Need to Repair a Locomotive

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G

georgepag

New Member
Hi,

I'm not a model railroader but I do have a model railroad problem. I have a train set (HO gauge) that was made by Bachmann and released by Dept. 56. From what I understand the train was a set that Bachmann was already making. They just painted it in diffferent colors for Dept 56. I have a part number of 5980_3 but I'm not sure if that is the D56 number or the Bachmann number. The set includes a locomotive and tender which form the drive for the trains. There were two problems with it. The wire that connects the tender to the locomotive broke at the wire connector and the rear wheels on the tender came off because the stud that the screw that attachs the wheels screws into broke off.
I have fixed the wire and glued the stud and reattached the whels. The Tender has two sets of wheels. Each set has a contact point around the stud, then a "V" shaped metal strip that fits ovet the stud. This contacts the axles of the wheels and provides electrical contact. With everything back together I tried to run the locomoteive but no go. Then, I discovered that if I lift the rear of the Tender so that the rear wheels do not contact the track but the front wheels of the Tender do, everything works fine. Of course it doesn't go anywhere since I am holding onto it but the locomotive wheels turn forward and backward just as expected.

Any idea what is wrong? When I fixed the back wheels I made sure the "V" shaped metal strip was contacting the axle but, I don't know how it was before it broke. Perhaps it is not supposed to contact the axels at all.

Thanks,

George
 
I'm no expert but it sounds like the back wheels might be shorting it out. Maybe check and make sure it's not somehow cross-wired...

Bachmann also has a lifetime warrantee I think, so they might fix it for you.
 
Sounds like the rear axle on the tender got flipped then. One side of the wheels will be insulated, sounds like one got flipped. Try that and let us know if that takes care of it.
 


The wheels only go on ne way. Here is a picure of the rear wheels. You can see one leaf of that "V" piece resting against the axle. I removed the wheels then put it back together and now it works, sort of. It starts to go for a while slows down then picks up speed, goes farther, slows down, picks up speed and some time comes to a dead stop. a litle push gets it going again. It does this all around the track.
 
georgepag said:
The wheels only go on ne way. Here is a picure of the rear wheels. You can see one leaf of that "V" piece resting against the axle. I removed the wheels then put it back together and now it works, sort of. It starts to go for a while slows down then picks up speed, goes farther, slows down, picks up speed and some time comes to a dead stop. a litle push gets it going again. It does this all around the track.
Click to expand...

Sounds like your engine needs a good lube job to get her running like it should.
 
ok, I have he bachman instrucitons so I'll see if it says anything about luibing it. Could this be a track continuiy problem?

Thanks
 
georgepag said:
ok, I have he bachman instrucitons so I'll see if it says anything about luibing it. Could this be a track continuiy problem?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Could be, possibly dirty track. Might want to check all the mechanism for that cotton too. Its amazing how cloth or carpet fibers can stop an engine dead. Do that before ya lube anything\
 
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