Heisler trouble

[Terry Toenges]

The past couple of days, I had trouble with the Heisler front wheels locking up. It was going fine then front wheels would quit turning. It ran ok in reverse. I just looked it over and spent about twenty minutes pulling some little strands of cotton from around the shafts and u-joints. There was some wedged between the wheels and brake shoes and around the axles. It seems like it's ok now. Another reason to stay away from blankets and batting and anything with loose strands.

[Fred Klein]

Terry, I think that you found the problem. Getting all of the fuzz out of my engines has become routine maintenance for me at the start of each Christmas season. My On30 trains are part of our Christmas village - my wife does a fantastic job of setting it up each year, but in order to make it look good she has to put down a lot of the, don't know what its called, fake snow cotton. Well, it seems that this fake cotton finds its way into and onto the axles and wheels of my locomotives and cars, as well. As I said, this is an ongoing problem for us so I just resign myself to taking an hour or so, along with my Optivisor and tweezers and picking out the fuzz. Best of luck to you. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

[Tom_C]

Same here.  My wife loves the fake snow, and after it getting wrapped around the axle more than once I have to go around with a scissor and clean it up before running the trains every year.