The thing is I am not loosing the loco lights. The loco lights come on. I will tinker more and see what happens.....
OK. I tried it again and this is what I observed. When this loco is running or responding to commands, the marker lights on the tender are on. When the loco stops by itself it sometimes is after a corner, sometimes not. The loco lights will stay on but the tender lights go off and the loco stops and does not respond. Sometimes I just barely touch the tether and the tender lights come on, sometimes they do not. Then it just sits with the loco lights on but no sound or response. The occassions when it does come back to life with the tender lights on, it may or may not respond to commands. This all just happened in the past two nights! BTW, there are ground wires attached to copper pieces that interface with the tender axels on the front wheel sets of the tender but no pickup rollers on the tender. So the tender is getting the hot from the loco via the tether. Before this it ran great with no problems. I know, I know, welcome to life.
Bill, if I do need another C08 R2LC, is that something that just plugs in to a board in the tender? Many thanks for your time and advice.