I have four BLI steamers and I have discovered that the right side drivers do not pick up power on any of them. I first discovered the problem with my K-4 Pacific. It would stall when passing over insulated frogs on my turnouts. The way I determined the problem was to put the loco on a straight section of track and turn on the bell. I then tip one side of the loco off the track and then the other. I do the same with the tender. When the bell cuts off, I know I have lost power. I discovered that with the K-4, I lost power when I tipped the right side tender wheels off the track, telling me there was no right side pick up from the loco. At the time, I also had a Pennsy Mountain but it wasn’t giving me stalling problems so I figured it was just a workmanship problem. Since then I have acquired a NYC Mohawk and Niagra from BLI. I would experience occasional stalls with them and I attributed it to dirty track but when the problem persisted, I began testing them the same way I did with the K-4. That’s when I learned that all four were not getting pick up from the right side drivers. I also discovered that the Mountain had wipers on both the front and rear truck of the axles. I think the reason it has never given me problems is that when one truck is on an insulated frog, the other is still picking up power. The Mohawk, which has the same wheel arrangement, doesn’t use wipers. I used my bell test to determine that only the front truck of the tender is picking up power. When that truck passes over an insulated frog, the loco stalls.
When I discovered and fixed the problem with the K-4, I attributed it to shoddy workmanship in the assembly process but now I know that it is a serious flaw in the BLI design and doesn’t speak too well of that company.
It’s been so long since I corrected the problem on the Pacific that I can’t remember exactly what I did to fix it. I remember having to disassemble the loco but don’t remember specifically what I did. I think I re
Maybe I didn’t describe the problem clearly enough. Yes they get pick up from the tenders. The problem is they ONLY get pick up from the tenders on the right side and the problems come from the ones that only get pick up from the front truck of the tender. When that hits an insulated frog, the engine stalls. I’m also guessing that only one or two axles from the tender truck gets pick up because the insulated frogs aren’t long enough for the entire truck to be on insulated track at the same time.
The boxes for all of these simply say Paragon. I do have four BLI Hudsons that don’t have this problem. I can tip the tender either way and the bell continues to clang. For some reason this is only a problem with the four I described in the OP and it isn’t really a problem with the Pennsy Mountain because that gets pick up from both the front and rear trucks of the tender.
I found the thread in which this had been discussed before.
Anyone have pick up issues with BLI Paragon locomotives? - Model Railroader Magazine - Model Railroading, Model Trains, Reviews, Track Plans, and Forums
The late Randy Rinker wrote the following.
“ANother issue may have been like that in my PCM T1, one of the wires in the tender was not correctly inserted into the plug in connector that connected the pickups to the circuit board (not the connector between loco and tender). The result here was that pickup was only on the one side fo the tender trucks, no power on one side was coming from the loco wheels at all. I simply put the conenctor pin back in the correct orientation and that solved that problem, no more stalling at even the slowest speed over unpowered frogs.”
Like me, he had a problem getting power from the loco wheels on one side. He seems to only have had the problem only on one of his locos. Maybe the problem isn’t in the design but in the quality of the assembly. It seems strange to me that all of my BLI locos other than the four Hudsons, would have the same flaw.
Odd, sounds like a pretty easy fix though. If all the wheels from one side dont pickup, its just a loose or broken wire, or a loose wire plug as you mentioned. Just your classic case of poor QC from BLI.
I do know paragon 3 decoders are far more sensitive to pickup issues than even paragon/paragon2…so be glad atleast you dont have paragon 3.
I’ve recently begun a program of sorting through my roster of BLI locomotives and deciding which ones will get treated to a replacement decoder and better speakers along with a general “tune up”.
While stripping the OEM components I sometimes find areas that need improvements. In my case as far as the driver pickups it was the left side that was intermittent or completely dead.
Using a continuity meter I began “ringing out” circuitry and found that the location of the attachment of the board that contained the engine/tender jumper plug to the frame was completely “open” electrically.
See the screw head near the “trackL” print. There was NO continuity from the pot-metal frame to the board. I found this situation on four BLI locos I was working on.
By lightly filing away the coating, whatever it is, maybe lacquer-based? I could regain a good continuity there. I also coated the screw and around the PC board hole with No-Ox-ide. Even the screw they use has a blackening agent on it that seems to resist continuity.
