Fastrack help

Define "stall."

Short, spin out, or loss of power?

Many small locomotives have this problem on all different track brands. If the pickup rollers are too close together they will find a dead spot on a switch and stall out.

The best solution is to run a wire tether from the tender pickup rollers to the locomotive. That gives the loco more pickup rollers and fewer chances to find a dead spot.

The engine has loss of power.  

 

It seems if the drive wheels were spring better for left and right movement they would contact better on the outside rails if the locomotive leans or gets lifted a bit through the switch.  I have a ready to run set 0-8-0 that is not sprung very well.  Are more expensive Lionel locomotives sprung better for better pick up on the drivers?  

 

I do like the tether idea.  Anyone have a photo they can post of this?  Something I can copy?

 

 

It's not the drivers that the pickup is failing on.  It's the center pickup rollers.  I have a Lionel 0-6-0 Dockside that also stalls on switches if going slow.  R-T-R locomotives aren't really made for slow running.  What Flash is talking about is to add a pickup roller to one of the tender's truck and running a wire to the locomotive.  This will allow the locomotive to still get power when both of the engine's rollers are on dead spots required in a 3 rail switch.

It would be helpful to know exactly what 0-8-0 model you have. 

You can do a couple of things.

 

Do the mod to add a roller to the tender, that works very well and I've done several of them that way.

 

Look at either Lionel or MTH roller assemblies and find one or two of the dual-roller assemblies you can retrofit to the locomotive.  This helps a bunch as well.  You have to do some looking at the available selections to find a proper fit.  I bought several sizes some time back for this purpose.

 

I don't know about it not being the drivers...

 

Just yesterday, I had that exact problem. I bought an AC drive unit to convert my "new" 4-4-2 Chessie Flyer.

 

In test running it on the track, it kept stopping on a couple switches. No short, just dead stop.

 

Turns out the drive unit by itself isn't heavy enough and it's riding up on the pickup rollers, lifting the drivers off the track.

 

The litmus test would be to add some weight. Make a weight saddle bag with a sandwich size ziplock and some loose change.

Brian Miller,
   If you want a problem free FasTrack layout like mine, use the old Lionel 711 type
swithces with your FasTrack, the old switches will handle any kind of 3 rail PostWar & PreWar engines including original Lionel Tin Plate and MTH Tin Plate Reproduction.  They have the metal built into them to get the job done. The draw back is the Old Lionel switches draw massive power.  Run them from a seperate transformer.  The new Ross Tin Plate switches are low voltage and run modern engines very well, I do not know if they will accomodate your 0-8-0 or not, I have not tested the new Ross Tin Plate Switches with my Tin Plate engines to know if the gaps in the Ross switches are small enough to accomodate the rollers on these type of engines.  Wish I could help you more but as of now, the old Lionel 711 type switches are the only switches that I know that will accomodate these type of engines on a repetative running basis, especially at slow speeds using the DCS.
PCRR/Dave

The old Lionel switches that work with all different kinds of 3 rail O guage Trains.




DCS FasTrack Layout with old Lionel 711 type switches.