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Century Club 773 Hudson Problem

BH BILL HUDSONOGR Forum Member
To start, I am new to Lionel's command & control system, having been a DCS user for about 6 years. A few months ago I had an opportunity to purchase a used/mint Lionmaster BigBoy with TMCC & Odyssey. So, I purchased the Lionel Legacy control system to run it (and any future TMCC/Legacy engines I might acquire). I don't remember exactly what I did to get the Bigboy running in command mode, but it was quick and easy. I have not tried any advanced features, but lights, smoke, sounds, running - all work fine.

That's the background to show where I am in the learning curve. Now, the problem. Last week I purchased from a forum member a used/mint Century Club 773 Hudson. The seller stated the engine works fine using a TMCC controller; I have no reason to believe that is not true. But I have not been able to light a fire under this engine in CAB1 mode. No lights, no sound, no nothing. There is a slight noise (not a click like in DCS) emanating from the tender when track power is first applied, but that's it. The 9-volt battery in the tender was dead, so I replaced it, but not a thing changed. Written on the owner's manual is a note that the engine Id # was programmed to be 73. I have entered that number in "engine 2" and pushed just about every possible button on the remote with no effect, included "boost", the "engine #2"; and even the start up symbol in the lower left corner of the numeric pad. The engine DOES work in conventional mode.

I want to be positive here and hope that the problem is an operator (that's me) issue rather than an electronic failure due to shipping damage. The shipping package arrived in excellent condition (wish I could say that more often) with no signs of having been tossed or dropped en route. Within the outer shipping carton the engine and tender were packaged in the original Lionel presentation box. The protective styrofoam forms showed no signs of having been stressed. In other words, the engine & tender looked like it would have when shipped from Lionel.

This engine was apparently made on or about the year 2000, which would make it an early TMCC model. I sure hope it's not a case of it being too old to be controlled by my Legacy system.

Any help or ideas that might get me moving in the right direction will be greatly appreciated.

Bill

Addendum: My Legacy system is vs 1.3.
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BH BILL HUDSONOGR Forum Member
quote:
Originally posted by Boxcar Bill:
Bill

I would try loading it in the the cab2 using generic steam module. Second I would try to reprogram the engine using info found here,

http://www.lionel.com/ForTheHo...oreTMCCfunctions.pdf

Bill


Bill,

Thanks for the help. In my post above I forgot to mention that I loaded (or inserted) the TMCC generic steam module that came with the Legacy set into the remote. But I could not determine what the next step was, since I got no feedback from the remote at that point. However, the engine was not set to program mode. I'll put it in program mode and try again.

Bill
BH BILL HUDSONOGR Forum Member
Well, the good news and the bad news:

Good: I followed Boxcar Bill's reprogramming sequence from Lionel's website and the 773 came to life. In short, it works, so no apparent electronic problems with that engine.

Bad: My Lionmaster Big Boy would not work. Thus, I followed above instructions and reprogrammed it. It now works, but no longer the 773. Looks like each reprogram is deleting the previous one. I'm in an endless loop.

I don't know why this is so difficult for me, but I suspect it's because the DCS system is much more intuitive for me to add engines without erasing previous entries.

Bill
BH BILL HUDSONOGR Forum Member
quote:
Originally posted by NROD:
A rather dumb question from me,,,,,,but,,,,,,,,,,you don't have both engines on the track while reprograming do you???????

Rod


Rod, I did have both engines on the track at the same time, BUT, they were in separate insulated blocks. The block containing the one not being programmed was turned off. To put it another way, the only block with power up was the one used to reprogram. There are three blocks on the loop I was using. Two of them were turned off while I was attempting these procedures. I would think that having an engine in a "dead" block would be the same as not being on the track. However, I am very new at this TMCC/Legacy stuff, so perhaps there's an issue here I don't understand re "insulated blocks".

I'm 95% certain the problem is simply my not understanding all the necessary steps to get more than one engine programmed into the remote.

Bill
gunrunnerjohngunrunnerjohnOGR Forum Member SUPPORTING MEMBERDIGITAL SUBSCRIBER
If the locomotive is not powered, it's not affected by any track signals, you'd be correct here. Smile

Are you sure you're not using the same ENG ID for the two engines?

The sequence.


  • Put first loco on track switched to PGM.
  • Power up the track block.
  • Press ENG, #, SET on the CAB1/CAB2. (# is the locomotive ID)
  • Power down the track block.
  • Remove the Locomotive, switch to RUN.


<repeat for second locomotive using a different engine ID.>

That's all it should take to program as many locomotives as you have with different engine ID's.
N NRODOGR Forum Member
Bill,

Gunrunnerjohn has told you exactally how to do it as this is exactally how I do it, if this don't work, then I suspect other problems.

I remember having a poblem something like this when I first started with TMCC, and along about then I added an LTC lockon to the track ( it has a lit bulb in it), don't remember if that was for this or not, but I've had zero problems since then.

Just another thought here, you could always send me or John those engines to play trains with,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but thats probably a bad idea, huh?

Seriously this can and will be solved, hang in there.

Rod
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