Adding tender power pickups for the Polar Express

I cover this in my Berk TMCC conversion at http://www.tuveson.com/Berk/burk.html

However the 4 wires in the tether are used for speaker and backup light or coupler.

Not sure how you plan on getting the power into the tether? I don't know if the backup light and speaker share a common electrically?

Carl

Thanks!

When I looked at the bottom of the tender I did not see any wipers. How is it getting power through the trucks? 

I will look into the usage of the 4 wires but if needed I will run a connector

between them.

There are no wipers needed. There are eyelets in the truck side frames that make good electrical contact. The wires are added to the screws that hold the side frames to the truck.

If you are having pickup issues be sure that you don't have a broken wire on the loco's trucks.   

Thanks again.

There have been broken wires both front and back but I have a change in place that seems to help with that. It is that single wheel pickup in the pilot that is a trouble maker when trying to crawl around the track. If I can pickup power from all the tender wheels it should never loose power.

Thanks to Carl's pointers I now have  12 wheel tender pickup. This is the way to go!! I now have zero issues with power. This is the way Lionel should have made them instead of the single front wheel pickup.