@John's Trains posted:Thank you for the suggestion. I think you're right about the pickup roller. I had the engine upside down yesterday and tested power to all wheels and rollers and the wheels spun, but intermittently sometimes it wouldn't run. Today after handling the engine I put it back on the track and suddenly it ran slow and perfect through the switches with not a shudder. I picked it up, turned it over, put it back on the track and the problem was back. So I observed up close and slow what happened at both mainline switches. It always stops exactly where the rear pickup roller first hits the dead spot in the middle of the switch. I then observed where the front pickup roller was where the train stopped. I tested it and the track where the front roller was had power from the center rail to the outside rail. So I think that front roller must have a on-and-off feed wire. Will have to take the thing apart. First time for everything.
You might want to see if you can run a jumper between the two pickups as an added bit of insurance. I used to run AMT/Auburn/KMT/Kusan F units with their matching passenger cars - between the less-than-ideal contact the F units' pickups made with the third rail and flickering passenger car lights (AMT/Auburn/KMT/Kusan Achilles heel seems to be their pick-up designs). I eventually added jumpers between both the F unit pick-ups and the passenger car pick-ups and that helped the engines run through turnouts without tripping the reverse unit (no replacement drums or contacts for those are available, so they need to be treated carefully - a constant current supply made life easier on them), and the passenger car lights operated flicker free.
