I've had these cars for over two years and they are run 3 to 5 hours per week on the overhead layout. They ran without a hitch for 18 months on one of two 100 foot main lines, and no changes have been made to the layout power. One coach shorted out four months ago and the burnt-out section at one pickup was rewired. One coach shorted out yesterday. They have always run on the overhead layout, 1 TIU, PW ZW, four DCS engines on two main Gargraves lines.
No noticeable sparks or flickering. No derailments. When the time comes, the trains just stop with the blown fuse or not.
There are two types of passenger cars- four superliners and six coaches. You will notice in the pics of the undersides, the superliner has no protruding wires and none of the four has caused a problem. The coaches have one wire attached to the pickup and one attached to ground on the truck itself. It seems odd to run the ground wire through the pickup and attach it to the bottom of the truck, but, all the cars are wired in the same way respectively, as shown.
Also, the TIU and transformer have been running a little hot, but nothing shuts down. The first car that shorted was easy. I could immediately see the burnt wire even before opening the car, and it wasn't hard to replace. This time, not one of the cars shows any burning at all, even the one that is causing the problem. I checked all power connections, but, finally had to add the passenger cars one at a time on a test track until the culprit showed up. The two power units are no longer running hot, but still the transformer and first black TIU coil from fixed 2 are noticeably warmer with the remaining 9 lighted passenger cars. Without them, they are hardly warm at all with all four trains running. These are the only passenger cars I have, so not much experience with this type. I know I need to do more experimenting, but...
Q: Has anyone experienced similar problems with passenger cars? Is this common? Does the wiring simply wear down? Any advice will be greatly appreciated. I really don't want to re-wire six of these cars.
Jerry
