williams berkshire locking up

Check the side rods for binding I had that problem with my Hudson.

Merry Christmas!

When the eccentric is at it's furtherest from the front of the loco, the link should be pointing roughly to the front of the loco, if not, that would cause the valve gear to bind. Check both sides.

Does this engine have a flywheel on the motor?  I have a Williams GG1 and if there is a power interruption it stops dead instantly, throwing off all the cars behind it.

If you don't have a flywheel this could be caused by faulty e-unit or some other cause of an intermittent electrical power interruption to the engine?  Just a long shot.

Though urban legend says otherwise, Williams locos are not perfect - I know. A friend's

Wms Berk also had a similar-sounding problem, and it turns out that the "valve

rod" - as I recall - was made too short and would fall out of the steam chest (cylinder)

area and bind. Did some real damage to his rods/valve gear - so check that first.

My Delaware & Hudson Berk had a problem right out of the box. The traction tire on the right side was loose and kept binding in between the drive wheel and dummy wheel. I tried running it without the right traction tire and it did not run very well. The issue was that the traction tire was slightly wider than the groove. I tried to shove the tire in the groove but it would still come loose.

Last week I finally came up with a solution. I used a large socket as a mandrel and stretched the traction tire over the socket. Using a straight edge razor blade, I trimmed about .010" off of the width using a rolling motion. I installed the tire back on the wheel and it runs perfectly.

"Flywheel action" is a function of gear angle more than the presence of a flywheel on the motor. If the angle of the worm is small the worm gear will not be able to move it. The flywheel helps overcome momentary voltage fluctuations caused by poor contact, dirty rails, etc but it won't cause the engine to coast if you abruptly turn off the power.

Pete

The Berk ran for another 30 min with no problem. Leads me to agree that it may be a wiring problem with the e-unit causing an intermittent problem. Will continue to run it over the next couple of days to see if the problem reappears.