Here’s all the junk I ripped out of the streamlined K4:
This engine was one of the worst performers I’ve had from BLI in recent months. Even after I added a “GoPack” capacitor I still had stalling issues. Another contributor here with lots of BLI repair experience mentioned a motor protection
I have always found that pressing down on a BLI tender seems to restore power. This suggests to me that their tenders are considerably too light. I have a Lionel HO Challenger, metal all the way, and that beast has been my bar-none most dependable runner on all four layouts to date. In fact, on the advice years ago of a person who bothered to report in another site what he did to fix some slight problems with the Lionel HO Challenger, I removed a heavy 3/4" cubed weight from the tender and packed the speakers, two of them mounted at an angle, with some polyfiber packing to improve the sound resonance. I don’t know that the latter really made a difference, since I did this all immediately I received it, but the tender is still plenty heavy with its metal shell and twin speakers in a cradle.
As for the tender vs driver pickup problem, I do have some occasional iffy performance from some BLI steamers, notably a Hudson and both Niagaras. But, my Niagaras have been generally good, and I’m pretty darned sure their tenders have several axles that pick up from either rail. I have never bothered to look to see what happens with the drivers.
When I get back to running (I’m still trying to finish the yard and add some trees), I’m going to add weight to the most affected tender and see if that helps at all.
I thought I had fixed my K4 but a couple years ago I started to have stalling problems again so I bought a couple Keep Alives from Tony’s, one for the K4 and one for my SW7 switcher. The problem is I can’t find any clear cut instructions for where to hook up the different wires. All the instructions start out with “find the” and then follow with terminology that might as well be written in Chinese. If I have to “find the”, there is a good possibility I will find the wrong place and fry the decoder. I was browsing through another website regarding the issue and found a guy who had done just that. I’ve had a KA3 and KA4 Keep Alive for two years and they are still on the shelf because I can’t find simple instructions for where to solder the wires. I can’t even remember which Keep Alive Tony’s told me was for the K4 and which one was for the SW7. Since you’ve done an install for a K4, can you tell me where the various wires are supposed to attach.
When I recently installed a GoPack in one of my P5a electrics that was a “simple” plug-in (revision H boards have a socket) the “stay alive” feature wasn’t working at all.
After doing some further digging I discovered that in order to activate the Go Pack I had to change CV 221 to “0”. Once I did that everything worked fine.
I’ve used capacitor packs from BLI, Soundtraxx and TCS on the P2 and P3 decoders with no issues.
Here is a look at the streamlined K4 which has a shorter tender. The white package under the kapton tape (between the speaker and the added weights) is the Soundtraxx capacitor I added:
The tender on my Mohawk has a metal body and seems plenty heavy. As soon as the front wheels of the front tender truck hit the insulated frog, the engine stalls. If it is going at top speed, it sometimes will slide over the insulated frog and start up again after briefly cutting out. With the front two right hand wheels of the front tender truck over frog, I tried pushing down but it did not start up when I did that so I don’t think the problem is a lack of weight. The problem is that due to poor design or shoddy assembly, only one wheel on the
Go back to that thread and read Randy’s paragraph just before the one that you quoted. Randy was replying to my post about a stalling problem on turnouts with a BLI Paragon steamer, a NYC 4-6-2 Hudson. I had totally forgotten about an issue with that loco, but Randy blamed the wheels.
He was identifying two different problems. Certainly dirty wheels can be an issue causing locos to stall but there is also a problem unique to some BLI steamers with lack of electrical pick up from the drivers. Whether this is due to a design flaw or shoddy assembly I don’t know but the problem is there and it doesn’t speak well of BLI
John, my only point in citing Randy’s previous paragraph in his post on that thread was that he was observing that the early runs of BLI steam locos had sintered iron wheels which are anything but smooth and pick up dirt. Here is his exact quote:
The early runs of BLI steam locos had sintered iron wheels (like old Athearn Blue Box locos) which are antyhing but smooth, which helps traction but pick up dirt like a magnet picks up iron filings. This was later swiched to nickel plated wheels (and I believe they offered replacements for early purchasers) which are much less likely to pick up a caking layer of dirt, at the expense of some traction. What you get is a smooth surface in contact with a smooth surface so better electrical transfer from the track to the loco. The rough nature of sintered wheels means the contact is like a bunch of pinpoints over the area in contact with the rail. For a gross approximation, consider a piece of aluminum foil, crumpled and spread out. Lay it on your desk - how much surface area is actually in contact with the desktop? Now take a piece that is perfectly smooth like it is on the roll - now how much area is in contact with the desktop?
