I am sure that it was magical for that time period and also expensive.  I bought one several years ago back when I was dealing, but never operated it.   If I remember correctly the key to the whole thing was the controller box and the vacuum tube inside.

What is it you'd like to know?
Right now I have a 1946 set, and a 1947-49 set (not sure of the exact year).
And I have owned several sets in the past.
The set has been written up on more than one occasion in Classic Toy Trains.

They do not work very well. Perhaps its age related.
About 15 years ago, I was visiting a fellow on Long Island who had his entire layout done in T-rail. I noticed an electronic set controller on his control panel, so I asked him whether his set worked well.
He answered affirmatively, and started to demonstrate the set for me...... it didn't work .

It is still a cool item, I wouldn't let mine go.

 If I remember correctly the key to the whole thing was the controller box and the vacuum tube inside.

It uses a single tube: 117N7GT or 117P7GT.

Lots of capacitors in the transmitter, and one in the receiver. I've wondered whether changing the capacitors would make them work better. Many of them are small hard, cast parts, perhaps mica?

The electronic train set operated using a variable frequency vacuum tube based RF transmitter and individual  receivers in the cars that were tuned to activate when a specific frequency signal was sent to them. To set the specific frequency (that would activate a certain car), RC circuits were used for the tuning. With time the vacuum tube performance declines, the capacitors dry out, the values change and the tuning capability is lost, If new components are used to replace the old, I see no reason why this system would not work, Its really a very simple design.

I have one with everything but the set box. I Tried the electronics once, it did not work.

The engine has the heater element smoke unit and the set has an SP type caboose, so it's one of the later issues.

So, from most of the posts, it seems that all original sets don't work very well. What would it take to get a set like this up and running like new? I know my way around postwar motors and electronics, how hard could it be? Granted, I really don't know much about the technology used to make this set strut it's stuff, but everything lionel made seems to have a beautiful simplicity about it. Thoughts?

Zach

There is a reason that this was the most expensive set in the catalog, and that they still had heater bulbs in 1949 in the engines.

There is a reason that this was the most expensive set in the catalog, and that they still had heater bulbs in 1949 in the engines.

Only the 1946 electronic set locomotive had a smoke bulb (heater bulb). The 1947-49 electronic set locomotives had heater type smoke units. Same as the standard turbines.

I know my way around postwar motors and electronics, how hard could it be?

As Dennis wrote, you would need to replace all the capacitors in the transmitter and each receiver. The track would have to be meticulously cleaned, as would the wheels, axles, trucks and contact areas between the trucks and car frames.

This set is not as simple as you think, and way beyond the repair of probably 95% of those that do repair on Postwar trains.  The mechanical side could be managed without problems, by refreshing ALL capacitors, put in new resistors, and add a new tube.  That's the easy part.

The E.C.U. transformer has 10 pushbuttons, that perform different functions, for uncoupling, whistle control of tender, and unloading the dump car.  The E.C.U. is actually a RF transmitter, and operates on frequencies from 240khz to 360khz, and then you have 5 different receivers, 3 which are low frequency and 2 high frequency.  Each receiver does certain functions, and are designed for specific cars within this set.  The receivers are (low freq.- RUA1, RU1, RUD1); (high freq.-RUC1, & RUB1).  There is a complicated process in tuning both the E.C.U. to transmit specific frequencies, and then tuning of the individual receivers.  Unless you have a pretty good, no make that a very good to excellent electronics background, plus having a Signal Generator, and other various pieces of test equipment, bringing one back to life is no easy task.

I would put repairing this old set, at age 69-70 years old, way beyond the scope of the bulk of the forum members who do repair.  It takes more than replacing parts, and a workbench with the right equipment to fix it.  Granted this set was actually ahead of its time, when offered, but is archaic by today's standards with the newest offerings.  It would take to much time, money, and equipment to fix it to running condition.  One major thing that is stated is the track must *repeat* must be immaculately clean.  Consider it a "Shelf Queen" and just display it.

It was the best of train sets, it was the worst of train sets.  I'd have to echo all the comments made.  While a simple design (that's good), it was notorious for getting out of adjustment. Stories of them working in the morning and not in the afternoon or working one day and not the next are common.  I would imagine, the set, when brand new worked ok, for a while. But as others have mentioned, electronic components age their operating parameters change.  The track had to be almost spotless. I don't think anyone here is telling you don't buy a set but you may be in for a lot of frustration.  But, hey,  if you get it to work by replacing components, etc. , let us know. There indeed may be hope.

Zach:

I didn't see it mentioned so far but I remember hearing that there was a safety issue with the transmitter having something to do with a higher than normal likelihood of causing electrical shock to the operator.  Can anyone elaborate on that?  Is it a rumor or fact?

My “set” has the 1948 version of the 671 locomotive (tires only on front & rear drivers and resistance smoke unit).  But I picked up the cars and the transmitter separately.  I never plugged the transmitter in due to that alleged safety issue.  

