Hello All,
I have the original run Legacy 4-6-0 10-Wheelers. Lately, I have started getting sparking from the drawbar connection and am wondering if anyone else is having (or has had) this issue. I checked all the wires and there are no exposed wires either in the tender or in the engine, and the engine runs fine. When I get the spark, if it is big enough, then the railsounds resets and starts working again.
If anyone has any insight to this issue, please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Is this going in forward or reverse? I have a locomotive that when going backwards the drawbar dropped and touched the center rail. I had to bow it to stop that.
It's both - the drawbar is not close to the 3rd rail. The spark is 100% on the drawbar connection.
That certainly sounds like you have an issue with the wheel ground in the locomotive of tender. Since it's a wireless drawbar, the center rollers can't be the issue.
Allan,
I had the same problem on my NYC F-12e. What I found was that the ground connection from the wheels was not passing through the bronze bearings in the trucks. I suspect that the truck sideframes were painted before the bearings were installed. The paint was then acting as an insulator between the bearings and the sideframes. Therefore the only ground connection to the tender was through the drawbar. The drawbar is not a very good electrical connection and every time the connection is made or broken you will get the sparks you are seeing.
To fix the problem I made brass ground wipers that touch the axles. See the picture below.
Chris
Chris - thanks. This will help me out a lot!
Access to this requires an OGR Forum Supporting Membership
