax or Lionel Tube track. You will have nothing but trouble with that old rusty track and its not worth the problems.
Good Luck,
Bud
get rid of that track
Yep, if you are starting out fresh after a long hiatus, get new track. That will eliminate a lot of operating problems right out of the starting block.
Bill T.
You might try taking a Voltmeter and probing the track at different points with the transformer on to see if you get readings all around the track layout. Obviously, turn on the throttle on the transformer and take the locomotive off the track. If you get either zero or a very low reading, try soldering a jumper across that track joint to restore continuity.
George
You might detect a completely open joint that way; but a joint with high enough resistance to stop the train completely will have no effect on the voltage reading. You need a load on the track comparable to the train, that is, several amperes, to measure the voltage drop caused by bad but not completely open track joints.
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