I recently completely retired my 316 A/F I used stranded wire not sure what gauge but maybe because it was old it’s not very flexible like the original stuff . Almost to the point that the trucks don’t turn freely enough
For the short leads inside the tender you can use 24ga stranded. For the harness between the engine and tender use the premade harnesses available from the usual S gauge suppliers. This harness requires superflex wire. The separate 5th wire must be superflex as well. The factory used 24ga for all this wiring.
Thanks for the info! I picked up some security 22 gauge wire today . I think it will work fine. But, if it doesn’t, then I will know
All the security wire in my house is solid conductor, not stranded. The solid wire we have is probably 22ga but it cannot be repeatedly flexed. It will break under repeated flexing. If it is stranded it may work but home security wiring is used for permanent routing behind the drywall and in the attic. They use really cheap stuff.
I do not mean to be negative but make sure the wire is stranded.
I just opened it up, there are 4 separate wires and each of those have 7 strands of wire ( I know a little bit about wires… I installed phone systems for 38 years. I know the difference between solid and stranded and also “ wire “ infused cloth, but thanks again for the info .
That wire is fine inside the tender and engine. The seven strand is moderately flexible and the strands do not break easily. How is the 316 running? They are nice engines.
funny you should ask…I rewired just the tender and now…it doesn’t want to move again. the solenoid moves the drum…i just used a meter to test the wires , I got a little ahead of myself last night and deleted the picture i was using ( i found it wasn’t wired like any pictures i found somewhere else. so Now, i’m searching again for the one that was very simple showing just 3 different configs. stay Tuned
The 5 wire is the correct diagram but you also need to add the connections for the speaker and capacitor that produce the Steam Whistle sound. Alternatively, you can just not connect them.
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Frankie is alive once more ! the wiring all was correct , just needed a little nudge to get him going. I Need a Drink
Way to go!
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Hence the name Frankie…I destroyed the speaker system , so another question? Do I really need those special pickup shoes ? When is was first trying to get it working I thought well it does have the copper bands on the truck axel’s, so , I took them off…. It didn’t run, I put them back on, .. , it still didn’t run…I’ve been through a lot with this engine 
In addition, I bought a K335 , from a hobby shop, the owner was saying he didn’t like the scratchy sound coming from the tender…. After I got it home and running I couldn’t hear what he was talking about, but after reading that it is a “ s-I-t “ I thought I might try wiring up that chime whistle again. , I am wondering what I used to do with all my time 
All Gilbert engines with an Air Chime Whistle have the truck mounted sliding pickup shoes. They were necessary to eliminate the speaker static caused by arcing and poor pickup by the wheels. The engine will run w/o the sliding shoes.It will be less sensitive to track that is not clean with them.
The K335 is the first Gilbert Northern made with knuckle couplers. It does not have SIT. The smoke unit is in the boiler/smokebox. It does have an Air Chime Whistle in the tender. This is what reproduces the static sound caused by poor pickup from the track. If you do not plan to use the Air Chime Whistle just unsolder one wire from the speaker and it will be silent.
There is a modern problem with the Air Chime Whistle that is caused by modern transformers that do not output a pure sine wave. The harmonics in the chopped waveform have enough amplitude and are in the right frequency band to make the speaker sound continuously.
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One more thing. The Gilbert Factory Service Manual is online at www.myflyertrains.net. It is worth looking at as you repair the engines. All the Gilbert catalogs are also on that site.
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