I have a Lionel B&O EM-1 2-8-8-4 Steam Locomotive and Tender from the Odyssey system, and a Legacy control system operating at v1.52. I have been using these systems successfully together for several years, typically putting them up for Christmas and taking them down after.
Prior to this last full assembly, I had the control base plugged in the whole year round with the engine on a short section of track, completely powered on just to display the cool lighting effects. The controller was in the charging cradle, and eventually the rechargeable batteries that came with the unit burnt out – they are completely dead. After that, the controller was sitting on the base (for months) with no batteries in it while the base had the charger selected as still “on.”
I also disassembled the engine to clean out the drive system, but was careful to make sure all of the electrical connections were plugged back in correctly.
This year, when I assembled the system, the engine is quite non-responsive. To be specific, all of the lights are on, but every command touched on the controller results in only the whistle. Oddly, holding down the whistle slider does not result in the standard held whistle – instead it gives sporadic short whistles that repeat for as long as the control is held down. This actually happens no matter which control is held down.
I have measured the track with a voltmeter, and it is 18V on the whole track. I also tested using a simple voltage-controlled engine, and it works all the way around. Therefore it seems the track is not the issue.
So the issue seems to lie with the controller or the engine. I disassembled the controller and the engine and don't see anything obviously burnt out. I tried resetting the connection to the engine following several instructions sets, from the manual online, and in forums. I have tried resetting the controller, but only know how to reset the database. I have the original v1.4 modules, but no way to upgrade to the current 1.52 upon resetting.
Does anyone have any suggestions?
I saw that in an older steamer motherboard a while back, it's a head-scratcher. I suppose it could be so you can work on it, but that seems a little far fetched. 
