It does my heart good to hear people discussing those DC-only sets. They were some of the most interesting sets Lionel made during the General Mills era (1970-1986). Some of my favorites are the James Gang (with the General), the New Englander, and the LASER set. All three had some unique characteristics, and even the Kughn era carried on the concept with the Midnight Shift and the K-Mart Microracers. None of them can really hold a candle to what is made now, but when I got started in toy trains, they were inexpensive, readily available, and mostly reliable.
May be a stupid question, but does your 4-4-2 have a center pickup shoe? If it is bought secondhand (I dont know, but it could be??) and has been modified, someone could have taken off the center pickup for the 3rd rail in the middle.
I know it sounds odd to ask, but since you normally drive N-scale it could be that you didn’t recognise it. The engine should run on your DC powerpack anyway. To an AC motor it doesn’t matter if DC is put on it…
Thanks, im pretty sure its the power pack, because it says lionel / ho DC TRack, the number is 6- 28636 here are some pictures, it ran at the hobby shop, so im pretty sure its the transformer,
thanks for everyones help, the last thing i would want is to have it not work, i bought it from my local hobby shop for 118.00 is pretty much the same exact steamer that you would find in a regular lionel set.
I just dug out one of my old HO power packs, and pulled out my most modern strictly conventional engine. This particular engine was the Hudson from the Ballyhoo Bros. Circus set, and was made in 2001 or 2002, probably around the same time as the engine pictured above. All the electronics are exactly the same, and the motor is nearly identical to the one in your engine.
The engine took right off as soon as I applied DC from the HO power pack to it, and showed no signs of trouble.
Trust me, it works.
You might try one of your N scale power packs with it. I’m still leaning toward a bad power pack, as you report having two engines not run with it.
DC. It’s the same power pack I was using a couple of months ago to run some of my old HO trains, and the wires are still connected to the terminal that I used then.
There were a TON of problems with LIONEL transformer/power packs in the 90’s. I worked at a LIONEL Value-Added dealer at the time, and we’d order cases of replacement starter set transformers with the sets. This was SOP for us.
Having said that, your 4-4-2 is one of the most trouble-free engines on the market. Ben is right, in that it should run okay with your HO transformer, although the whistle will blow continuously.
Is your lock-on properly attached to the rails? That’s the number one problem I’ve dealt with when dealing with folks new to the “O” Gauge Hobby.
In any event, try getting yourself either a CW-80 or it’s BW-80 cousin from your local LIONEL dealer. They’ll deliver better performance and style than what you’re dealing with now.
Tim, I guess Lionel made some changes in the Crayola set between the catalog printing and the actual set production. From everything you say, it sure sounds like you got a DC power pack with the set although the Lionel catalog doesn’t indicate the set comes with that.
As others have said, it is probably the power pack. I run a good portion of my stuff on DC power and have no problems. As Jon said above, there were problems with those Lionel wall pack / controller units. I ran a shop and I had several folks bring those to me to see if I could figure out why they didn’t work.
I would look for a bargain priced AC transformer of some kind. There are plenty of used Lionel units out there… you can find them on e-bay. The Lionel 1033 made years ago, is a very decent transformer which has plenty of power for a small layout, but will allow you to grow also. And with the B-U volage post setting, you’ll get 0-11 volts to the track which is very good for the DC can motored locos like yours. Any Lionel transformer with a minimum of 6-8 volts to the track (as many are) will make your locos speed off like Superman.
Either that, or look for a larger DC power pack with at least 3amps of power. But as Jon said, if your D&RG steamer has a whistle, it will blow constantly with the DC current. You could also remove the whistle assembly from the tender and place it on the layout under a building or something like that. I’ve done this… it’s not hard to do and works just fine.
