Flying Scotsman's Trouble

[Neil AP]

Hi team,

 

I've put together a simple A-B pack layout on track that I'm rebuilding and I'm testing it.

On the locos that I have...

1, Percy whizzes around brilliantly

2, 04 Shutter trundles around pretty well, especially when pulling trucks, but derails quite often with on it's own. I thnk wheels might not be completely aliend.

3, My Diesel loco ratttles round pretty well.

4, My Flying Scotsman is the biggest problem. When I send the tender around the it stops  on the straight on  opposites sides of the track, and when I attatch the Loco the power dies completely on the track (  I'm using a multi meter to check power and it seems consistant all round, 17v on my DC track).

I am using track that I've had to clean up after some ballasting went wrong, ie the trains ran poorly after ballasting. I did this in the winter and as the track is in the garage the ballasting took at least  a week to dry. I ended up ripping out the ballasting and track and noticed alot of the fish plates had signs of corrosion (gone green ) so I've replaced alot of thoughs and cleaned the track as best I can (it's a lillte warped in places.

So I'm staring again and trying to get the basics working.

Any thioughts, I'm tearing my hair out alitle so any help is greatfully recieved,

big thanks

Neil 

[jane1707819582]

The problem could lie with where the loco connects to the tender .there could be two brass leaves that connect to the tender post if these are not correct then a short can occur .have you replaced the 4 fishplates where the tender stops ?

Can you connect your controller to the track where the tender stops.?

[ColinB]

Reading this I am assuming your Flying Scotsman is tender driven as the tender drives on its own. I don't know if you have already done this but from what you are describing I would say either you have a "short" in the loco wheels or if you bought the loco second hand someone has wired the loco the wrong way round. I assume it is a late ringfield based Flying Scotsman, so it picks up on all wheels of the tender, hence why it runs without a loco. The trouble is the driving wheels have traction typres which are a wonderful insulator, so on the straight it is probably running on its traction tyres, on the bends its flanges touch the rails so it picks up power. So it stops on the straights because it isn't getting power. You need to check the loco with your multimeter (not attached to tender), check resistance between a pair of wheels, check resistance between wheels on left of train with those on right. Usually what it is, is someone has put one axle back in, back to front so on one axle the live wheel is on the insulated side. Look along each set of wheels and check that one side all have insulators. If none of this works, connect loco to tender on the track with no power. and check for a short circuit between the rails. 

[atom3624]

Just a question.

Is it shorting or is it simply cutting out?

 

Reason I ask is that perhaps it's the power supply?

 

If you have one of the basic power supply units - like R8250 - it may be 'thermalling' / cutting out through the power requirement of the bigger locomotive.

 

Al.

[Going Spare]

If the tender will run by itself, it indeed as Colin says must have wheel pick-ups.  That being so, I would expect the loco also to have pick-ups on all driving wheels wired direct to the drawbar, and if so, those wheels will have plastic centres so it does not matter how they are arranged in the chassis.  Also, the drawbar to the tender is likely to have both upper and lower contacts.  As Jane mentions, the upper feelers shorting on the tender pin is, to my mind, the most likely cause of the problem. 

[Neil AP]

Big, thanks, I'm going to check out the points raised this evening and I'll report back to you.

 

thanks again,

 

Neil

[Neil AP]

Good news, I've got the flying Scotsman running. I noticed that one of the brass leaves that Jane mentioned was pointing in and unusual direction. So I adjusted it so it was level with the other leaf and then connected it to the loco and hey presto, proper connection was made and the train started running beautifully :-)

So big thanks to Jane and you guys, the other info was also extremly useful.

I will be back with more basic questions :-)

thanks agin,

Neil