atlas sw-8 3 rail diesel stuck in neutral

The Atlas SW 8/9 engines had an upgrade that we did for them years back (over 16 years ago - how time fly's) and can still do.  Send the engine into us (in it's original shipping box or wrap it extremely well. Remove all external extra's like the horn and railings) along with contact information. Upgrades for the engines allow for them to operate several seconds w/o any track power which makes sequencing a breeze. As you know, these units were done for Atlas "O" with space constraints and pricing to consider. The sound unit, lighting, and motor operation are all done in one microcontroller. There were no "supercaps" made back then as well, so on board storage is limited (these were designed in 1997).  In order to get them to sequence better, with the existing circuitry, turn the volume down to no more than half (you won't get more out of the small speaker by turning it up further). When first applying power, make sure you go at least beyond 10 volts before pressing the sequence button. This will allow the capacitors to charge up. Also, when pressing the sequence button, do it momentarily. Don't hold it down since that will discharge the capacitors. When in neutral, turn the track voltage up to full and then back off / press your sequence button, and you will proceed to the next position. Any time that you constantly start in forward is a good indication that you weren't fast enough with your sequence button or that you didn't place sufficient track voltage for the capacitors to store during the track power sequence operation.  The upgrade eliminates all of that. We have been doing that upgrade for $30 plus return shipping/insurance. However, that is only for working units. Others that need repair will cost more. We cannot repair drive mechanism's or replace motors since we never had any of those components.  Hope that helps a lot of user's out!  Just wanted to add that we made 7,000 of these units for Atlas "O". They were all made in PA and then shipped to Atlas "O" who intern shipped them to Sanda Kan in China (they were their builder). Despite them not making the end mounting to the right height, we still only had a few units (approximately 6) sent in for repair. Some were for burned out speakers. They worked as Atlas "O" wanted them and they had no problem with the sequencing, which I had pointed out to Jim Weaver before any production was done. He didn't see that as a problem. I also had a customer come up to our table last spring at the York TCA show with one brand new in the box. He asked me to show him what the problem with them was to be. I showed him how you had to sequence them and he didn't see that as a problem. His newly purchased engine performed perfectly 19 years later from production.

The Dallee board, from an Atlas SW9, that I bought used, it never worked.

TAS electronics was a tight fit.  Newer, ERR electronics may be smaller.

A couple of tricky parts to the upgrade.

(1.) adapting the fuel tank to a better speaker.  Atlas parts were used.

 (2.) Using Atlas articulated couplers.  Electro-couplers were added.

The Dallee retro-fit upgrades to TMCC, that TAS did, many years ago, were done with a new frame, from Atlas, after the engineering and design was done, and successful.   A lot of stuff in a small place. 

Wonderful small models. 

Just have to reply to the comments about the quality of the sound. It was great in larger speakers, but bass, like a true EMD engine has, is extremely hard to get out of small speakers. The small oval used was the only thing that could come close to getting decent sound out of the engine. When the volume control is turned up too far, you do indeed overdrive the speaker and get distortion (as well as eventually burning out the speaker). I actually wanted two speakers in that engine. One facing front through the grill and the other up. Of coarse, I was not the one making the engine nor the one to do the final decisions, that was all on Atlas "O". One of our dealers in Philadelphia use to offer making this modification. Another one of our customers placed a large 2"x3.5" oval speaker into a trailing car. He brought it to our shop to show us and was thrilled at how good it sounded. If you take the board and connect the speaker output to a large speaker, that is impossible to place in such a small engine, you can hear just how good the sound is from the main board. You can't compare that to any sound unit of today since things have leaped and bounded that older technology (now coming up on 20 years ago).