Resurrection

You may recall that I had this locomotive painted.

You may also recall that when I put it back together it ran horribly, and then not at all.

Well today I got it running again, although it is once again a DC only locomotive.

First I checked the locomotive with the decoder installed on DC power. It didn't work. Then I took the decoder out and wired it back up as a straight DC locomotive, and the motor did run but the gears slipped badly. So then I took the locomotive apart and carefully inspected each and every gear.

It turns out that any grit at all in the gears will cause them to decouple, and anything that keeps the frame from firmly contacting the boiler only exacerbates the problem. Additionally, when the grit causes the gears to push the frame outwards the cast on brakes that are there purely for show actually start to work, further binding the drivers and throwing them out of quarter.

Once the gears were cleaned of all debris, the wires were tucked firmly into their channels to keep them from interfering in the frame to boiler fit, the brakes disengaged and the drivers requartered the locomotive ran smoothly again. I have hooked up a train full of cars to it and had it running laps on a temporary track setup on the kitchen table all afternoon.

The next step will be to install another decoder and program it for the new number, but for now I am just enjoying seeing it run.