TMCC- E-6 Atlantic

Is your track clean? Dirty track can cause signal issues.

I'd check the pickups and any wipers on the trailing truck.  Since this locomotive only has four driving wheels, and two have traction tires, the trailing truck wiper is key in keeping the common rails connected for power.  If that wire has broken or is loose, you may simply be losing track contact on the insulated tracks as half the wheels are no longer getting power.

 

The E-6 has very close rollers, in my roster it is the worst spacing of all my engines.

Its stalls on many ross curved switches, Atlas crossings, and gargrave 100 switches.

 

One trick I've done on a couple of troublesome locomotives is to power from both the locomotive and the tender rollers.  You can add a roller to the tender if it doesn't have them.

Well, the wire was broken and I am in the process of fixing it.  Once again the guys from the OGR came through and solved my dilemma.

Thanks to all,

Ed

That will probably make a lot of difference, it did for me on a similar locomotive.

 

I had done an EOB upgrade of a Weaver Pennsy M1a several years ago.  It exhibited the same problem. The two pick-ups were far apart.  Turned out that there was rust on the one pick-up roller axle.   I sprayed it with WD 40 and noted the rust coming out.  A couple of spray and run session and it runs fine.   

Mike, on the Atlantic the rear truck is important in connecting to the outside rail when you run on insulated track sections, that appears to be what's happening in this case.

 

When I suspect a pickup roller, I use DeoxIT D5 on it, works like magic.

On my Atlantic I added a 3rd roller to the trailing truck, this solved my problem of it stalling on our Atlas switches.

Nice job on that roller as well Bill, I like that mod!  I'll have to grab a couple of those nice rollers to do a mod on a couple locomotives I have that way, I normally put them on the tender if they have a tether.  For the wireless tether, that would be a better way.

Bill do you have any pictures of adding the 3rd roller?

Thanks... mine stalls out ross and atlas switches, would be nice to correct

Lionel offers three different length pickup rollers. The ones from the PRR M1a and other scale engines are longer. All you need to do is swap out one of the shorter roller pickup for one of the longer ones. Problem solved and you have not modified your engine by adding pickup rollers or a tether from the tender.

Trainman9 - Thank you, if you were a woman I would kiss ya...

I am going to update my E-6 and get it down off the shelves.

Thanks again!

 

Mine used to stall out on my Ross #6 switches and installing the additional roller pickup solved the problem. Ross's solution was to install a relay but that would have been a lot of trouble not to mention additional cost.

 

I put the shorter pickup from the E-6 on the M1a and it ran just fine.

Of course, that only works if the longer roller doesn't hit the frame, I suspect with the Atlantic previously discussed, that may not work.

 

It works just fine.  You only need to replace one and it does not matter which one. The longer roller pickup does not hit the frame. It's not that long just a little longer than the stock roller found on the E-6

I'm a big proponent of the KISS method. Keep It Simple Stupid. Adding wires, tethers and third rollers to rear trucks or tenders completely modifies the engine. If you ever go to sell it you will have to restore it to original factory condition. Putting back the stock roller pickup is easy.

I don't spend a lot of time wondering if I'm affecting the value of something by modifying it.  I like to think all my mods are improvements, and it's not like this stuff is collector quality, or will be anytime in my lifetime.

 

Like I said. It is much easier to just put a slightly longer roller pickup. It only takes a few minutes and does nothing to reduce the value of the engine.

 

John, you are a nice guy but having the last word all the time is getting pretty old.

 

Please don't reply.

 

Thanks