Hoping you guys can help me here. The first issue I have is with switches that start shorting out once I have run my trains for a while. Initially when I turn the trains on everything works great. I have three electric switches and two manual ones and once the trains have been going for 10 minutes or so they all seem to start shorting out on occasion. The train will hit them and stop and go backwards. This will happen with the electrical ones even if I don’t have them hooked to the transformer.
The next issue happens under similar circumstances. It’s with a Rock Island Diesel I have though. I bought this train set and everything looks like brand new. When I first put the engine on the tracks it would hardly run but after some maintenance it will fly now when I first turn it on. The problems start happening once the motor starts to heat up. Initially it will start running slower and then it will be going around the track fine and just stop hard like I put the brakes on. Then it will start going forwards and backwards constantly and usually will just stop altogether unless I give it a push. Sometimes it will run fine for a couple laps but inevitably it will start doing the same thing again. It does not do it on the same spot everytime so I have ruled out the track as a culprit. I even pulled the motor out of the thing and put it on the track by itself and it still some the same. It also squeals a little bit as it runs which you really can’t hear when the train shell is on it.
So, if anyone can offer up some advice I would appreciate it. I have a couple Santa Fe Diesels on the way and one of them I got just in case I need to swap a motor into the Rock Island unit.
It’s only been a month since I got my first set and started posting here and I am now obsessed with these things. I have a 6’x9’ board with three trains running and I want to make it even bigger. I’m still trying to decide how I want to populate it and I’m not sure if I want a rural setting or an urban setting. I’m gettin
It sounds like dirty track and or dirty wheels and pickup shoes to me. I would start by using a Scotchbrite pad and cleaning the tops of the rails. Then I would use rubbing alcohol or contact cleaner to clean the wheels and the center rail shoe (scotchbrite may work better for the shoe?)
Even if this is not the problem, it won’t hurt anything, and will likely help. Plus, it is nearly free. I like to start troubleshooting by starting with the cheap stuff.
That was my first thought also. I scotchbrited the wheels AND the pickup a couple times now and it has not helped. Letting it sit a while seems to cure it momentarily so I think it has something to do with it heating up. I do still have sparks at the drive wheels though even after cleaning them well…
If all the rail and wheel surfaces are clean, my next guess would be a bad solder joint in the e-unit circuit. The only Marx engine I’ve ever had a problem with had a cold solder joint that looked like it joined a wire to a bus, but really just layed on the bus. The engine would barely run untill I resoldered the connection.
My first thought was dirty wheels. You said you cleaned them. Did you put a drop of oil on each end of the armature and wheels? Clean track and wheels + a little oil will fix 90% of problems with Marx. Anything electrical, we are not there so you will have to find it on your own.
Thanks for the replies guys. I did try oiling all the critical points AND after the first reply here I scotchbrited the whole track. I had just been wiping it down on occasion. Still the same only it is getting worse. I cannot even run it for one minute now without it abruptly stopping, shuttling between forward and reverse very quickly, and then just stopping altogether. (The headlight stays on sometimes and sometimes it shuts off when this happens)
Well, I took the body off and proceeded to pull the big steel heavy thing off the top of the motor(Don’t know what that’s called [;)]) Everything looked nice and tight but I oiled a couple extra points I could not reach before and put it all back together. Top speed is down but the issue seems to have been somehow resolved for now…