Just some food for thought as we enter that time of the year when we spiff up layouts, and/or bring trains out for the Holiday season. In my case I am hosting most of my family for Thanksgiving Dinner and I want to show off my layout.
That said, since my family is originally from Kearny, NJ, a town that the Greenwood Lake branch of the Erie Railroad ran right through, I would use the Erie Hudson that came with the Lionel Hobo Set from a few years back, this also includes a nice modern version of the cop and hobo gondola. So I take her off the shelf, hit it with some oil, and off she goes, or so I hoped. The engine sputtered, the lights flickered, it wobbled badly down the track, and the tender would not blow the air whistle. Of course I launch into an obscenity laden rant (to myself), did the infamous CW-80 fry it ? (I don’y use a CW-80 on my layout, but I did use the one that came with ther set when i ran it around the tree 2 years ago), whats wrong with Lionel, this is not an old engine, how could it be runnning so badly, and on and on and on.
The problem ???, the traction tires rotted, and bits were stuck to the wheels, and the tender?, a few pieces of paper were stuck to the roller pick up. A few minutes later, wheels cleaned, roller pick up cleaned, and she was running like champ, smoking, whistling and all, and no I did not attempt to replace the rubber tires, she runs great without them.
Moral of the story, sometimes it IS an easy fix.
Happy Thanksgiving All !
Ken