I am trying to get the whistle in a 2055 postwar loco to work.I took the tender apart cleaned the commutator and brushes on the motor all look good,When I try the whistle it does not pull in the contact points.If I manually push up on the contacts and hold them it sounds.Is there any trick to make the whistle work properly.
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First question: Do you know that your whistle controller is good? Do you have another whistling tender that works with it?
Recheck the wiring diagram first.
Sometimes the contacts on the whistle relay are dirty I usually sand lightly with a 400 or so paper being careful not to bend the contacts.
Understand Postwar whistle tenders can be finicky with certain transformers, which previously has been the subject of discussion on the forum if memory serves me correctly. Have several (233W, 234W, 243W, 2671W, 6026W and 6466W) that perform erratically on older CW-80 current but work like new on GW-180 and 180 brick connected to Legacy PowerMaster. Don't know much about this stuff, so can't say if the difference is voltage or sine wave characteristics.
Here's a thread with a post about working on a balky horn - the same tune-up steps apply for a whistle assembly: