I picked up an older Atlas Great Northern SW8 on the Auction Site for a good price. It is an older run with a single circuit board and the speaker in the front of the hood under the radiator. I ran it for a bit on my test loop with my Lionel ZW Transformer. It ran fine until it stopped and a whiff of smoke came out of the shell. I opened it up and found that the power wire from the center bolster on the rear truck had detatched and shorted. The insulation on the wire and that to the front truck was fried. I replaced the wire and the unit runs fine and the lights work but now the horn does not sound. Not the end of the world, I'm guessing the sound chip got fried. Not a show stopper as it runs nice and smooth. but if anyone has a suggestion that might get it all working, I thought I'd ask here.
Hmm, doing some reading maybe loosing the sound may not be a bad thing :-/. The only sound I was getting before was just the horn when I hit the whistle switch on the ZW. The forward-stop-reverse appears to work at least.
thanks,
Kevin
Mike CT