MTH Drawbar

Hello Schumann........

On my Railking Challenger, sometimes its best to leave the tether plugged in and if needed to be, i would use a good clean white terry (you can buy them as a roll of terrys from the wal-mart) and lay the engine and tender on the sides to do some work  such as changing the tire or tighting up the siderod bolts so on or whatever it needs to be done.

the woman who loves toy trains

Tiffany

1) I never lay my steam models on their sides to connect the MTH "wireless drawbar". I find laying a flashlight down on the track, behind the tender locomotive connection point helps greatly. Once I have the tender connecting pin inserted into the end of the drawbar, I squeeze the two areas together, using my thumb underneath and middle finge on top of the tender.

2) Service reps from MTH have advised me to NEVER pick up the locomotive while the tender/engine are still connected. Remember that the MTH "wireless drawbar" is actually a printed circuit board, and twisting it in any maker may damage the circuits. Thus, ALWAYS disconnect the drawbar at the tender prior to picking the model up.

I set the locomotive on the track, then place the tender's pin in the hole in the drawbar, making sure the spring wire is pressing against the bin. Now comes the trick. Wrap both hands around the front of the tender from above and with your index fingers against either side of the snap plug under the tender, pull the drawbar straight up and it will click in place. You may lift the tender slightly off the tracks, but there's enough play so you won't have a problem. I haven't missed yet.

To remove the drawbar, grab the tender the same way and gently rock the snap plug loose.

Sounds weird, but works every time and I don't knock anything loose.

This drawbar is not a properly engineered feature, the drawbar is very flimsy, cheap and worse both ends of the connectors are cheaper and getting them to click or seat is a huge chore. needs redesign!!!!!! 

I do just the opposite.  I always keep both the engine and tender connected and carefully lift/move both at the same time.  The only problem I have ever encountered with these rather flimsy tethers resulted from multiple connecting/disconnecting sequences.

To each his own, I guess.  Just describing what has worked for me.  Of course, perhaps I just handle my locomotives more gently than many others do.

I am in the process of fabricating a new apron to accommodate the shorter drawbar I just installed. I have had to connect and disconnect the tender about a dozen times in the past few days. I always lay it on its side over multiple layers of bubble wrap. No problems. 

The drawbar is made up of a flexible printed circuit bonded to a hard backing. I think its the connectors that are most at risk.

I agree its a poor design.

Pete

Thanks Alan & Norton for your response, Allan you are absolutely correct on all counts,A. keep them connected,carefully lift.B.THE connectors are the worst part cheap.C. Does anyone know if the mth drawbar kit that is for premier proto 3(part no. 20-89020) works for railking as I  need more of these flimsy things??? 

Proto 3 has 6 pin connectors, Proto 2 uses 10 pin connectors. MB klein has them both at a discount.

Pete

I have not had a good first experience with the MTH drawbar on the Rail King Santa Fe Northern and am reluctant to buy more MTH steam until there is a redesign.

I have had just the opposite experiences. I have many MTH premier steam locomotive models, including articulateds, and have yet to encounter ANY problems. I have even changed-out a number of the original equipment "printed circuit" drawbars with shorter ones, in order to bring the tender closer to the engine cab.

Robert,

still I think since MTH got the harness down to 6 leads a better design might have been a hollow, square metal drawbar housing 6 wires

I don't believe that such design could withstand a derailment where the engine and tender wind up laying at 90 degrees to each other. The current PC board design handles this scenario without amy problems.

That is not the same type of drawbar that the original poster is discussing. The discussion is about the "printed circuit board" design, which replaced that black hose connector between the cab & tender.

I prefer laying the loco on its side and will always lay down a towel first

I too am 0 for 1 with the tether. It disconnects from the tender every 25 feet or so. It must be a defective male/female junction on the tender end as there is no "snap" when connecting it. The engine only has an hour on it. It's already been back for warranty because of a bad capacitor. MTH is going to send me another drawbar and I'll see if that helps. Right now it's a beautiful Shelf Queen.

Ed

Just read on a post an idea about using a small tie wrap to hold the male/female end more securely at the tender. Have tried it with two criss crossed tie wraps and it's running fine for about fifteen minutes so far. Will try the replacement tether that MTH is sending me under warranty. If this is happening to you and the engine is out of warranty, the tie wraps might be a solution albeit inconvenient.

ekaz:

One point I'll make;

Are you SURE it is fully seated and snapped in place?

They take a lot more force than you might expect to lock in.

If it's pushed in most of the way but not latched, the results would be exactly your problem.

And I'll say it again, this is why I rarely remove an engine from the layout, leave 'em connected, then they work better over the long run.

Thanks Russell. There is no "snap" in this connection. I pushed as hard as I could and even used some leverage with a screw driver. Ran great for 2 hours last night with the tie wraps in place.

Ed

MTH kindly sent me a new drawbar. Unlike the original, this one had a little snap to it when connected at the tender end. The engine ran fine for about half an hour and then the drawbar started coming loose at the tender end again. I think there is just not enough play at the tender end of the drawbar to keep it tight on my layout. The large engine and tender are fairly rigid and there are just enough switches and slight elevations of the track at the homosote joints that the drawbar eventually loosens up. The tie wraps work wonderfully and I think I'll go with that solution for now. Thanks to everyone for all your help.

Ed Kazarian