I have a couple of older steam Lionel steam engines (vintage 1960's) that because of the spacing of the pick-up rollers on the engine stall out on some of my longer switches. Is it feasible to add a pickup roller to the tender and wire the lead through to the motor in the engine? Is that a difficult thing to do? Any advice out there?
Bob
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It can be easy or modestly difficult, depending on the trucks on the tender. I've added them to a couple of PW tenders, I just swapped out the trucks for ones with the pickups. In my case, I was installing TMCC/RailSounds and wanted power to the tender as well.
Thanks John. If the spacing works where would be a good place to get replacement trucks with the rollers already attached?
Bob
You don't need to replace the entire truck on postwar tenders. You can gently pry the wheels out of the side frames and replace just the bottom plate with one with the pickup rollers. If these are the plastic trucks there is a roller assembly that snaps into the truck without removing anything. I have a few of both types.
I realize you don't have to replace them, but in my case I was wanting to upgrade from the cheesy plastic trucks anyway. I did use the snap-in rollers for some 2400 passenger cars.
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