2 Rail Passenger Car Lighting

Maybe cleaning the track and the wheels?

MWB's response is dead on (applies to us 3-rail guys, too). I've been bothered by car lighting for some time as it does consume track power, plus with digital control systems there's the potential for signal interference. One of my long-term projects (i.e., when I get around to it) is to put a battery pack (with a switchable track-powered charging circuit) in a baggage car and connect the following passenger cars' lighting to it. No flicker and no track power drain, plus the lights would remain lit when the train was in the station, even if track power is cut.  Some "old school" passenger car construction articles showed in-car battery installation options, so my idea is nothing new.

Thank you for the replies and this is a new car and wheelsets and I cleaned the track before posting in the forum.

Gandpa63445 posted:

Thank you for the replies and this is a new car and wheelsets and I cleaned the track before posting in the forum.

Maybe loose wipers on the wheels/axles?

If the wheels and track are clean, then you need to look at the lighting itself. You did not state which cars we are talking about? If older MTH cars, then I would swap to LED lighting using a capacitor to help with dead spots in the track.

 Are your frogs powered?

Joe has the modern answer.  The Mth has all-wheel pickup, and really shouldn't filcker much, if all wipers are good.

How does one adjust the wipers, and Engineer Joe tell me more on how to set up a capacitor. This car has the older style lights, so I probably need to change them over to leds.

I haven't needed to touch the wipers on mine. 

Use the search tool at the top of the page for " passenger car lighting ".

There are products out there to make the job easy. GRJ has a board built for just such a purpose ( at Henning's trains )

You could try a touch of WD40 on the backs of the wheels to see if that helps.