So, I was simply trying to point out that Randy felt that this could be one reason for locos some BLI Paragons stopping on turnouts. I am only trying to be helpful to you in solving this issue.
Again, I’ll point out something I’ve come across on at least a third of the BLI engines that I have traced driving wheel pickup issues to.
The “split-frame” design is common among manufacturers. Broadway uses several methods to get the current off the frame and into the wiring for the engine/tender connection in order to feed track voltage back to the decoder.
While checking continuity I fornd that most weak spots are where either a brass eyelet or the PC boadr is attached to the frame.
BLI does not scrape away the darkening agent (lacquer, maybe?) and the screws are also chemically blackened. Add to this the traces of corrosion I’ve found in the threads exacerbated by age, moisture and dissimilar metals I’ve found these connections to be faulty at best. Yes, the screw was very snug, yet the path through it was electrically insulated.
The screw shown where the PC board is attached here should provide a decent current path from the wheel tread, through the axle and bearing into the frame half and be continuous through that screw and hence onto the trace of the PC board.
It does not.
Likewise, the black wire leading forward from the right side of the board (Right rail pickup) leads to a brass eyelet that can also show signs of poor continuity.
This example the wire is gray (BLI likes to mix up all the colors, black, brown and gray and assign them to random parts of the circuitry).
OK, I went down and tested my two oldest BLI Paragon steamers for pick up. Here are my results for both locos, noting that both locos performed identically. And, this is simply meant to be for what it is worth. As Ed noted, “Broadway uses several methods…”.
I lifted the tender off the rails, and the loco remained fully powered, so at least on my two Paragons, the drivers are powered.
I lifted the engine off the rails, and the loco remained fully powered, so at least on my two Paragons, the tender is fully powered.
With the engine drivers on the rails, I lift either side of the tender and the loco remains fully powered, as expected.
With the engine drivers off the rails, the tender must remain fully seated on the rails, but that makes sense since you need both polarities reaching the decoder.
With the tender fully seated on the rails, full power remains even if I lifted one side of the driver wheels off the rails, as expected.
One other note to John…
Just for clarity, that test tells you that the left side of the tender has no power, not the right side, and that at least the left side drivers have no power.
That makes no sense. There has to be electrical connectivity on both sides of a loco. If I lose power when only raising the right side wheels of the tender, that means the only right side connection I am getting is from the tender. If I wasn’t getting power from the left side of the tender, the bell would quit clanging when I lift the left side drivers off the tracks. If I wasn’t getting power from the left side drivers, the bell would quit clanging when I lifted the left side tender off the track. Since neither of those happened, that tells me I’m getting pick up on the left side from both the drivers and the tender. The problem is I only get power on the right side from the tender, not the drivers.
Based on Ed’s comment, it seems to be a problem with about 1/3 of BLI’s steamers. Based on my experience, that estimate seems to be in the ballpark. Whether it is 1/4, 1/3, or 1/2 of them that have this problem, that is way too many for a high end loco. Other than the Hudsons which I bought from Trainworld at the blowout price of $130, these locos sold in the $300-400 range about 10-15 years ago. Today they would be in the $500-600. That is a high end price range and for that money, we should expect high end quality. BLI has not delivered that
It makes perfect sense if the steamer has all wheel pickup on both the engine drivers and the tender wheelsets. Are you referring to the “loco” as the engine? I consider a steam locomotive (loco) to be both the engine and the tender.
But, be that as it may, are you saying that all four of those problem locomotives have no power pickups on the right side drivers? Or, are you saying that the right side driver pickups are not working to bring power up from the rails, through the driver wheels, to the decoders?
Hey, John, I just went back and re-read the entire thread, and I focused on this particular reply from you. OK, I get what you are saying about the driver wheels, which intensifies my question.
Are you saying that all four of those problem locomotives have no power pickups on the right side drivers? Or, are you saying that the right side driver pickups are not working to bring power up from the rails, through the driver wheels, to the decoders?
