2-6-4 Steam Girl's Set - Engine slowing down

[lennyski]

I switched tenders from my turbine and the hudson to see if the issue was with the tender but the turbine ran fine with the Hudson tender and the Hudson still got hot with the turbine tender. I am going to just take it back to the store where I purchased it.

[MAPA JCT]

Everybody's ideas are good, but the culprit is the transformer. In order for the ANY Williams or Williams by Bachman to operate correctly, you MUST use a 90 WATT TRANSFORMER at the minimum. AND, if the Girls steam engine is ALL that you are have running off the transformer, that's fine. Do you have Accessories attached to the transformer? Any lights? If so, you are taking away watts/volts, to run the engine.

[cgehrke]

There are no accessories attached.  I removed the one lighted passenger platform immediately.  I am told that it could be the track, so I am replacing my track (previously MTH RealTrax) with Lionel Fastrack in the next week and getting a larger curve for the circle so that the pink train can turn easier if the tender is dragging or acting like a brake.

Thanks for the suggestions.  We're still working on getting this running!

[phillyreading]

Like Marty from Ma&Pa junction suggests, try using an MTH Z1000 transformer at home and see what happens with your Williams engine before replacing any track!

Lee F.

[Cobrabob8]

I agree with Lee. Try an MTH Z-1000 transformer. I will be buying one this Summer to use solely under my Christmas Tree. I think the Z-1000  will be just what you will need for a Christmas Tree or smaller sized layout. Good Luck!
And, like I posted earlier, once I bought my MTH Z-4000 I have not had ANY problems with my WBB small Pennsy Hudson. NONE. The Z-4000 has plenty of power (watts, volts and amps) to run two trains at once. I really feel that your problem lies in your transformer.
Cobrabob.

[phillyreading]

I agree with Lee. Try an MTH Z-1000 transformer. I will be buying one this Summer to use solely under my Christmas Tree. I think the Z-1000  will be just what you will need for a Christmas Tree or smaller sized layout. Good Luck!
And, like I posted earlier, once I bought my MTH Z-4000 I have not had ANY problems with my WBB small Pennsy Hudson. NONE. The Z-4000 has plenty of power (watts, volts and amps) to run two trains at once. I really feel that your problem lies in your transformer.
Cobrabob.

Bob, I like the Z-1000 but I doubt that I will ever buy the Z-4000. My only objection to the Z-4000 is that it only has two power outputs for the track. It has accessory outputs but I want power for the tracks. So I would do just as well with two Z-1000's, even the Z-1000 has an accessory output, at least that is my take on the Z-4000.

Lee F.

[cgehrke]

Update:  we replaced all of the MTH track with Lionel Fastrack and the problem went away.  Something weird was happening with the MTH track, not sure what, but the Lionel Fastrack solved everything.  We're still using the MTH Z100 transformer and it works just fine.

Thanks for all of the suggestions & help!

-Crystal

[phillyreading]

That's the first time I heard any thing about MTH's track acting up other than their switches going bad. Some of the guys on CTT were complaining about MTH's Realtrax switches being bad right out of the box, even falling apart.
Personally I use Gargraves and Lionel tubular track, not into the expensive plastic roadbed track.

Lee F.

[Bucksco]

If the MTH track had the black coating on the middle rail it was inhibiting electrical conductivity. My experience has been that you need to remove the black coating (by sanding) from the middle rail on realtrax in order to get good contact.

[phillyreading]

If the MTH track had the black coating on the middle rail it was inhibiting electrical conductivity. My experience has been that you need to remove the black coating (by sanding) from the middle rail on realtrax in order to get good contact.

That's interesting to know about MTH Realtrax.
With Gargraves track I have no problems with the center rail, even their Fanton Rail track gives me no problems.

Lee F.