Hogwarts Express faulty

Try turning off the smoke and see if it still does this.

Thanks for the response. I'm trying it now with the smoke unit switched off, and it's hard to say. If it is slowing, it's much less so than before. However, in general, it seems to me that the unit lacks power. 

  Anyway, the slowing symptom is either gone or very much reduced with the smoke off.

I've had a used Hogwarts Express for about a year and always thought it ran slow. It just doesn't have the speed that other trains on the same layout have. Mind you, it pulls 8 cars with no problem but just doesn't have speed. Never bothered me enough to open it up though. It's one of my family's favorite trains.

Thanks for the input. This one struggles with six illuminated passenger cars. (3 Hogwarts and 3 Polar Express). It also makes a clanking sound while running. I thought at first it was Lionel trying to replicate a constant bell sound, but after researching a bit, and finding no mention of a simulated bell, I suspect that is an issue as well. 

Welcome to the forum

I have had a motor go bad in our Hogwarts. But it just stopped. No warning or clanking noises. Not a big job and if I remember correctly it cost less than $20 to replace. It is a small motor compared with your normal O gauge motors. 

 

It does not have a Bell. British Locos don't normally have a Bell unless they have traveled to the USA or Canada for a visit. It has a air whistle in the tender.

 

Nick

I would call the motor miniscule, which is smaller than small, IMO.

 

Mine runs OK, but I only run the lightweight cars that came with it and not fast like a rocket, either.

I've replaced a number of those motors on various starter sets.  If it's the small motor with the flat sides, it's good to have a spare on hand.

 

Wow, thanks for all the great information. I had no idea that a motor replacement would be so inexpensive. I would much rather keep it and get familiar with working on it for only about the price of return shipping, as opposed to shipping it back.

Here's the motor for that set, $18.50 at Lionel.

 

 

Ok then. I'm going to pop it open and see what's up.

My best guess, as based on the report from the "smoke off" test, is that the reverse unit was overheating and may be damaged from over current, and the motor is just fine.

 

The starter set steamers were reconfigured some years back to have the smoke units powered through the reverse unit so they could not overheat in neutral. If the smoke unit shorts, and some do, they will exhibit exactly the symptoms you describe. If caught early enough, the reverse unit will be OK, but often the failed smoke unit element and the reverse board will both need to be replaced.

Thanks Rob. If it makes any difference, all testing and observation of the slowing problem occurred with the reverse switch in the off position. Smoke unit functions quite well.

I will check these two items for visual signs of overheating and/or shorting. 

The direction lock switch in "off" doesn't matter - the current is still pulled through the reverse unit.

 

The smoke unit will actually work very well under these circumstances until it develops a dead or nearly dead short. As the resistance goes down from 27-32 ohms and approaches 15-10-7 ohms the smoke will get better and better and the damage to the reverse unit will be more severe.

I had problems with my HE running slowly under even high power, and surging too (compared to other locomotives) so I turned it over, pulled off the bottom cover plates, and lo I find that the thing is dry as a bone internally. The worm gear, and a cam and lever under the front cover that I suppose worked with the smoke unit. I put Red an' Tacky all over everything that touched or turned, and now it runs very nicely indeed.

 

To me, that cam and lever under the front cover was causing most of the drag problems I had with mine. Yours might be different, of course.

 

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I solved the problem of the cam and lever, I removed the old smoke unit and installed fan driven smoke.

I never use smoke. Its a dealbreaker, in my house. Both the Polar Express and Hogwarts express seem to run better, without the cam and lever. Esp since i filled the space with weight.
for smokers, the fan sriven unit sounds like fun.

So I took off the bottom covers as well, and the motor worm gear did have some lube, but the cam and lever was completely dry. I put some lubriplate on it and the performance now seems to be normal. No more slowing down over time, and while it's not the most powerful unit, I'm going to consider it fixed. Thanks to all.

The wimpy little motor in the HW Express isn't the strongest, it's about right for pulling 3-4 cars.

 

Only pulls 3 or 4, unless you buy led lighting kits, remove a bunch of rollers and half of the wipers and run a single wire between cars to power the light system....
It made a great improvement on the PE. Next year Hogwarts gets the treatment. Yes the PE has a stronger motor, but if I'm going to run all the cars Lionel sold, for the set, Im willing to help the loco succeed.

I have a PE locomotive that I'm going to upgrade, it has the larger 385 motor, so I'm not expecting to have any issues with pulling power.  My Hogwarts TMCC upgrade is pulling four stock cars around without any issues, it even makes the 2% grade.

 

Any one else notice that the Hogwarts passenger cars roll with much less resistance compared to the PE passenger cars? 

Our PE cars roll effortlessly.

Hey John, am I doing any damage to my HE pulling eight stock cars? Maybe I need to order one of those motors.....

Yes, it is a marginally powered loco.  I would not run more than maybe five passenger cars behind it myself.  I didn't have a motor fail, but I had them running a lot hotter than other locos when pulling just eight cars.  Still, I like that loco alot.  Wish they made an LC+ version. 

I figure to limit mine to four or at the most five cars.  The tiny motor probably isn't up to more than that.  Too bad you can't retrofit a larger motor...

 

I'd be happy if they made it a policy to motor these novelty/specialty locos to pull the number of cars they intend to sell as add ons. I wish they made an LC+ board available for all of them. Maybe, if LC+ has some staying power.

 

Personal question Lee, I have it in my head you run entirely conventional (not that that would be bad, I have friends who run conventional, why I even started there, nothing derogatory  . Do you just crank up the voltage on a loop and run the LC+, or am I just mistaken in my  conventional perception?

Which PE has the 385 motor?  That is pretty tall and wide Premier style motor.  Is this a custom mod?  G

Well, that's the numbers on the motor, apparently it's the second generation of the PE set.  What can I say, I opened it up and found this.

 

 

That certainly is it.  Much better then the cheaper small motor.  G

Too bad you can't retrofit these to the other locomotives.   I'd like one of these in the Hogwarts set.

 

I am really impressed with the difference in performance after lubing the Hogwarts smoke lever cam. The cam in my unit was not machined very nicely. Maybe in the future I'll think about polishing it up a bit with a dremel. But for now, with just some lube my Hogwarts engine can pull six lighted pass cars at more than enough speed with smoke on. I don't have any grades so I can't speak to that, but I doubt that a moderate grade would be an issue. 

My Hogwarts doesn't have a smoke lever or cam, so friction there is not an issue.

 

Considering a fan driven smoke unit as my first attempted upgrade. Is there a particular unit # required to fit in the HE?

Well, since I used the Super-Chuffer, I didn't need a 5V power supply, so I used an MTH smoke unit.  I made a custom fan mounting bracket from aluminum stock and soldered a brass exhaust stack sized to the Hogwarts stack to the smoke exhaust port.  I used the steamer smoke unit with the short posts.

Wengr.... I have the "Santa's Flyer" Christmas version of the Hogwarts loco.  I would like to check the smoke cam you mention.  How best to access that... & also the worm gear.   are there just covers on the underside of the loco that unscrew?  What kind of lube?    THANKS!!!  

What I did was flip it upside down and remove the center rail dual roller assembly- (2 screws iirc). then you can remove the four screws that hold the bottom cover on. It's a rectangular plate with a hump at each end. The cam and lever is under the hump nearest the front of the engine. I used something called Lubriplate - only because I have it still laying around from back in the day when I used to service VCR's. I have no idea what lube is most appropriate. So iirc, six screws and that's it. Only advice I can give is to select a screw driver that fits the small screws well, as it seemed to me that a less than optimal fitting driver could easily strip the screw heads. Good luck.

Thank you!!!