@Vernon Barry Awesome thanks so much, I haven't looked too hard yet hoping someone else has already had to replace there motor. I did go through a few lionel motors but didn't see those but for $8 and have 3 motors that's hard to beat considering I know it'll fail again at some point. This goes on our traveling layout so it gets a lot of use in little increments.
Again, a local friend and repair tech was working on one for the local shop that died after running for one day on display. His motor did have a dead spot on the armature and would not self start much of the time. That made me pull mine out and inspect it, and try to wrap my head around these failures since this is not the first one I had heard of. My personal one had a minor stackup tolerance issue where in the gearbox, the output gear with the longer shaft (left side when looking at the accessory) when the lower gear is pressed up into the grey gear housing, this spreads the shank of the gear shaft binding into the gearbox bushing hole. I reamed the grey plastic housing hole to enlarge it to reduce the friction- and thus lower the total load on the motor.
I don't know if that contributes or is a cause of failures, but a point I took care of on mine since I had it open.
Again, basic working theory- the gearbox and specifically the one output shaft side swells when the lower gear is pressed into the D shaft of the internal gear shaft structure, this added friction and binding loads the motor causing higher than expected amperage draw, and that motor being somewhat limited in brushes and other detail, dies and becomes intermittent- causing this problem.
