If anyone knows why my Lionel “Heisler #3” engine shuts itself down when slowly crossing two fastrack 031 switches ( #6-81253 & 6-81254) connected back to back please send suggestions. Appears collector is just a 1/16” from hot rail when it stops. Thought twice about rebuilding collector pickups!
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I have this engine and it does that same thing to me. I'm looking at adding an additional pickup roller, 2 is just not enough.
I have a Meadow River #6 and have same problem on atlas switches
I have replaced pickups and no change, adding a roller will be challenging as center truck has no room for one with the gearboxes there. I thought about trailing car with pickups or reworking layout to negate issue.
The issue is pickup roller spacing, they match up to the dead spots on the switches perfectly. The only options are reworking the track, or adding a pickup, but unfortunately neither is an optimal option. I can't rework the layout, so I have thought about adding another roller, but haven't looked into it in detail, got too many other projects at the moment.
I'd consider a roller on the middle truck, see pictures below. The truck design looks pretty similar, and if you notice on the bottom view of each truck, the same mounting provisions exist. It's hard to tell from the pictures if there's enough clearance for the roller with the extra bulge there, I'd have to see it in person.
Sorry for the tardy response. Had to put the hobby down for awhile.
Glad to see I'm not alone on this problem!
I also considered adding collector rollers of various types but ran into the gearbox housing issue.
Thought I'd take a different simpler approach. I checked the other Heisler style engines, specifically to see the attachment of the tender to engine. The drawbar ( #6982811T88) on the Heisler #3 is "part available" and appears somewhat pliable. I'm going to try to change the physical distance between the engine and tender collector rollers, slightly, by modifying the "Hook" portion of the drawbar. I've ordered two ( #6982811T88 drawbar ) in case the hook cracks, in which case the "backup plan" will be too fashion the two drawbars together to make one good drawbar with any dimension I wish, considering the tether limitations.
Thanks for your responses.
I have a similar problem with a 90 degree crossing after a switch. Did changing the drawbar distance make a difference?
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