Looks like my locomotive from the MICKEY'S "HOLIDAY TO REMEMBER" DISNEY CHRISTMAS LIONCHIEF set finally stopped working (well partially). It's one of those sets that comes with a 4-4-0 Lionchief locomotive and the standard boxcar, moving (chase) gondola, and caboose.
What happens is that it loses power when it crosses over a 036 switch (any switch). I vaguely recall having a similar problem with it on ordinary track last year. Upon inspection of the bottom it does look to me like the collector bracket (or the plastic piece holding the collector bracket in place) is warped. I suspect that it is causing one of the rollers or the wheels to not touch the track. But I can't tell by looking at it. But it stops on the same exact place on every switch. Move it forward or backward and it will receive power.
I do notice that where it stalls, if I push down on a certain part of the locomotive (usually the rear cab) it appears to regain power which again, seems to point to the bracket.
I'm frankly not all that happy with that set. It was my starter set that got me going but I don't really like how the front wheels look when on a curve. Also, the thing is hard to control with seemingly one speed (fast). By that I mean the control is very sensitive and where a normal locomotive will go through several "gears" or progressions of speed, this one is super sensitive. The remote is almost impossible to use and the app barely manages it (I really don't know why and don't recall it being that way out of the box).
Still....it was my first set and has some unique sounds (Goofy sings Christmas songs) so I decided not to chuck it and to try to repair it. Of course, Lionel doesn't have the one part I know I need available. So I went ahead and spent money on trainz.com to get all the parts I might need (I think I spent more on shipping than the parts). Hopefully the parts will be in the shape advertised.
If everything works out I'll engage in a successful repair operation. I may try to inspect some new 4-4-0 locos to see how the bracket looks.
I'd love a similar style locomotive in Lionchief + 2.0. The fan driven smoke and advanced features just make that much more fun to use.
