hi. just bought some fastrack. have an 80 watt transformer hooked up to it. for some reason my 736 berkshire tender wont whistle. in fact when i que the whistle it sparks and shuts down the train. i put it on my other layout with regular tube track and it whistles proudly… also other trains on the fastrack like the penn flyer and northpole central the tenders whistle fine. any clue whats going on here. thanks
I don’t see how the type of track would have anything to do with it. Is your 80-watt transformer perhaps a CW80? Does your tender have the original type of whistle relay, rather than an electronic substitute?
yes it is a cw transformer. not sure what the cw means but thats what it is. it came with the north pole central set. does the tender from 1953 need more watts. the other transformer i have on my layout is 125 watts from the old days and the tender whistles great on that layout. hope this helps
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not sure what that means and how to do it. sorry pretty basic to the hobby. dont know what a lead is
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One possibility here is that the locomotive and the whistle, particularly when starting, do actually draw more current than the CW80 will allow. I suspect that the CW80 trips much faster than a traditional thermal circuit breaker, which would allow a substantial but harmless overload for a short time. If this is what’s going on, simply lubricating the whistle (and perhaps the locomotive too) may be a way around the problem.
Bob got it right again.
Servicing the loco & tender will bring the current draw down enough to probably work with the CW. The CW-80 has just enough oomph to run two AC “pullmor” motors, and with the whistle relay at about 18 ohms, it will be close. Clean all wheels & track, too.
Now, if you are really using a PowerMax transformer, that looks like a CW-80, you don’t have enough power. The North Pole Central came with a 30 watt PowerMax.
Rob
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I’m sure it will act the exact same.
I’m sure the whistle will blow just as well as it does on “O” track.
In this case, it shouldn’t make a lick of difference.
It’s either not a CW transformer, or the train equipment needs PM/service. You know the CW can blow a postwar whistle easily with either the horn/whistle or bell buttons(except at full or near full throttle).
BUT, unless the OP gets back with some input here, we may never know…
Rob
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hi guys. sorry for now getting back quick. i have a 3 year old and a 6 month old and yesterday was crazy. anyway here are some answers for you.
the fastrack layout i just got is on my basement floor. there are no other accessories hooked up to it. the track is about 10 feet long but the train goes around it fine. no slow downs anywhere
the tender sparks at the rear of it when i push the whistle button. the train then stalls and the green light on the transformer blinks.
the whistle will not blow in neutral
it is a cw 80, got it from the north pole central set.
the tender works fine on my old tube track. the track is just as big and i have a few accesories hooked up to it as well.
also the tender from the north pole set blows fine on the fastrack so you would think it has to be my old tender. but yet that tender blows fine on the old layout so im stumped. hope this helps
(deleted by author due to the evident lack of progress of this thread toward a solution.)