Success story! Thanks Alex M.

I recently purchased three of Atlas’s 3-rail O Scale Genesis P42 Amtrak locomotives, and am very pleased with them. They all look great and run great right out of the box! But shortly after purchase one of the three, the 108 with the phase 6 red and blue paint scheme, started having a serious problem. At low speed, its motion was jerky, and as the throttle increased, the motors would start to shake and rattle. (See video). Everything would smooth out at about 15 scale miles per hour, but I make videos for YouTube with very low speed action, so this wasn’t working for me. I sent it back to Atlas under warranty, and they returned it saying that the problem was just due to dirty wheels and that they had cleaned them. I was rather surprised at this since the other two identical engines run on the same track and have had no problems. Anyway, when I received it back, the problem had not been fixed at all. Not sure what happened there. Bill at Atlas is a very helpful and knowledgeable guy, in fact, he helped me set up DCS on my layout, which is Lionel Legacy, so that I could run the new Atlas engines. Frustrated, I decided to turn to the legendary Alex M of OGR forum fame. I sent him the engine and within five minutes of taking off the shell he had diagnosed and fixed the problem! Incredible! It turned out the decoder was touching the flywheel. He repaired it and had it back to me in no time and now it runs flawlessly. Thanks again, Alex M!