engine repair

Wow that is an amazing resource. I quickly found several diagrams and instructions for old locos I have and look forward to searching for more. I enjoy finding, repairing and running trains from the 40's - 70's. Thank you so much for this link!
And I have many well kept trains with their paperwork from these eras. I hope to be able to "return the favor" by submitting some of the paper plans I have. Nice to "meet" you and someone who also enjoys the craft. Here's a story - I can hear my friends say "Oh here he goes again!!" (:
Recently retired from the Feds after 39 years I set up a nice work bench in the basement to work on all those projects I had accumulated over the years. Had cleaned lubed and repaired about two dozen locos with great success. Then got an old 0-4-0 steamer of unknown make. Wasn't too bad but it was a bit hesitant - just needed a good cleaning. Removed the shell and cleaned and lubed the wheels and bearings and gears, and cleaned crud off the armature. Put it back together but it ran worse!! Dang! must have done something wrong. Took it apart again and rechecked all my steps. No change. so then completely took apart every moving part and cleaned and checked and lubed to make sure there were no binding parts. Put it back together and it would hardly run at all!! Yikes. I was starting to get that "no good deed goes unpunished" feeling and was very discouraged. So I took it apart again and took every thing apart that had to do with electrical pickup and checked out the motor, carefully with a meter. All checked OK and I put it back together, but when checking it - it was now completely dead!!!
A whole day wasted for nothing - I had intended to only spend a half hour, and I was ready to give up on the hobby altogether, I was so exasperated. But then, for some reason I don't remember, I put a meter on the old toy grade transformer I had been using for a power supply. _IT_ was dead. It was what had been dying while I was working on this loco. I got another supply and checked the loco I had been working on. It ran beautifully, smooth and quiet - nice bright headlight.
I always especially enjoy that smooth running loco when it is pulling a train on my small layout. It is probably the most well maintained of the fleet that I own. And yes, I now have a better power supply with a real meter.
Hope you all enjoyed my story,
Best Regards,
Robert B

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I certainly enjoyed the story. Often, when troubleshooting trains (or anything else), one doesn't "see" what's really causing the problem. I remember, back in the 1980s, I had a small two-rail O scale and when I was testing a new locomotive, everytime I'd turn the power pack on, it would short out. I blamed the power pack...but a replacement did the same thing! I had already tested the locomotive off the track so I knew the locomotive was ok. Was it the track? Nope. What was causing the dead shorts was a Lionel freight car someone had placed on the track! Metal wheels and axles. Fortunately, I didn't spend a whole day finding the problem, but a couple hours looking for something that was right in front of my eyes!
Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad: History of N Scale: Railroad Bookstore: to 1,100 sites:

I have that book, and engine repair / mainetenance is not my strong suit in the hobby (i.e. I don't take the shells of my locos and tinker around for the "fun of it," it usually needs to be a pretrty serious situation before I get the guts to take such a drastic measure). I got the "Maintaining and Repairing Your Scale Model Trains" book a few years back in the hopes of improving my confidence level when working under the hood of models.
To be quite frank, I was diappointed with the Kalmbach book, especially in light of the quality of many of their other hobby books (benchwork, scenery, weathering, etc.). The author seems to presuppose a bit too much out of the reader for what I was looking for.
I wish they had a book that was a little more basic in scope. I guess one problem is that every commercial model has a slightly different method of removing the shell, attaching trucks and sideframes, making electrical contact, gear and motor placement, etc. -- making it hard to write a book that's very basic: it would probably come of as not being applicable to anything. __________ Mark Mathu The Green Bay Route: "I started out with nothing and I still have most of it."

Ouch! What a frustrating day!

No, no. Remember, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade! Think of it as time well spent on both getting that loco to run *perfectly*, and on learning to check *everything* that may be causing the problem.
Stevert

Hey guys has anyone else had trouble getting to the web site. I keep getting a 403 message stating access to this page is forbidden. Server configuration does not allow access to this page. I've tried it from home at from work and get the same message. PeteC

I just went right into it no problem
PeteC wrote:

PeteC skriver: No problem here...
Klaus