Legacy PRR K4s stalls on Atlas #5 Turnouts

My Legacy K4 has #1, the power tether.  Works very well.

For your situation, I'd make sure the split center rail metallic rail was above the plastic slightly to make sure there was contact all the way through.

I have the same issue on my layout with Atlas switches, ……on stubborn offenders, they get an additional 2 wire tether to get power and ground across both the engine & tender……solves the issue every time…….Atlas track can be a love/hate relationship….most of the time I love to hate it…….😉

Pat

Thanks for the suggestions.   I will check to be sure the plastic rail ends are lower than the metal rail and correct if needed.  

I still plan to try a longer roller before deciding on a power tether.   I searched both MTH and Lionel's parts, and the longest one I could find was this one from Lionel.  It is 1" center to center between axles and uses the same mount as the K4.

FYI -  to find pickup rollers these search terms work the best:   for MTH "pick up",  for Lionel "collector"

I will update the thread when the parts arrive.  If this works out, I have a Lionel scale Hiawatha Atlantic that I will fix as well.

Bob

Frequently, I find that longer rollers are a problem hitting some part of the frame, make sure you have clearance for the roller to compress.

@RRDOC posted:

Thanks for the suggestions.   I will check to be sure the plastic rail ends are lower than the metal rail and correct if needed.  

I still plan to try a longer roller before deciding on a power tether.   I searched both MTH and Lionel's parts, and the longest one I could find was this one from Lionel.  It is 1" center to center between axles and uses the same mount as the K4.

FYI -  to find pickup rollers these search terms work the best:   for MTH "pick up",  for Lionel "collector"

I will update the thread when the parts arrive.  If this works out, I have a Lionel scale Hiawatha Atlantic that I will fix as well.

Bob

Sid had turned me on to these really nice flat connector bodies with header pins that are super easy to use, and look like factory when done, …..I had tried the route you’re going and just plain got fed up, ……like John said, I usually would up with a longer roller hitting something, and making it a non-starter, …..went the power tether route, and never looked back…..I think I got them from Jeff Beso’s place …..you know, the Zon!…..😉

Pat

A few years ago I made power tethers using Dean's plugs for my K4s.

Update:  Problem fixed.

First, I shaved some of the plastic ends on the split center rail, but no improvement.  Next I cleaned the track with a scotchbrite pad.  I could now run through at Restricted speed (the single ">" in the speed function), but it still stalled with speed step 1.  So I started looking at my other engines and discovered that my Hiawatha Atlantic  6-38094 had even longer pickups (1 1/8" between axles) than the one I pictured above.  So I installed one of these plus one slightly shorter pickup from my RailKing Hiawatha Hudson, and that did it.  Now it will crawl through the turnouts at speed step 1.  

I just placed an order from a pair of these pickups SKU: cs-6308094150-p and their insulators SKU: cs-6101107335-p.  You only need one of them.  The other roller is MTH BD0000005.  

Here are the 3 pickup rollers I have been trying.  Top to bottom they are from:
Legacy K4s
RailKing Hiawatha Hudson (MTH BD0000005)
Lionel Scale Hiawatha Atlantic (Lionel cs-6308094150-p)

The first 2 are interchangeable, the longer one on the bottom requires that you also replace the insulator,

So the K4 is solved, but I still have the Hiawatha Atlantic that also stalls in the Atlas #5s.  This is the engine that "donated" the extra long pickup rollers to fix my K4.  The problem here is that the rollers are mounted too close together so the spread is only 2 3/4".  They do this to hide the rollers behind the drivers.

The power tether is an option of course, but I am considering making a mount from copper clad PC board that would be screwed down to the existing pickup mounts, but extends fore and aft to increase the spacing of the pickup rollers. the trick will be attaching the rollers to the PC board and not shorting to the frame.

I'll do an update when I work this out.

Bob

Glad you came up with a fix!……I like how you were determined not to add a tether!….nice work!..

