Bachmann On30 Railtruck

[whirligigs]

Bachmann or anyone else:  I just received my On30 Bachmann Railtruck. I put it on my track and put in the 03 address and the lights came on but the truck would not move forward or reverse. After a minute or two the lights went out and it still will not move. Has anyone had this problem?? Thanks, Fulton

[Tim]

The decoder is probably OK.

The power pickup is light phospher bronze wipers on the front wheels.
with an additional wiper to a pc board mounted above the truck.

With time the wipers oxidize, and give poor contact.

Your truck probably was on the shelf for some months.
The only recourse is to dissasemble the front truck and polish the wipers.

The good news is that with use they stay polished.

You may get buy with just exersizing the truck and wipers manually.

Tim Anders
Souderton, Pa

[whirligigs]

Thanks Tim:  I put some CRC2-26 on the track and the wheels and put some weight in the back and it took right off. Now it works without the weights just fine. Thanks alot, Fulton

[0n30nutz]

Fulton,

 Glad you're up and running....My railtruck balked a lot when new...I, too, polished contacts and also very lightly oiled where necessary. This was followed by a 1 hour break in run evenly split in forward and reverse, a light cleaning and an even lighter oiling....now it runs like a gem....


Happy Motoring,

Howard

[ginzokid]

Hey guys,
I did all that polishing and oiling and my rail truck still balks. I cleaned the wheels too. I think I have a pickup problem.

Does anyone make a better system for electrical contact than the small wires that are on the truck now?
The Kid

[br549]

I have to clean my rails at every run session in order to achieve good contact . $5.50 for a bright boy may solve your problem the most inexpensive track cleaner around tried and true.
  The scoop about clean rails?  To check the rail to see how dirty it is I run my  finger over the rail head and see if  I have black on my finger tip . If so the track is dirty. Some thing to think about before major R&R...

[ginzokid]

It's not dirty track. All my other engines run just fine. The track is clean too. It there a better electrical pick-up set-up for the railtruck? A retrofit something that anyone knows about? The poor railtruck just doesn't want to run smoothly, if at all.

The Kid

[morrisf]

If the lights come on, then it is picking up power. So, the pickup wipers are not the culprit.

If the headlight goes on and off with the proper command from a DCC controller, then the DCC address is okay.

If the DCC address is okay, then you may have a motor connection that became undone. Check the wires to the motor...they're under the box located on the rear deck.

If you're trying to operate on analog DC, then the decoder may need reprogramming to the factory settings so it knows to run on DC.

Morris