I had laid a loop of track and was testing it out tonight for problems before declaring it ready for use.
I was running a PW 2046 Baby Hudson, pulling a Williams aluminum baggage car and a coach car behind that. The loco was running at a very slow speed to help me identify any track problems (guess I found one). The locomotive stalled out on the tracks (probably from running it at too low of speed: the 10 volt mark on a PW ZW). In what seemed like 5-10 seconds, the baggage car was pouring white smoke out of the doors (this was a lighted baggage car). I shut everything down and took the car off the track. Smoke continued to come out of the car. I checked the loco/tender, no damage and no sign of a short. I checked the track and no sign of damage/short. The track was cool to touch. The wiring inside the baggage car is badly burned. I don't know if the wiring was faulty and bare wire touched metal or what happened. Could the wiring have overheated from the train being stalled on the track for such a small amount of time ? To my knowledge the train did not derail. Not sure why the wiring burned but something sure started it. Why the baggage car and not the coach ? Guess I'll never know. I checked the wiring on the other cars in the Williams set and none of them look brittle or worn. Not sure how old the set is, I bought it used last year and I had put about 15 minutes run time on the cars, if that long. Tonight the train was on its second trip around a 14 x 14 loop when this happened. Your best guess as to what might have caused this mishap ? I don't want to burn up something else if its avoidable.
