I have a acquired a brass locomotive, 4-8-4 that has a switch on the bottom of the axle retiners. When I turn the engine upside down the switch is visibile on the bottom. It is a DC engine and the switch is labled with very small lettering that says off - on. One driver would appear to have a cam on the axle as it protrudes slightly. Can someone tell me what this switch does?
Does or did it have a smoke unit? Could have been an on/off switch for it and the cam could have run a bellows to make the smoke “puff”.
My old Lionels had a switch that you could set so the loco would set on the track and not move. Suppose it could be an on/off for the whole loco.
Good luck,
Richard
I’m sure looking forward to finding out what the mystery switch does. My guess is that it’s an on-off switch for the apparent sound cam. Or maybe for some loco lighting?
Richard, I don’t know if your Lionel locos fit this standard–perhaps they’re from a different era; but on mine that switch was an E-unit (reversing unit) cutout. The E-unit was a ratcheting relay that went through a cycle of forward-stop-reverse-stop. If you activated the switch, the loco was locked into whatever setting was used last. Or so I recall. The purpose of this was so that if you wanted to do some forward-only train running (not uncommon with Lionel), you wouldn’t have to go through the sequence to get the train running forward again–it would just start up–especially handy if you have signaling.
Ed
I could be way off, but I’m wondering if the switch might be there to activate an old PFM sound system. Does the tender have holes drilled into the bottom to accomodate a speaker?
Just wondering.
Tom
Ed,
That’s the unit I was talking about. If you threw the lever when it was in stop, it stayed there. The loco I got in the early 60’s didn’t have a stop, only forward and reverse.
Have fun,
Richard
I rarely hear of one on an HO Scale loco but on my old Bachmann G Scale locos there was a switch hidden on the front of the boiler to turn the smoke unit on and off. A couple had a separate switch to turn the sound on and off.
I did a Google search and came up with this page.
http://www.weavermodels.com/Milwaukee%20Road%20S-3%20Owner's%20Manual.pdf
Rich
Is there a road name, brand of loco, what scale, two rail, three rail?
A couple photos would most probably help.
Rich
I would be in with those that think it might be the sound syncronization cam. Many Brass models came sound ready back in the 1980s. I have never heard of an on-off switch on one though, but I suppose some people would like to turn off the chuff chuff but still being able to blow the whistle and ring the bell.
Thank you for all the suggestons. I suspect it may be something to do with the sound. the cam is not in the same compartment as the switch but it is close. And of courxe there seems to be wires coming out of the switch compartment and running back to the motor. I’d say more information is in order and I will be opening the compartment to see what tis there. I also need to check the motor for isolation from the frame. At least it is a Cannon can motor. Family duties will prevent me from getting to this for about a week, but I intend to take a picture and post it if I can figure how to do that.
Regards till later
I opened the compartment that houses the switch and it is a simple on - off switch that appears to me to turn the headlight on and off.