I’ve got a very simple layout with the track completed and am starting to work on the ballast, etc. Nothing fancy. Just something to get me back into it after years. I had all the track tested with an older locomotive that still runs great, but I wanted to make my new layout an old west style and ordered an American Steam 4-4-0 P.R.R. locomotive to use. It works okay until it hits the switch at the bottom of my “figure 8” (its a raised up-and-over then goes underneath itself). I have a left hand switch at the bottom and when it gets to this switch it stops. It will continue with a little pressure on the top of the tender - like its not getting a good connection.
My switch is old but it works fine and its an Atlas with the plastic frog. Any suggestions? Known problems with this configuration? Can a metallic paint be used to paint a small section of the plastic frog to conduct electricity?
I don’t really want to have to poke the tender each time it goes around. And it will jerk a little but continue across if I run it fast, which I don’t want to do.
sometimes the rivets that hold the points to the lead rail and are supposed to transfer power to the point get dirt or ballast glue in them and will not pass current to the point. i’ve had many of these and have soldered a single strand of fine wire between the point and the lead rail to allow the current to pass. this seems to show up right after ballasting with me on my old atlas switches.
The HO scale Bachmann “old west” style 4-4-0 locomotives feature a less-than-ideal electrical pickup design. Assuming the factory wiring is intact, the motor gets power from just two tender wheels on one rail and two tender wheels and one driver wheel on the other rail. The headlight is powered via two front truck wheels and the one driver wheel.
When the very short electrical pickup wheelbase is combined with short sections of unpowered track (such as the frog) in a turnout, the locomotive can be expected to stop.
There are various methods one can try to improve the performance of the Bachmann 4-4-0. Some people like track sliders. Others like adding extra wheel wipers to the tender trucks (see http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/bachmann_4-4-0/wipers/). Another option is to rewire the locomotive so it matches the traditional steam locomotive electrical pickup configuration. This means four tender wheels would pickup current from one rail and two drivers plus two front truck wheels pickup current from the other rail. To complete the latter method, the drivers will need to be separated and reassembled with the traction tires on what will be the insulated side of the engine. BTW, with the possible exeption of an early production model, requartering the drivers is very easy due to the square axle holes.
You might also try a set of electrical pickup shoes under the tender. Tomar Industries makes them. They slide along on top of the rail for better contact. Might be a tight fit under the tender of a 4-4-0.
Harold Minkwitz’ site has a tutorial for tender pickups made from #5 Kadee centering springs, if you want to go that route. I never realized those Bachmanns had such poor pickup.
If you don’t already have a VOM, go buy one, less than $10, it’ll save you hair pulling worht at least $100, guaranteed. One minute with your meter will tell you if the rails are hot or not at the stall point. You can make interdimensional quantum pickup contacts for your loco till you quark off into the nano-sphere, but it’s not going to help if the rails are dead. Move the rails around a little bit, while watching the meter close. Sometimes the weight of the locomotive is just enough to break a
If you have the old Bachmann 4-4-0, the wheel flanges are your problem because they are so large that they cause the wheels to be lifted off the rail at the frog, especially on an Atlas turnout. There’s no hope for these engines except using Peco or other brand of turnouts with deep flangeways. A newer Bachmann Spectrum 4-4-0 would not have this problem.
Part of the electrical pickup with the Bachmann 4-4-0 is done through the tender wheels. Since the tender has no great weight to it it’s no surprise that the pickup is problematic. The only good way to keep this from being a problem is to keep the tender wheels and pickups absolutely spotless. Failing that, you can rework an old-timer boxcar to pickup through metal wheelsets which would be connected to the loco through wires.
Run the engine as slowly as it will go without stopping and duck down, watching the wheels as they pass over the frog. Perhaps they are being lifted by a frog that’s too high, breaking contact with the rail. This could be due to too-deep flanges, but it seems to me that the Atlas flangeways should be deep enough to take them - I will have to find my own scrapped American and check.
