I was volunteering during the final day of operations for the season, at the Trolley Museum I’m a volunteer at, and noticed an MPC-era Maintenance Car (product number 6-18406) that they had for sale. I had forgotten about it, having seen it there many times. It had the original box, just missing the sign, and a price of $30, and had not sold all year! I only had $20 on me, but decided to shoot my shot… and I scored!
After reading up online, I found that some people cite this car as having problems with running very poorly, and shooting a lot of sparks. Well, when I put mine on the layout, that’s exactly what I got! But I was quick to note two things- For one, I knew about the collection the car had come from, and the guy mostly collected his trains and kept them in the original boxes, he didn’t run many of them, and didn’t run them much. So I was pretty sure it had never been serviced. Another big ‘uh-oh’ which some may have overlooked, was a huge difference between the MPC production item, and the 1960s No. 69 made by the original Lionel Corp, namely being that whereas all postwar Lionel No. 50 gang cars and 69 Maintenance Cars have a chemically blackened chassis, the No. 6-18406 has a black painted chassis. Since the chasis of the car is partially responsible for grounding out the car, I thought that perhaps the grounding out of the car was compromised somewhat by the use of paint, which unlike the chemical blackening, will not conduct electricity.
When I opened the car up, I also discovered what seemed to be a bigger contender- the free-wheeling axle, where the copper contact runs from the bumper slider, to ground out, was coated in light rust, and looked to have never been oiled once in its entire life! There was similar light rust on the armature shaft below the windings. And then there was the god awful lubrication job lionel gave it. The grease from the MPC era, I have found, by 2019, turns into a congealed, sticky mess that will slow down and
This is a good reminder for anyone putting New, Old Stock equipment(or any equipment coming out of long term storage) into use, especially as the train sets come out for Christmas this time of year. The old Lionel Lubricant from any era really is way past its “expiration” date and should be cleaned out and replaced with modern synthetics(grease, & oil as needed).