Shortage Issue with HO ALCO 2-6-0

[thehnw1223]

About a year ago, I purchased an HO Scale ALCO 2-6-0 (DCC Sound Value; Item no. 51807, Pennsylvania Railroad 3233) second hand from a user who was selling most of his collection. The locomotive itself is in great condition and runs very well.

Recently, I took apart the tender to realign the clear plastic in the tender light on the rear of the locomotive. After putting the tender back together and hooking it up to the locomotive, I tried to run the locomotive on DCC via my MRC Sound Controller 2.0 and the controller indicated a short on the layout, and the locomotive was the cause of it. I switched the locomotive to a different set of track with a traditional Bachmann DC Powerpack and when I applied track power, nothing happened. However, whenever I took the tender off the rails, the locomotive would work like normal and vice versa with the tender on the tracks and the locomotive off, but both of them could not be on the tracks at the same time because it would short the layout.

Could there be something wrong with the pickup or is it the decoder?

[rich1998]

Did you rotate one of the tender trucks 180 degrees? The tender trucks pick up from opposite rails on some steamers. One thought. The diagram page will show you where the insulated wheel should be. Parts, Service and Information. Mainly Information if you did not get the paper with the loco. All the PDF's are there.

Rich

[thehnw1223]

Yup, that was the issue. Just had to switch around some of the trucks and now it's running perfectly normal.

Thank you so much!

-Harry

[rich1998]

Yes, that does happen to so Bachmann tenders. Not all tenders can swivel 180 and Bachmann does not warn you if your tender can as far as I know. Same with putting the trucks back on the proper way as far as I know. You just have to know.

Rich

[Trainman203]

With the title, I thought that suddenly there had been panic buying and hoarding of HO Alco 2-6-0's.  😂😂