Pat

Maybe it's just me but, I always thought those Lionel pickup rollers were too narrow. Thus, I changed what few Lionel steam locomotive models I had to the Sunset/3rd Rail wider & tapered pickup rollers. I never had anymore problems after that, and our layout was all Atlas.

Thanks, Pat.  I should also mention that I bought this locomotive from a forum member who had already sent it to you for the Harmon Shops gearbox shim and driver bevel. So thanks again!

Here is a video of the nice slow crawl through back to back Atlas #5s.

Bob

@RRDOC posted:

Thanks, Pat.  I should also mention that I bought this locomotive from a forum member who had already sent it to you for the Harmon Shops gearbox shim and driver bevel. So thanks again!

Here is a video of the nice slow crawl through back to back Atlas #5s.Bob

Nice!…now you have a solid locomotive!….looks like she’s running real good!….I’ve fixed so many of these, I never paid traversing switches any never mind!…..if you get bored, add your fix to the gearbox repair thread!….nice to have all the fixes on one handy useful document….especially if you can provide part numbers, and a small “how to” …..great work!

Pat

I'll put something together on that thread.   I decided to push the envelope and install 2 of the longer pickup rollers, and as GRJ predicted, one of them bottomed out on the front truck mount.  So I am sticking with the medium roller in the front and the long one in the rear.  

The medium length pickup roller is MTH BD0000005.  Install it in the fore position.  It should fit the existing insulator.
The long ones on the bottom is Lionel SKU: cs-6308094150-p and their insulators are SKU: cs-6101107335-p.  Install it in the aft position.  

Yep!….good fix, very non-invasive!…..just what the Dr. ordered…..

Pat

Most interesting indeed. I've got K4's with gearbox issues needing to be fixed. When that comes time for them I'll see what Pat thinks about the rollers as well, since they will be sitting on his workbench as I am not a skilled worker of steam locomotives. More like an oops I broke it man(sometimes).

Try this, Take a small piece of aluminum tape and stick it on the center rail so that it touches the powered portion and extends over the plastic portion of the split about 1/8" this should help.

The aluminum tape is available at Home Depot.

You may need to replace the tape from time to time, but it works.

I'm glad that your fix of substituting the rollers worked and thank you for sharing the details here.  It's a sleeper mod--no one but you would probably detect that your loco isn't stock!

However (and before everyone else buys up the limited remaining supply of Hiawatha rollers)... this fix worked for an Atlas #5.  You still have only two rollers.  There is probably some combination of switches somewhere that would still result in those two rollers both being on unpowered rail segments.  Inconvenience and appearance aside, a wired tether to the tender for extra power and ground is a more robust solution.  With 3 or 4 rollers and additional ground pickups, there's almost no chance of all of them simultaneously landing on unpowered track segments.

I had several MTH PS1 locos that like your K4 suffered from stalling on our club layout.  Unfortunately MTH didn't put rollers on the tenders, nor offer them as an upgrade.  To make matters worse, the locos didn't coast very well either!  Not a good combination, and disappointing for what (at the time) were high-dollar items.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of power tethers, they are very beneficial to several issues all at once. In the case of the Legacy K4s, the power tether keeps the sounds alive over gaps without the use of a battery. These were the sounds that you had to 'reboot' by cycling track power if they cut out.

One other thing that is overlooked when troubleshooting power dropouts is the fact that lot of 3 rail engines have poor ground pickup. Traction tired drivers contribute almost nothing to power pickup. It's also worth noting some steam engines with long driver wheelbases (think 2-10-4s, etc.) may have insulated blind drivers to alleviate shorting through turnout diverging routes. Power tethers can certainly help with ground pickup.

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

One other thing that is overlooked when troubleshooting power dropouts is the fact that lot of 3 rail engines have poor ground pickup. Traction tired drivers contribute almost nothing to power pickup. It's also worth noting some steam engines with long driver wheelbases (think 2-10-4s, etc.) may have insulated blind drivers to alleviate shorting through turnout diverging routes. Power tethers can certainly help with ground pickup.