BTW, I also have a photocopy of the 12-page instruction manual from 1948.  It includes a section on tuning the receivers.  I can scan and post it if you or anyone else is interested in having a copy. 

 Bill

It doesn't have to be a shelf queen, the 671s are good runners.

Since the only tube basically serves the power supply section (117 volts), any working or non working control box should have all it's capacitors replaced and any resistors checked and replaced where needed.  Hopefully those components have readable values so repairs don't require a schematic...unless one is handy.  With everything back to factory specs there should be no electrical hazard and better reliability.  At the very least, replace the electrolytic capacitors ASAP.

Bruce

Service information, including schematics are included in the Lionel factory service manual. It can be found on the Olsen,s library under 671R

Lionel offered a special meter for servicing the electronic set, #5E. They are quite scarce.

I've played with tuning one of my sets empirically. That means I connected leads from the transmitter to the car, pressed the appropriate button, and played with the tuning slug on the receiver until the relay operated nicely.

But I don't think my track was clean enough, and I didn't clean up the wheels / trucks/ contact points between the trucks and car.
As I recall, the instructions for the set said not to oil the wheels/axles.

I didn't see it mentioned so far but I remember hearing that there was a safety issue with the transmitter having something to do with a higher than normal likelihood of causing electrical shock to the operator.  Can anyone elaborate on that?  Is it a rumor or fact?

Never heard that rumor.

One aspect of the electronic set that I have wondered about: The die cast truck frames seem to have a copper tone to them. I wonder whether they used a ZAMAC with a higher copper content for the electronic set truck sides.

Definitely ahead of its time. This is the very first set made that has suffered the fate everyone has talked about - what will happen when the electronics in our trains don't work and cannot easily be repaired.

Strange, almost, that earlier this week I was wondering if Lionel would ever be able to offer individual car uncoupling by remote control, and then I find this discussion. While I quickly dismissed the notion of having every car uncouple remotely, I did wonder if there would be interest in say 3 or 4 cars that would have the remote couplers that could be interspersed throughout the train. 

Lets say cars 4, 9 and 13 of a 16 car train have remote uncoupling capability where the forward facing and rear facing couplers can be activated separately. Pull up to a siding, uncouple car 13 forward coupler. Place cars on siding, uncouple car 9 rear facing coupler and pull away, leaving cars 10, 11, & 12 on the siding. Next stop, same scenario with other cars.

If they built these as boxcars we could even interchange the shells to get specific road names.

Sound interesting to anyone? Too far fetched???

Grandpa, I don't think there were many, if any at all, additional cars available with the electronic control. 

It is quite possible to build a CB band transmitter that, when different buttons are pressed, transmit different tones, and to have one receive in each car with a filter that responds to only that tome.  About 50 years ago I made such a contraption for another purpose, using Rameco (brand name) filters, which were coils on which you'd attach a ceramic capacitor of a rating needed to produce, or respond to, the tone you wanted.

Grandpa, I don't think there were many, if any at all, additional cars available with the electronic control. 

Lionel never offered any additional cars.

Madison Hardware had extra receivers and trucks available. I have a few NOS ones.

Lionel Grandpa posted:

Definitely ahead of its time. This is the very first set made that has suffered the fate everyone has talked about - what will happen when the electronics in our trains don't work and cannot easily be repaired.

Strange, almost, that earlier this week I was wondering if Lionel would ever be able to offer individual car uncoupling by remote control, and then I find this discussion. While I quickly dismissed the notion of having every car uncouple remotely, I did wonder if there would be interest in say 3 or 4 cars that would have the remote couplers that could be interspersed throughout the train. 

Lets say cars 4, 9 and 13 of a 16 car train have remote uncoupling capability where the forward facing and rear facing couplers can be activated separately. Pull up to a siding, uncouple car 13 forward coupler. Place cars on siding, uncouple car 9 rear facing coupler and pull away, leaving cars 10, 11, & 12 on the siding. Next stop, same scenario with other cars.

If they built these as boxcars we could even interchange the shells to get specific road names.

Sound interesting to anyone? Too far fetched???

 

Well, the simplest and most economical of ERR products could retrofit any PW car with coil couplers for the desired effect.  Maybe dedicate that old, unused cab1 to uncoupling tasks.

Bruce

C W Burfle posted:

Lionel never offered any additional cars.

I think there were a couple in the 1950 advance catalog. They were never made.

This sounds a bit like what Lionel has done with it's modern auxiliary water tenders. While it would be extremely un-prototypical to smack one of those in the middle of a consist, it is proof of concept. However, if this uncoupling feature were to be offered by Lionel (or MTH?) it would mean painstakingly putting every car in your train into a "lashup" in the legacy remote. Just one more reason God gave us two arms and hands to pull the pins ourselves. Thoughts? 

Zach

Cheers from the currently Unfrozen North!

