Need help repairing a MTH Railking Mohawk- stuck in neutral.

1.-  Weak battery?  Had the same issue with an engine that sat in storage a few years.  Gunner came to the rescue.  He told me to charge it by leaving it on the track with power up for quite a while or replace the battery.

Worked perfectly.

2.-  Another time he had me go through the factory resetting sequence.

3.-  NOTE,  I just had a similar situation where two of my engines would not get out of neutral.  I had them on the engine ready track, did the GRJ recovery steps and nothing!  Puzzled I considered other possible targets.

As it turned out my Z-1000 controller was defective.  I replaced the controller and both engines resumed full conventional operation.  (wanna buy a slightly defective controller?)

I think a full DCS reset is required.

@Tom Tee posted:

1.-  Weak battery?  Had the same issue with an engine that sat in storage a few years.  Gunner came to the rescue.  He told me to charge it by leaving it on the track with power up for quite a while or replace the battery....

What he said.  Hopefully this is all it is.

After you got the double-whistle from the B-W reset sequence:

When you pressed DIRECTION button to leave neutral did the sounds immediately cut-out? If the battery is sufficiently charged, sounds will NOT cut-out when you press DIRECTION.

And when releasing the DIRECTION button thereby re-applying power to the track, did you hear the faint rapid "click-click" of the PS2 relay followed by the engine startup sound (typically the compressor wind-up whine)?  The PS2 electronics needs a sufficiently charged battery to decide if the application of track power is (1) a momentary DIRECTION button request to cycle thru N-F-N-R, or (2) a new operating session which starts in N.

Hi, I did try the reset, and got the double whistle, but it was a Lionel CW80 and I'm not sure if it has the same effect as an MTH transformer. The sounds do not cut out when changing direction and I do hear a click, as if it were trying to cycle. I could try a new battery just in case, but will probably end up selling it as-is and sometime buy a PS 3 version. I'd need to buy the DCS system for the full reset, correct? I can't afford the DCS system anymore, so maybe I can find someone to service it. I was looking forward to running it as I've never had a Mohawk other then the first version with the air whistle. Thanks for your tips !

A CW80 is not recommended for a MTH engine.

I'd need to buy the DCS system for the full reset, correct?

you could probably contact a fellow Forumite in your nabe who could do the reset for you. We have a most helpful bunch of folk on this forum.

If you got the double-whistle acknowledgement, then the engine interpreted the B-W sequence as a reset.

If sounds continue on seamlessly when pressing DIRECTION and you hear the relay single click (not the rapid double-click as when first powering the engine) then, like you say, it appears to be trying to cycle.  If you press DIRECTION repeatedly, you should hear the relay click every other DIRECTION button press.  That is, the engine is cycles NBF -> F -> NBR -> R and repeats.  (NBF, NBR being Neutral Before Fwd, Neutral Before Rev).  So the relay clicks only half the time you press the DIRECTION button.  If you hear this every-other click behavior, the engine is not stuck in neutral and is trying valiantly ... you likely have a separate problem like a broken wire connection to the motor, in the engine-tender tether, or whatever. 

If your tender has a backup light in the tender you should see the light turn on half the time when in either of the Rev states.

Since it only takes a few seconds, you might want to turn down the audio volume to a level where you can better hear the relay clicking (or not) while still being able to hear the engine sounds to confirm the audio is not cutting out when attempting to cycle through the direction states.

Hey kittytrain1969 - any progress?