Oh oh...Tower 55 Locomotive

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hello All,

I purchased a slightly used HO Scale BNSF Tower 55 Locomotive (Pumpkin Scheme) for a reasonable price. Well wouldn’t you know it, the first time I took it out and ran it on the layout, everything was fine running forward and backwards. Fast forward a couple of weeks later, now the locomotive runs herky jerky going forward but runs fine going backward. Before I purchased the locomotive, I did some reasearch on Tower 55 and the only negative I came up with was that the Tower 55 locomotives had a tendency for their drive gears to fail. Since Tower 55 is out of business, it became an issue with me before I purchased the locomotive on account of who would fix my locomotive should this happen. However, I took the plunge and bought it anyways. My question is, what is wrong with my locomotive? Why is it herky jerky when going forward? Is there something I can do for a quick fix? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Nad

2

Nad,

I don’t know anything about the T55 locos myself (they went out of business before they produced the CN one I had on order…), but since T55 was a division of Overland Models, I would suggest you attempt to contact them (their website here: http://www.overlandmodels.com/contact.php ). They may very well be able to recommend a solution, seeing as it was ultimately their product.

That would probably be your best bet if you don’t get help from someone else here.

3

Does your Tower 55 locomotive have a Digitrax SoundFX decoder in it? Are you running it on DC power? That could be the source of your problem if you are.