Brushes

My first loco was a plastic-bodied 2-4-2 made in 1973.  (Note: Lionel-MPC used a different composition for the brushes relative to postwar, they are a more coppery color.)  That was my first and only steam loco; I ran it enough that by 1979 it would randomly stop or shift into reverse.  My dad cleaned the commutator and warned me not to add smoke fluid, but it still took a lot of voltage to pull a train.

That December we visited the Christmas display layout at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, PA.  My dad got talking to the display operator Steven Clarke, who dug under the platform and came up with a new set of brushes and springs.  He gave them to us, for free!

I'll never know whether the problem was the brushes themselves or annealed brush springs.  But my dad installed those parts and the loco performed like new again -- a lot more pep and even the chuffing was louder!  I was only 10 at the time, but as I remember, the old brushes were heavily blackened and at least 1/8" shorter than the new ones.  So I would say that counts.

I generally consider the brushes to be worn out when they are 85% of their original length. As the brushes get shorter they reduce the spring tension, which is not good. There have been many different brush materials introduce over the years. I try to stick with the copper plated brushes used in most engines in the post war years. Brush springs probably have a higher causality rate than the brushes.   Overall, if the commutators are keep clean and smooth and the motor bearings lubricated, the Lionel post war motors have an amazing life expectancy.