So I have a complete set that actually all works.  That is until I unwrapped it for this christmas.  It seems that the ore dumper car is out of tune?  It worked last year this time.  Does anyone have someone in NJ that could tune this back up for me?  I'll likely wait till after christmas but it would be nice to get it back before the next holiday

I'm in NJ if there happens to be anyone local.  I only use this at christmas now, although it was all fixed up back in the 80's when I was a kid...

thanks,

Greg

Electrical shock concern: although responding to a rather old thread, a comment about shock hazard in the transmitter. It was common practice, back then, to ground some components to the metal frame in radios. I’m sure this practice carried over into the ES transmitter. A friend of mine collects radios of this vintage and when he told me of this practice, I was shocked ( no pun intended. . . . or was it?). Anyway the other practice was to wire the tubes in series to drop the voltage down to safe(?) levels. Any component failures could make the components unsafe, I.e. a shock hazard.  
Steve

Interesting thread, I had heard this set mentioned before, seeing someone respond to it I knew it existed.  As far as shock value goes if you open up the transmitter box and plan on working on it, be careful. Vacuum tubes are high voltage components (it is why tube audio amplifiers are so heavy, it is the transformers they use to get that voltage) and they also generally have large capacity capacitors in line with them. As such you can potentially get a nasty shock well after the unit is powered off.

Steve,

The important thing about those tube radio sets was that the metal chassis was not accessible to the user in operation.

It's only when you dig inside with the power on, or operate the chassis outside its housing, or with the housing partially open, that there would be a definite hazard.  And of course, as @bigkid said, remember that the capacitors can retain a charge for some time after you shut the power off.  Not forever, but maybe for a couple of hours at most -- with the exception of CRT's in TV's and old computer monitors, which can nail you days after the power is turned off.

Mike

Yeah, I agree, the outside chasis itself is not a problem, if it was UL listed then it would need to be isolated. I have a a book on tube amps and the first line in the book is "Warning, tube amplifiers use high voltages and they have honking big capacitors that can get you when you least expect it" (almost the literal words), and throughout the book they have that warning message, and also a way to drain the caps (which I kind of would rather just wait for them to drain down on their own). The transformers in the audio tube amp I have weigh a ton, I think the unit was listed at 80 pounds for shipping.

If you are interested in reading about a modern version of the electronic train see the following thread.

https://ogrforum.com/...-control-transmitter

This describes a TMCC  update to the ECU-1 using an Arduino.

@RideTheRails posted:

Electrical shock concern:

It does not appear to be an issue.

About 15 years ago when I was working in the business we came across a complete Electronic set.   A new vacuum tube, some fine tuning of the receivers and it all worked.   One thing to remember is to not lubricate the car or tender axles.  Let ‘em drag.

It was pretty cool to watch in action but I can’t believe that even in the 1940s they designed it with kids in mind.  

Of course the only challenge bigger than tuning it is finding one.  I’d be surprised if they made more than fifteen hundred or so over the four years (‘46-‘49).

Do you think that there would be a market for a modern transmitter to be made. Of course, the car receivers would need a modern electronic updates as well.
Maybe it’s too small a market for anyone to be interested in.
I know that there are people on this forum who could do it, but at what price?
Alan

I have messed with the electronic control system for tears, I even had an electronic control switcher for a few years until I found the magic elecreol components for my 1663.

I have a bunch of receivers and may do a 1946 726 as an electronic 726 as the plug and jack brushplate is present.  Operating cars don't really need ecu receivers as they need a platform or accessory to unload at.  I could see multiple locos with ecu receivers  think 4671 as built 4726 Berkshire  and a 4403 postwar version of the 201/203 switcher.

Ed Samsen

@brwebster posted:

Well, the simplest and most economical of ERR products could retrofit any PW car with coil couplers for the desired effect.  Maybe dedicate that old, unused cab1 to uncoupling tasks.

Bruce

Many, many moons ago Lionel offered a TMCC kit to add directional lights and coil couplers to a dummy GP9. The board in that kit, plus a relay can be used to to power Lionel operating cars. I’m pretty sure my cars have a glass fuse in there too, as maybe the boards died easily. I have a barrel car, milk car, and a hotbox car with these boards installed. I have each car programmed as an ENG number. Maybe the price now is too high for the boards or kits. Maybe the ERR boards are a better option now? Size wise, would the ERR boards fit easier in the side dump coal and log cars? Has Lionel ever made any command operating car?

@ajzend posted:

Do you think that there would be a market for a modern transmitter to be made. Of course, the car receivers would need a modern electronic updates as well.
Maybe it’s too small a market for anyone to be interested in.
I know that there are people on this forum who could do it, but at what price?
Alan

There is this option...

The Universal Wireless Remote Control Thread

Here's a document describing the system: JWA Universal Remote Control Introduction

A couple of topics where the system was put to use...

Remote Control for Lionel Sound Boxcars

Another Remote Control Sound Car Upgrade