Break in Time for NEW Lionel SD60's?

[jrf]

 My father has recently purchased a pair of Lionel EMD SD60's from Lionel (BN "Tiger Stripe" scheme) Item #: 6-28312 and #: 6-28363.  After waiting for a couple of years since the release date kept getting pushed back excitement dwindled to a certain extent once we put them on the layout. These are beautiful locomotives to say the least with great paint, bright lights, and superb sound.  One thing we've noticed right out of the box is something extremely disappointing.  Our layout consists of 0-31 tubular track curves because when this layout was built nearly 20 years ago minimum radius wasn't much of a thought since anything available at that time and years after never really required anything with a larger radius.

Getting to the point here the locomotive's trucks have a tendency right out of the box to climb the curves meaning you'll hear a definite grinding sound and before you know it the truck has derailed.  This happens even at the most extreme crawl of speed.  We've ran the units both forward and backward and varied the speeds and it continually does this.  One unit appears to be working much better now after lubing up the axles and running it back and forth over some straight track however when you try to pull more than a few cars with it the extra tension appears to be causing the axle(s) on the rear truck to derail as it tries to negotiate the curves.  I was told that these units now have at least 10 hours of run time between them and we still can't even pull a train around the layout with them.  I find it odd that if these units were intended to run with a minimum radius of 0-31 we have two units that appear to defective?

Lionel Customer Service has been contacted and they said that these units were indeed intended to run with a minimum radius of 0-31 curves and that they were not aware of any such issues as we described.  One thing they said is that the motors may have issues in that the rear motor may not be keeping up with the front motor hence the derailments in the curves. The authorized Lionel dealer these units were purchased from has also been contacted and they said they were not aware of such issues and would have their repair team look into possible fixes.

Additionally we have a Lionel CNW Heritage unit and an older BNSF Dash 9 unit as well as a NP Lion Master Challenger and all run just fine on our layout.

I keep checking CTT magazine for a review on these units but haven't found one and was wondering if others are having this same issue as well.

Thank you in advance for the replies.

[lionelsoni]

Of course this would void any warranty; but, as an experiment, you could rewire the motors in series, which would allow each to adapt to the other's speed, and see whether the problem goes away.

[rtraincollector]

I seem to remember having an NS SD-60 I think anyway it was suppose to run on O-42 track so I bought some even bought some O-54 and had same problem except it wouldn't jump the track. Funny thing thou it only happened when I ran the train clock wise if I ran it counter-clockwise it ran fine.

So try turning your engine around and see if it helps it may sound crazy but it worked for my engine ( still scratching head over that one )

[jrf]

The locomotives do it facing either direction and running forward or backward.  Also it might sound obvious but the reason we decided to go with these units is we've had very good luck with a couple other modern locomotives similar in size and length on our 0-31 curves and these units are listed as 0-31 compatible in the catalog(s) and online.  Also included in the initial response from Lionel Customer Service was that these units are indeed intended to run on a minimum of an 0-31 radius so it shouldn't be an issue.

[rtraincollector]

you might want to call and insist you want to talk to tech support ( usually only way you get in there ) and they may tell you to send them in for warranty work seeing you just got them