I find this with a lot of my 3rdrail engines.  My J3 Hudson in particular, I had to do a lot of modifying to get it to run well.  It's also funny how a engine that runs perfectly on my home layout had issues on @Dave_C layout.  My Lionel J3 with three pickup rollers under the drivers but didn't like  Dave's #8 Ross turnouts.  My lionel 0-8-0 did not do well over my Ross double crossover so a one wire tether to the tender solved that problem.  If Lionel did away with it's wireless drawbars and went back to say a simple harness for ground, power, and serial data I'd be ok with that.

This is how I solved that problem with my Atlas #5 switches. Now all my "stubby" engines

can cross the switches slowly. I used 18gauge wire and drilled a small hole through

the plastic rail extension. Soldered to the power rail underneath. Bent the wire back

towards the center rail. Then used a soldering gun to heat the wire just enough to

melt it into the plastic.

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

I wouldn't be so dismissive of power tethers, they are very beneficial to several issues all at once. In the case of the Legacy K4s, the power tether keeps the sounds alive over gaps without the use of a battery. These were the sounds that you had to 'reboot' by cycling track power if they cut out.

One other thing that is overlooked when troubleshooting power dropouts is the fact that lot of 3 rail engines have poor ground pickup. Traction tired drivers contribute almost nothing to power pickup. It's also worth noting some steam engines with long driver wheelbases (think 2-10-4s, etc.) may have insulated blind drivers to alleviate shorting through turnout diverging routes. Power tethers can certainly help with ground pickup.

Yeah, the tender power tether is really not too big a deal, and solves the problem without loco mods.

Also "yeah", loss of common, rather than hot, is something we often overlook. One of the reasons I dislike traction tires.

My Lionel RS5 2-10-4 PRR J/C&O T-1 will short on GG 0-72 switches. A blind driver can contact the broad center-rail piece. Fortunately, it can be solved with some tidy electrical tape application. Most of my switches are old "standard" GG 0-100's; the "little" 0-72's are on the later addition to the layout. The 0-100's cause no problems with anything. (I haven't tried my old Lionel scale PRR T-1 on the 0-72's.) Sometimes it's really the switch, not the locos.

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

I wouldn't be so dismissive of power tethers, they are very beneficial to several issues all at once. In the case of the Legacy K4s, the power tether keeps the sounds alive over gaps without the use of a battery. These were the sounds that you had to 'reboot' by cycling track power if they cut out.

One other thing that is overlooked when troubleshooting power dropouts is the fact that lot of 3 rail engines have poor ground pickup. Traction tired drivers contribute almost nothing to power pickup. It's also worth noting some steam engines with long driver wheelbases (think 2-10-4s, etc.) may have insulated blind drivers to alleviate shorting through turnout diverging routes. Power tethers can certainly help with ground pickup.

Good points.  So if you are going the tether route, do both a center rail and ground wire.   And while you have the engine apart, add a TVS diode near the circuit board.

It's kind of a shame that the infrared tether-less link introduced a new power problem.  

Bob

Is there a video or other photos that anyone knows about that shows how to wire the tether? Being a novice, I wouldn't know how to begin figuring out where to connect wires inside the engine from the tender etc.

@LT1Poncho posted:

Is there a video or other photos that anyone knows about that shows how to wire the tether? Being a novice, I wouldn't know how to begin figuring out where to connect wires inside the engine from the tender etc.

Not that complicated.  You wire the tether between the track pickups, the center roller of the locomotive to the center roller of the tender.  Ditto for the wheels.

Often the center rail power pickups are connected to the boards through a bundle of wires in a wire nut.   Same for the outside rail chassis/ground wires.  If you are lucky, they are even color coded red for center rail, black for ground (trace the wires to verify).  Here is an example of a tender that GRJ recently posted:

It's easy to add a wire to the bundle.

