Village trolley quit working

[Paradise RR]

3 year old Spectrum EZtrack Christmas trolley auto reversing worked fine first 2 years, then this year worked fine for about 1 week, then started running extremely slow for a week, but always reversed at both ends.  Then for the last week it would travel to the bumper end and stop, and now it will not travel at all.   I have cleaned the track rails, and cleaned the wheels on the trolley.  There is voltage to the rails....Any suggestions? 

[TimR]

I have also had this problem with the On30 trolleys. (I have owned three of them for about 8 years now with problems beginning about year two) What I did was to disassemble them, clear and pick away any debris like hair, fibers, etc. Then use a pencil eraser on the wheels, then clean everything in the drive mechanism thoroughly with cotton swabs dipped in denatured alcohol. I found that the gear lube as it comes from the factory can seem to dry out and get hard. So I clean this and all other lubricants and dirt out of there. I then use a little bit of two different lightweight oils on the moving parts with a slightly heavier oil on the gears. Specifically I use the Hob-E-Lube from Woodland Scenics. I use Ultra Light oil on the motor armature bearings, Lite Oil on all other parts except the gears where I use the Gear Lube. Re-assemble and they run like new, perhaps better. The Woodland Scenics lubes are my personal preference, but there are others out there. The IMPORTANT thing is to choose lubricants that are compatible with plastic. (As an FYI to any beginners, this rules out things like WD-40, 3 in 1 oil, many spray silicones, etc.) Ask your local hobby shop for plastic compatible lubricants if in doubt.

I know that this may sound like overkill and perhaps even a daunting task to some, but it worked well for me and I now just do this once a season as a matter of normal maintenance on them. Disassembly of these trolleys isn't that difficult. If in doubt, there are exploded schematic drawings of the trolleys right here on this website. Best of luck.