Potentially bad situation.

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Mike_McD

New Member
I have set up my first train set. I used Bachmann easy track, and in an event to make the sceanry more realistic, i have place snow on the track (winter scene) using the same methods I have been told todo for ballast. Assumed this would work, and it did, looks great. Having said that, now the train doesn't run. Y?
 


OK, check your powerpack to see if it is still working. If your powerpack was off, it should be OK. Then second, you'll have to clean the top of your tracks. I use a ink pen eraser, the big block kind.
 
Umm so lets say the power pack was on but turned all the way down. How do I tell if it is still working? and is it possible that the alcohal mix used to pre wet the snow is causing a short between the two rails?
 
Un-hook the power pack from the tracks. Use a voltage tester on the wires that feed the track. It'll tell you if you still have power coming out. You'll have to turn the throttle up to see if voltage is coming out.

Is the alcohol/snow still wet???
 
yes, the snow is still wet with alcohol and snow. How long should it take to dry, Btw thanks for all your help and input so far, I really appreciate it.
 
Mike,

No worries, I'll help as much as I can. You need to wait for everything to dry completely. Go ahead and disconnect the powerpack from the track.

You can still test the powerpack while you wait for the rest to dry.
 
Mike, With the power off, should be at 0 volts. As you turn the throttle up, it should go up to 12 volts. You should have 2 wires coming off the back of your powerpack. Hook 1 wire to each lead of your volt meter. Then turn the throttle up and you should see the meter moving upwards.
 


Mike, That should work just fine. You just want to see if the meter moves at all. That will tell you if you have voltage coming out of the powerpack and it's still OK.

If anyone else has any helpful tips for Mike, please jump in here.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
there probably all in bed.:) I do have voltage adjustment on the volt meter so thats good. As I don't know how all of this works, could I have done damage to the locomotive when I tried to run it. And I am guessing that the wet mixture is causing a short that is preventing it from running.
 
Mike, If you glued the snow down, you probably didn't get any power to the engine at all. Turn your engine upside down, do you have all metal wheels or is one side on the front brass, and one side on the rear brass???
 
OK, turn your powerpack on and the throttle half way on. Take your engine and lay it upside down on a towel or something to kinda cradle it. Take one lead and lay it on the left side wheels, take the other lead and lay it on the right side wheels. If your powerpack is OK and your engine is OK, you should see the wheels turning and hear the engine turning.
 
I suspect the combination of alcohol and glue has just made the rails non-conductive. After the snow mixture has dried, you can use a combination of a big ink type eraser followed up with sime alcohol on a rag to clean the rail tops and sides. It's also possible that some of this goop could have gotten into a rail joiner so that's stopping the power from flowing. You may have to take a fine tip screwdriver and move those back and forth to get good contact again. It's nothing fatal, you'll just have to do some clean-up. I don't know what you've used for snow but I've used baking powder in the past. It looks good, it's cheap, and cleans up with a vacuum cleaner.
 
Mike, I know it was getting late last night when we were talking about all of this, but how did you make out? Is the engine OK??
 
Can you take photos or find pictures on internet of your

POWER PACK
LOCO
VOLT METER

so the person's who will try to help you, will have a visual on the items and their settings? If you can get an exact or photo of the Volt meter, it would be better so we can tell you the exact setting to put it on.

Do you have a new loose piece of 1 mtr flexitrack, so U can connect the powerpack to it and try your engine on it?

Also check that there is no snow ( material you applied to scenery ) on the bottom of the loco or inside the loco.
 


Ya, it seems to work okay today. sort of, it will run but not as sensitive as it was before, so I am going to assume that the glue that landed on the rails was reducing the conectivity, as well as I guess I probably put the train back on to early causing the wheels to get glue on them as well so I have to do a good cleaning of both and we should be back to normal, I hope, Thanks again for all your help last night..
 
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