Be sure the frog is level with the rail top, and that there is no excess plastic at the bottom of the flangeway causing a bump. These are easy to file or scrape down. Also be sure the rails are clean right next to the plastic frog. The insulated frog on a Snap-Switch, I find, is not as big a problem as a dead Custom-Line frog - the actual insulated section is very short.
Also make sure your tender wheels are clean. Often the
Most steam locomotive problems is in pickup, unless you have pickup on all the tender wheels and at least one set of driving wheels with both sides picking up there will always be a problem. Why do you thing recent steam runs better than 20 year old steam, pickups on more wheels.
Wow! As a newbie I’m amazed by the assistance offered on this forum. I appreciate all suggestions, and will try the wheel/rail cleaning first. I have examined the tender wheels and the wheels on one side DO seem to be dirtier than the other side. I haven’t put ballast on or anywhere near that section yet, so I doubt that is an issue here, but that switch was in a box for over 6 years before installing it this time. It could be a little distorted or dirty.
I already have a voltmeter and power is there at every point it should be.
The work on changing the pickups sounds tedious but if all else fails I will give it a try. I just have to go and buy a small jewelers tool kit. A good excuse to go look at tools.
Turns out, its not stopping on the frog after all. While cleaning the track rails and tender wheels I decided to try the r e a l s l o w test mentioned above while I watched it traverse the switch. I originally, and mistakenly blamed the frog because of my ignorance of the tender pickup location. I have now isolated the real culprit. Adjacent to the metallic switch itself is the little plastic switch control hanging off the side of the track. Right? Okay through trial and error I found that by pressing down on the controller the whole side of the switch twisted/bent down slightly allowing the train to go by with no faltering whatsoever. I think by placing two switches only slightly offset but side by side going opposite directions, it has caused the one switch to buckle up ever so slightly on the controller side, creating an uneven track. At least uneven enough to lose power from the limited pickups on the tender.
Now I must find a way (without disassembling everything) to provide some constant pressure on that controller housing to straighten out that twist. I’m thinking some kind of tiny bracket screwed down beside it to pull it downward. I’ve dug out the cork roadbed from underneath it as much as I can and that helps some, but it needs to come down a little more.
I can’t find any info on what N scale track sliders are. I also would like to find some info on wheel wipers. The link in this thread is no longer there.
The little 4-4-0 locomotive still stalls at random points but with just a little pressure on the tender, it continues. The pickup design seems to be the problem. My other diesel locomotive runs fine all along it. The power is there, but the tiny American 4-4-0 steam locomotive just doesn’t make good contact.
Many old designs use poor or limited wheel electrical pickup, at a time when frogs were powered. Today, only current ‘Shinohara’ has a ‘hot’ frog.
With the popularity of DCC, ‘dead’ frogs have become the norm.
Your problem is the COMBINATION. What are you willing to change? A switch with a frog you can apply power to is the cheapest answer - or is it?
I have all Shinohara turnout/switches and ‘power route’ them via a SPDT, so I don’t have that problem. Your problem is the engine, and finding a switch to compensate for it.
I’d first try a Peco ‘Electrofrog’, and work my way up to a Shinohara + Tortoise.
Those 4-4-0’s have just about the worst pickup arrangement of any loco ever made. The tender trucks only pick up power using 2 wheels for each rail, with the front truck picking up the left side, and the rear truck picking up power from the right. The right front driver also contributes some pickup from the right rail via the wire to the tender, but the lead truck picks up power from the left rail for the headlamp only. I ran an extra wire from the lead truck to the front tender truck, and pickup has improved dramatically. It’s important to run a wire jumper from the truck to the brass washer above the truck spring, because otherwise all of the current runs through the spring itself. I had mine overheat when I ran the loco with a test lead attached to the front truck, and put too much load on the original motor.
Also be sure that the crummy pickup wipers on the tender trucks are sprung sufficiently. It doesn’t take much to flatten them out so that they don’t contact the axles.
I’ve since replaced the original motor with a pancake style CD tray motor, and man can it crawl.
At some point I’m going to make those truck pickups that Harold Minkwitz devised, but in the meantime the front truck mod lengthens the pickup wheelbase.
And it will jerk a little but continue across if I run it fast, which I don’t want to do.