gnm109

I know that this is an old post, but perhaps you will see my reply. I have a Lionel 4-4-2 Atlantic that also initially ran poorly when I got it from eBay. The problem was resolved by cleaning the insides of the drivers and also the outside rims. That worked for a while but eventually operation was somewhat jerky. I finally removed the carbon brushes from inside of the drivers and made some flat brass fingers to contact the inside of each driver. The previous owner had changed the tender wheels to metal one and I wired those for track pickup as well. That solved the problem. This locomotive will draw on the order of 1-1/4 amps when underway and somewhat more when pulling a combination. My layout is inside of the second floor of my barn and I use 10 gauge wiring to feed about 150 feet of track. My power supply is DC and home built with dual range of either 5 or ten amp. It has ammeters and voltmeters on each side of dual cabs, A and B. Regardless of your power supply, you should have larger than 16 or 18 gauge wires feeding the track. Hope you read this.

It's true that the original sound units for LGB locomotives can't be repaired. I had one in my LGB 2-4-0 20232 Steamer. It died and I replaced it with an aftermarket Llagos Valley Sound unit that I bought on eBay for $37.00 about a year ago. I don't believe that they are available anymore. It does the exact same sounds as the original except some modifications were required in the tender pickup so that the system would respond to the track magnets for the bell and whistle. The original had a common wire for the two sounds but the replacement had to have a separate circuit for each sound. I run on straight DC so I don't know about DCC. I would check all of your connections, especially the lines for track power. Good luck.

Thanks for the compliment. You are no slouch yourself. Your work reminds me of the great stuff that George Schreyer used to do. He also modified a Lionel Atlantic to a great extent and thought very highly of them. I'm curious myself as to why Lionel has not followed up with this locomotive and others like it. Lionel apparently has decided to stay in the O Scale and O Tinplate market, however. The G Scale market is quite large at this time. I liked HO too, but as I get older I can't see as well and things in HO are quite small. I think that you are correct about the screws causing the breakage. There is really very little stress on the pins and it's odd that they would break, but they do. I was looking for a new driver wheel when that one broke and there are just no parts other than what you can find used on eBay. So, I decided to get serious and make some pins. I would encourage you to do the same since I see that you have the tools. I first trimmed off both crankpins down to the wheel with my mill. I then drilled the holes spot on with a #9 drill (.1960). The pins were originally .250 and I turned them down to .200 for 1/4". That gave me a .004 press fit which I did with a small clamp. The pins are 13/16" long and drilled/tapped for 2/56 as I mentioned above. It makes for a permanent fix. From what I've seen, you won't have any trouble doing this at all. It's right up your alley! LOL. The reverse light likewise isn't very hard. I used a piece of scrap brass and made it about 3/4" OD. I added a small ring and a visor for some detail. It uses a bright white LED with a 470 ohm coupling resistor (remember, I'm on DC) and it lights up nicely when the locomotive is backing up. Another good thing is the great amount of room inside of the boiler and tender on these Atlantics. Lots of room for circuit boards and wiring and importantly, lots and lots of lead! Thanks for the compliment. You are no slouch yourself. Your work reminds me of the great stuff that George Schreyer used to do. He also modified a Lionel Atlantic to a great extent and thought very highly of them. I'm curious myself as to why Lionel has not followed up with this locomotive and others like it. Lionel apparently has decided to stay in the O Scale and O Tinplate market, however. The G Scale market is quite large at this time. I liked HO too, but as I get older I can't see as well and things in HO are quite small. I think that you are correct about the screws causing the breakage. There is really very little stress on the pins and it's odd that they would break, but they do. I was looking for a new driver wheel when that one broke and there are just no parts other than what you can find used on eBay. So, I decided to get serious and make some pins. I would encourage you to do the same since I see that you have the tools. I first trimmed off both crankpins down to the wheel with my mill. I then drilled the holes spot on with a #9 drill (.1960). The pins were originally .250 and I turned them down to .200 for 1/4". That gave me a .004 press fit which I did with a small clamp. The pins are 13/16" long and drilled/tapped for 2/56 as I mentioned above. It makes for a permanent fix. From what I've seen, you won't have any trouble doing this at all. It's right up your alley! LOL. The reverse light likewise isn't very hard. I used a piece of scrap brass and made it about 3/4" OD. I added a small ring and a visor for some detail. It uses a bright white LED with a 470 ohm coupling resistor (remember, I'm on DC) and it lights up nicely when the locomotive is backing up. I also changed to a bright white LED for the headlight. Another good thing is the great amount of room inside of the boiler and tender on these Atlantics. Lots of room for circuit boards and wiring and importantly, lots and lots of lead! Thanks for the nice response!