Bob

@gunrunnerjohn @RRDOC this is very helpful. Thank You! It seems this tether method will work great for very small or other steam engines that cannot make it through the switch but won’t help for small diesel switchers etc. I may still need to approach the problem using relays at the switch also.

What connectors are recommended?  Do you try to hide them under the loco/draw-bar/tender?

Since I normally only tie the rollers in, I use machine pins and make a 1-pin tether.

Well, Hot Dog!   That could be blended in very nicely.

I use Dean’s plugs for my tethers. I think the RC guys use them for connecting batteries. They hold nice and tight so I’m not worried about them coming loose. Those exposed pins are powered so it’s best to connect them with track power off. A slim pair of needle nose can help. I have just enough slack on the leads to position them for connection. I have a few other engines where I only connected the rollers but now I like to connect the chassis ground too for positive power pickup. Not every IR tethered engine needs them.

@D500 posted:

Yeah, the tender power tether is really not too big a deal, and solves the problem without loco mods.

Also "yeah", loss of common, rather than hot, is something we often overlook. One of the reasons I dislike traction tires.

My Lionel RS5 2-10-4 PRR J/C&O T-1 will short on GG 0-72 switches. A blind driver can contact the broad center-rail piece. Fortunately, it can be solved with some tidy electrical tape application. Most of my switches are old "standard" GG 0-100's; the "little" 0-72's are on the later addition to the layout. The 0-100's cause no problems with anything. (I haven't tried my old Lionel scale PRR T-1 on the 0-72's.) Sometimes it's really the switch, not the locos.

My beloved 3rd Rail 5022 has insulated blind drivers probably for the reason you mentioned. For such a big engine it had a very small ground pickup footprint.

I like that Lionel tethers all their leading and trailing trucks on their Legacy steamers. Ensures better ground.

A notoriously bad ground picker upper on my layout is my set of MTH Centipedes. I discovered this by running it with the shell off and seeing all the sparks around where the trucks pivot in the frame. This would happen in my insulated blocks until something with solid axles would enter into the block behind it, like the first few cars of the train it was pulling. They provided a better ground path across the axles to get both outer rails at the same potential.

I am extra picky about the grounding because of the long insulated rail sections I use to trigger my signals. I suppose I could break up the trigger rails into sections but never got around to it.  

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

My beloved 3rd Rail 5022 has insulated blind drivers probably for the reason you mentioned. For such a big engine it had a very small ground pickup footprint.

I like that Lionel tethers all their leading and trailing trucks on their Legacy steamers. Ensures better ground.

A notoriously bad ground picker upper on my layout is my set of MTH Centipedes. I discovered this by running it with the shell off and seeing all the sparks around where the trucks pivot in the frame. This would happen in my insulated blocks until something with solid axles would enter into the block behind it, like the first few cars of the train it was pulling. They provided a better ground path across the axles to get both outer rails at the same potential.

I am extra picky about the grounding because of the long insulated rail sections I use to trigger my signals. I suppose I could break up the trigger rails into sections but never got around to it.  

I switched my insulated rail section signal triggers  to IR sensor devices for this reason and due to poor DCS signals that I couldn’t attribute to anything else. After removing the isolated sections, sparking was eliminated, and DCS signal problems disappeared. Granted, I am using crappy (my opinion)  MTH Realtrax. Just my 2 cents.

The Centipedes were the worst for this but the challenge they presented me with gave a good appreciation of proper ground pickup. They have 12 wheel drive with 8 traction tires and floppy plastic inner idler wheels.

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

A notoriously bad ground picker upper on my layout is my set of MTH Centipedes. I discovered this by running it with the shell off and seeing all the sparks around where the trucks pivot in the frame. This would happen in my insulated blocks until something with solid axles would enter into the block behind it, like the first few cars of the train it was pulling. They provided a better ground path across the axles to get both outer rails at the same potential.

