OK, I got a call from my main hobby shop supplier asking if I would fix a train for a customer of there's, Von Maur department store. Tony from America's Best Train & Hobby didn't know much about the situation other than the engine ran fine in their shop and he told me this is a high end store. The kind of place that sells $ 500 pairs of shoes and has a guy playing the piano in the joint. I said sure why not, and a minute later Christy frm VM calls and explains that the train is an Aristocraft, it ran for a short time then stopped, but it ran fine at the hobby store. It is supposed to run in the boy's shoe department up high.
We agreed on my fee and set up today to do the fix. My thought process was, it is something basic. Dirty track and the wrong kind of transformer maybe. It is DC. Maybe they are trying to run it with an AC transformer. So I came prepared with track cleaning supplies and brought along my Lionel large scale christmas set that has the same track and DC transformer. I didn't really know what I was up against.
When I got up on the ladder I was confronted with a power setup that had a small orange box wired to the track. That's it. No knob to control voltage. Plugged in with no power registering. Hmmm... 'Do you have the directions?' 'Uh, no.' 'I don't know what this is. Is there a controller for this?' 'Oh yeah, there is a remote control. Let me get it.' Christy shagged the controller, also orange with 6 buttons and no notations anywhere on what they do. Hmmm....again. I forgot to mention there is a big button on the wall under the train that kids push to make the train run for 2 minutes. Experiment time. I pushed the button and a light came on on the little orange box. The transformer is behind a wall to the store. The train runs around a small oval that goes behind and in front of the wall. I cleaned some track in front of the transformer and started playing with the remote. I saw a flicker of light in the headlight when I pushed one of the buttons, so I kept the biggest button down and the train took off. It stalled just opposite the power feed on the oval. Hmmm...Dirty track probably. I cleaned the track real well, tightened up the joints at the track connectors and starting experimenting with the remote. Go outside, push the big button, the power light comes on on the little orange box and press one of the big buttons on the remote and it runs like a champ. Now I'm thinking I need a constant power source and I need to take the remote out of the equation. So I got my transformer from the Lionel set, hooked it up directly to the track, pushed the big button outside, came back inside and turned up the juice on my transformer. Bingo! She's running perfect. I told Christy I'm going to run to America's Best and pick up a new DC transformer. Of course, everything these days is more complicated than it needs to be, so I bought a MRC transformer for $ 80 that had outputs for accessories and a few other features that weren't needed, but that's all they had that would do the job.
When I got back to the store I came through the main doors this time, first time I parked in the dock, and sure enough there was a guy playing If I Were a Rich Man on a grand piano. 'I wouldn't have to work hard', I believe is the way the song goes. Very nice... I guess. Well I got back up to the 3rd floor to install the new transformer and some little guy with glasses, an outgrown crewcut and a scuff on his chin named Stefan was having a ball with the big button stopping and starting the train. I asked him to take a break for 5 minutes, but that wasn't happening. I worked around that and got the new transformer installed in a couple minutes. I yelled to Stefan ' OK!', he pushed the button and off the train went. It's nice to have reliable help. I tightened up some loose track connectors and that was it. Problem solved. Christy said the train had not run for 4 years. I got there at 9 am and was done right at noon. That was fun!
