I have a Bach 3-truck shay without a dedcoder, it is about 4 years old and has had very little total time put on it. I run it a few hours a year when I set up my temporary layout. I was running mine on DC earlier this week and it seemed fine. The loco was making some minor squeaks and really sounded like it needed a lube but really was running fine. A day later I was running it and it was moving OK then just stopped. The lights still operate but loco won’t budge. All power to the track was checked and other loco’s were tried and they all ran without issues.
Is the motor running or trying to run. The spur gears on the truck axels may have cracked. Common problem. Four years sounds about the right time for this to happen.
Well, it was moving along slowly and stopped like it had encountered dirty track. I moved it forward a bit and nothing. The lights were still on. There was no buring smell, and I got down right next to it to see if I could hear the motor trying to run and there was nothing. No sound or buzzing like I would suspect if the motor was trying to run and there was a blockage or broken drive. Is that a right assumption if the drive has failed? If the motor or board fried would there be a burning smell? It really is almost like the motor is disconnected.
Shays are my favorite…sorry to hear yours is sick Birddog. Sounds like a soldered connection worked its way loose to me if it stopped suddenly like that. You might check them all first.
Hi, I encountered the same symptoms. I found that the bronze electrical pickups on the trucks were not making good contact with the outer truck frame. The path of current in your Shay is from the wheels to the axles then the axles to the outer axle frame then to the bronze pickup (pu). Cleaning the area were the bronze pu contacts the frame cleared up the problem. When you reasemble the trucks make sure all four wheels touck the track at the same time. Not like a chair with a short leg.
OK, since the light is on, the Shay is still getting electrical pickup. In that case, there are only two things I can think of. One is that the connection to the motor suddenly went bad (probably a wire to the motor coming loose). Or two, the motor failed. On DC, the motor gets a direct connection to the track, and there are no PC board components that could have failed (meaning, the PC board isn’t the problem).
The first thing to check is the connection to the PC board. Make sure there are no broken or disconnected wires anywhere.
The second thing to check is the motor (if the first thing isn’t the problem). Although tricky, it is possible to get the boiler off, revealing the motor (I’ve done it twice). If you can get that far, connect the motor terminals directly to your power source. If the motor doesn’t run, then it’s failed and needs to be replaced. Bachmann’s Shay uses the cheapest motor they’ve got, so I would recommend replacing it with a different brand of motor if it has failed. All you have to do is take the measurements of the motor, and find a better quality one of similar size (Northwest Short Line may have one, and possibly A Line).
If you’re not comfortable doing all this, you may want to get someone to help you out, just to be safe.