Those are some very nice modifications that you did to your Lionel 4-4-2 Atlantic. I found one of these locomotives on eBay about 6 months ago. It was quite inexpensive since it needed some work, but the previous owner had installed metal wheels and axles in the front truck and both tender trucks. The electrical pickups on the main drivers were the standard brushes but they were very poor so I abandoned them. I added phosphor bronze brushes that rub on the insides of the drivers. These are connected to wipers on the tender trucks so the locomotive never stalls anymore. It has a very large footprint. The crankpins on the drivers are problematical and are prone to crack as you mentioned. One of the pins on my locomotive gave away shortly after I got it. I fixed it by milling off both pins and drilling the wheels to .200 where each pin goes. I then made 2 pins on my lathe out of .250 brass rod. These were drilled .500 deep and tapped 2-56 for a retaining screw. I then turned the new pins down to just over .200 for .250 on the other end of the rod and pressed them in tightly into the driver wheels. I also sawed a notch in the end to drive the valve gear. Since the connecting rods are just over .250 in diameter, they slipped right back on and are held with the screw and a washer. It's been running fine ever since. I also added a backup light and lots of lead: 4 pounds in the locomotive and 2 pounds in the tender for a total of 11 pounds total weight. I have pulled 19 cars with it on my layout so I'm pleased with it's performance. I run on straight DC since I have 15 G scale locomotives and money for DCC is short. That may come someday. Pictures: Crankpin Repair 1 Crankpin Repair 2 Wipers on Main Drivers Tender Wheels with Wipers Backup Light

I would like to hear more about this problem of gear wear. I currently have three USA Trains locomotives: I have a UP GP7-9 that is something like 15 years old (can't remember when I didn't have it) and also recently purchased F# A/B units in Boston & Maine. (I love diversity. LOL) The GP7-9 had cracked gear axle centers when I got it and neither the dealer nor USA Trains would help me out, even though the locomotive was brand new. I took the bull by the horns and sleeved all four axles with aluminum sleeves that I turned on my lathe. The point here is that the gears themselves are still in great condition as I check them every year. I use Lubriplate white grease on the worm gears and have had no problems with gear wear even though this locomotive has hundreds of hours of operation on it. The F3 A/B units are too new to tell, except out of caution, I examined all four motor units for cracks when I received the units and found no cracks - fingers are crossed since these locomotives are noted for problems in this area. Here's what I did to repair the trucks in my USA GP7/9. This was done right after I bought the locomotive and there have been no further problems.

Definitely. It reaches a much larger audience. There is only one train store anywhere near me and they are straight retail. I almost always buy train items on eBay.

Hmm, another duplicate post....it did this when I edited the original reply. LOL.

Sorry, duplicate post......

Hello, I'm not familiar with your particular power supply but I have a Vintage Troller that has done the same thing in the past. If your unit is straight DC output and uses an AC Transformer with a rectifier for conversion to DC. Sometimes these units contain a Triac or Silicon Controlled Rectifier (SCR) to control the power, the Triac or SCR is probably burned out. These units have three pins. Two pins are for power in and out and the third pin is a gate controlled by a potentiometer. That's for your power level control. When a Variac burns out, they can fail in either of two ways: 1. Go open, so that there is no output, or 2. Go closed so that there is no regulation and the power goes straight through causing full speed operation with no control. This sounds like your problem. I would open up the unit (unplug it first, please. ) and look for a unit that looks like the picture attached. I don't have any equipment to test them myself, but in my case, I got the number on the case and replaced it with one from Radio Shack. (Sure hope they stay in business...) I still have two of the Troller units that I used for DC control of my former HO Scale layout as they put out something like 2 amps. When I switched to G Scale, I needed more power so I built a dual 5 amp power pack for two cab operation. The Trollers are now used for bench testing of small components. Both of them have had the Triacs replaced at one time or another after burning out and going wide open. I hope this helps.

This thread is a couple of months old but I just thought I would add my experiences with USA Trains G Scale Locomotives. About 12 years ago, I bought a USA Trains GP7/9 Union Pacific a a local hobby store on sale. It was new in the original box so I wasn't too concerned. When got it home and ran it, however, the wheels were wobbling. I took it back to the store and showed them but they offered no help since it was a sale item with no returns. (I haven't bought anything from them since). So I decided to repair the wheel units myself. When I removed the covers from the engine blocks, I saw that there were cracks on the worm gear units on both engine blocks ( 8 places). I used my lathe to make 8 sleeves out of some aluminum rod stock that I had. I bored the ID of the sleeves the exact size of the OD of the worm units so that I would have a tight press fit. Once I pressed the sleeves on and then pressed the wheels back in, they ran perfectly straight. I also checked them for gauge and they were good. As I mentioned, that was some 12 years ago and the engine has since had many hours on my layout which goes around a 20' X 24' room on the second floor of my barn workshop. Just last month I purchased the USA Trains EMD F3 A & B units in Boston & Main colors new in the boxes. Of course, the first thing that I did with these units was to check the worms for cracks, which there were none. I will wait and see if I need to sleeve these worms at some point. Right now, I figure if they aren't broken I won't fix them. LOL. I still think very highly of USA Trains due to the terrific detail. This issue with the wheels is really not a difficult fix and could even be done with brass tubing as I've seen others do. Happy Railroading!