I have noticed that MTH tends to have ground/common issues. More than the others; I have mostly seen this during an ERR/TMCC upgrade. It's not universal, but here and there. Their paint seems to be thicker, and grounding on F/R steam loco trucks is less reliable.

I have an MTH NYC P-2 electric that I bought on eBay years ago, and it had bad PS-2. OK, I'll ERR-it. I did, but that was the hardest loco to ground through switches that I have ever dealt with. I must have Dremel'd all the paint off the under frame around the F/R truck bolsters. I did not want to add straps. Finally seemed to work.

@D500 posted:

I have noticed that MTH tends to have ground/common issues. More than the others; I have mostly seen this during an ERR/TMCC upgrade. It's not universal, but here and there. Their paint seems to be thicker, and grounding on F/R steam loco trucks is less reliable.

I have an MTH NYC P-2 electric that I bought on eBay years ago, and it had bad PS-2. OK, I'll ERR-it. I did, but that was the hardest loco to ground through switches that I have ever dealt with. I must have Dremel'd all the paint off the under frame around the F/R truck bolsters. I did not want to add straps. Finally seemed to work.

The later MTH steam with the 3/2 option are the worst offenders, ……many that I’ve worked on that I know will remain 3 rail for as long as we all live, I have added ground wires to the frames from the insulated grounding lugs …..that makes all the difference in the world!….

Pat

One of the more common requests I get it to lose the 3/2 Rail switch on the MTH stuff.  I've posted several times about it.  They managed to make the things super unreliable with the stroke of a pen.

My earlier Legacy K4s had 3 pickup rollers on the engine...whereas I noticed only two on the more recent releases ~ last 5 or so years. The newer K4s stall out on Ross high-speed (O-96) curved switches due to that. It sure would be nice if Lionel tested new designs on all the major track systems and switches before making what appears to be cost-cutting measures.

Curved switches are evil, evil, I tell ya!   Just kidding but there are so many threads reporting problems with them, they are best avoided.  Two rollers on the loco and two on the tender should be plenty.  Adding a tether solves almost all problems, but it requires the tender to have rollers, or at least a trucks with provisions for them.

@Paul Kallus posted:

My earlier Legacy K4s had 3 pickup rollers on the engine...whereas I noticed only two on the more recent releases ~ last 5 or so years. The newer K4s stall out on Ross high-speed (O-96) curved switches due to that. It sure would be nice if Lionel tested new designs on all the major track systems and switches before making what appears to be cost-cutting measures.

With the myriads of different track systems & the accompanying switches, this would not only be a daunting task, but an expensive one as well, …..they could easily remedy this problem with a simple plug-n-play jack system, ( one on the tender, one on the engine) and include a tether in the box, ….if you need it, there it is, if you don’t, there it sits ….😉….

I agree with you Paul, but they probably only worry about their own track systems, after all, they want you to buy theirs, and not other brands!!…

Pat

Ted, I actually haven't had any other engines stall or have electrical continuity issues with Ross Curved switches (O-96-O-72 variety) and don't want others to think the problem lies with Ross - Ross makes great products and in the USA to boot

Many engines only have two pickup rollers and make it through fine these switches with no issues, including both the two-pickup roller equipped bipolars...the problem that Lionel's engineers created, ostensibly by eliminating the 3 pickup roller design of the earlier Legacy K4s to save, what, fifty cents or a dollar, is the spacing of the two rollers on the newer models. BTW: when I say 3 pickup rollers, one of them is a dual pickup roller (one mounting plate with two rollers) and the other is a single. If anyone has any dual MTH or Lionel rollers spares that want to sell, or even a part #, kindly let me know.

Let's be candid, we've been down the road of cost saving measures from all the companies, yet we continue to suck this stuff up. I am in that lot, and should I ever reach retirement have a group of engines to work on, with some already slated to be sent to Pat at Harmony Yards! In the meantime, and with what little hobby time there is, I am finding enjoyment working on my layout and building/painting structures. It's good therapy, relatively speaking, as there's a creative process and end-product.