De Witt Clinton a little sluggish

[AlanMintaka]

Hi Everyone,
I have two of those vintage De Witt Clinton sets.  One of them runs fine, starting up smoothly and running nice and steadily.

The other one is a little slow out of the gate and sometimes jerks a bit until it gets going.  Once it's rolling, it moves a lot slower than the other De Witt. 

The motors in these things are pretty small so I imagine they have their work cut out for them even when running up to speed.  But is it typical for two motors to perform so differently?

The startup is what bothers me most.  A few times I've had to give it a nudge to get it going.  At least it keeps going once it starts.

I haven't tried to do anything maintenance-wise with it yet.  Has anyone else run into this sort of thing before, and are there some rule-of-thumb techniques (i.e. lubing or refitting the wheels or something) that might help in a case like this?

Unfortunately I was slow in getting these things onto a test track so I doubt they're still under the DOA part of the warranty.  If I can I'd like to try working this myself but don't want to touch it until I've heard from the experts.

These little vintage trains are really nice as far as workmanship goes.  I'll have to learn more about these and other vintage engines so I can hunt around for any other sets that might be lurking out there.  I really like these things!

Take care and thanks for reading this,
Big Al Mintaka

[tomcat623]

I have a dewittt clinton its been run a few times, seemed to run well. I'll take a look at it. Dors yours make any strange sounds ?
Tom

[SteamGene]

Big Al,
From what you said, it's possible that you have an old De Witt Clinton - the sluggish one, and a new De Witt Clinton - the reliable one.   Since you've had them for more than one year, you will have to pay something, but I'd send the sluggish one back to Bachmann.
As far as speed goes, these were early locomotives and slow.  Remember, one lost a race with a horse.
With your derailing problem, check the front wheels with an NMRA gauge.  I'll bet they are slightly out of gauge.  Those locomotives are small enough that they should easily traverse 15 inch radius. 
Gene

[tomcat623]

Lokking at clinton I have the gears are exposed on the bottom, could it possibly have picked up a speck of dirt?  Your not running these on the floor are you?
Tom