i don't think it's a problem with 50/60 hz. once rectified in the power pack it should be smooth enough. also there's another rectifier directly on that board. currently i'm building my new layout. it's not yet hooked up to my digitrax system so i do all the test runs with an old arnold dc power pack. i assume this old power pack is leaking and sending voltage peaks to the tracks. this might cause the damage. but on the other side, no damage to any other of my lighted kato cars. strange. btw, my digitrax equipment runs from a huge (50lbs) 15v dc power supply which delivers 35 amps. definitely no peaks there.
Could simply be a defective batch of rectifiers or circuit boards complete. It's just happened to appear in Europe the two times that it has been notified here on TB. There is possibly a group of unused observation cars that haven't shown this problem, yet. The AC input wave form would be rectified sufficiently with the correct powerpack that any 50Hz or 60Hz ripple would be negligible, not that I would expect that to be a cause. There is no DCC component to the equation here.
re: delay time @ kato repair (chicago)... their guy is part time and splits time doing other things... expect a 3 day per week at best work ratio... re: BWL obs car light board ... a very small percentage of failure rates relative to the mass quantity shipped... the easy fix is a swap of the chassis... throw the shell back on.. and send back to customer... heck.. they do it for ya for free if you are nice and cordial ... just send em the car and follow up with a phone call...
