I wrote this as an article for a Online magazine but I guess they don't want it. Haven't got back to me. While it is no secret that locomotive manufacturers have greatly improved their products these past years, I still find myself having issues on new purchases out of the box. Thrilled to get a new loco, I open the box and after a quick stop on the programming track I give it a run around the layout. I quickly become disenchanted as the loco stalls at times over my isolated turnout frogs, needing a nudge and also fails to run at all at really slow speeds. No manufacturer seems immune to these issues and all seem to need work out of the box. This article goes over what I’ve done and how I’ve taken poor running engines and turned them into excellent, and flawless runners. I feel I should give a little disclaimer. Getting a loco to run like a dream will still require clean track and impeccable trackwork for it to run on. Locomotive tuning will only go so far and is only a part of a smooth-running layout. Clean track and good trackwork are also needed. Another requirement is that all the wheels have their center axle made of plastic. Each side needs to be completely isolated and not have any current running through the center of the axle that might be made of metal. More on why this is important later and how we can take advantage of wheels and axels built this way. The example locos in this article will be a Bachmann N scale Dash 8-40CW and a EMD GP40 also made by Bachmann. I have successfully done these same steps on Atlas and Broadway Limited N Scale engines as well with the same success, so they can be used on many manufacturers. While I have DCC sound N Scale locos I think the modifications here would work for DC and other scales as well. Let’s get started. Take the shell off the loco per the manufacturers diagrams and set it aside. Next examine the trucks and how they are wired in. On the Dash they are hard wired in with soldered connections to the frame and cannot be removed completely. Wipers of copper touch the backs of the wheels on each end. Sadly, the center wheel on these trucks doesn’t have a wiper and doesn’t allow electrical pickup. Fortunately, the center wheels are the same as the ones on the ends and we will be able to get them to pick up track power as well with a simple modification we’ll go over later. I start be taking the trucks apart and snapping out the wheels. I take a soft wire disc in my rotary tool and clean the metal wheels where they touch the track (Fig 1). I also take cotton swabs and makeup sponges dipped in alcohol and clean the wheels and wheel backs removing any dirt and excess oil on them (Fig 2). I also clean the metal wiper contacts on the trucks and remove any excess oil (Fig 3). I next bend out the wipers so that when the wheels are reattached, they will for sure rub on the back sides of them (Fig 4). I’ve noticed over several years of taking engines apart and testing that the most common failure point is transferring track power from the wheels to the truck. While the wipers do a good job, they are not perfect and represent a single failure point. Wouldn’t it be great if the electricity had a second path it could travel from the wheels to the truck contacts? That way if one wiper had an issue the others could compensate. After thinking this over and studying the wheels I realized a small bare wire could be wrapped around the axels of all the wheels and also touch the backs of the wheels. If it was done right the wire would become additional wipers and since it was bare would touch the metal contacts on the truck. While I could have soldered the wire to the truck, I decided not to so they could be removed or replaced if needed. I used what I assume is 35-gauge copper wire I found in old phone and coaxial cables I had collected over the years (Fig 5). On the Dash I looped the wires around the center wheel axel behind each wheel (Fig 6). Then, careful not to pinch the wire, I snapped the wheel into the center of the truck. I made sure the wire and wheel were still free to move. I pulled the wires tight for a good connection around the axel (Fig 7). I next snapped in the other wheels using tweezers to hold the built-in wipers against the truck sides (Fig 8). Then I carefully wrapped the wire around the backs of the wheels keeping it tight against the axels (Fig 9). I then cut off the excess wire with nippers and tucked what was left with tweezers around the axel and back of the wheel being sure it would not touch the built-in wiper or interfere with the wheel’s movement (Fig 10 and 11). You can see in the photo the completed truck with the wire wrapping around the axels. It also touches the metal wipers embedded into the truck by the manufacturer also creating another path for current to travel (Fig 12). The GP40 only has two axels per truck and also have wipers on the trucks that touch the backs of the wheels. Power isn’t hard wired from the trucks to the frame like the Dash is, the GP40 trucks have contacts that sit and rub on the frame as wipers. For this loco I took the truck off and cleaned all the parts as well. Using the wire disc, I polished the frame where the truck wipers rest on the frame (Fig 13). This time I put the cleaned wheels on and then ran the wire behind them and trimmed and cut and tucked it. You can see in the photo how it also touches the built-in truck wiper metal (Fig 14). Once the wire was in place, I used a NMRA gauge to check and adjust the wheel spacing (Fig 15). I usually don’t lubricate my engines when new as I just spent the time cleaning up the excess oil. When I do lube, I only use a plastic safe oil and then let the oil trickle out on its own, squeezing the bottle gives too much. I also check the coupler pin height and adjust if needed. The last step is to file or sand down the decorative truck bottoms on the ends to have a taper to help with movement over the track particularly points (Fig 16). Once they are back on the locomotive, I clean the wheels with a swab and alcohol one last time. Testing the locomotives after all that is done is always fun. I have insulated frogs on my layout turnouts and it is amazing how the locomotive can now crawl at very low speeds with no stalling over them. I can even stop them with wheels on the plastic frog just to see the engine move again when asked. In the case of the Dash the center wheels are now fully able to pick up track power as well. Once I’ve ran the loco a while this way for without issues, I consider the project a success. One thing to keep in mind when using the wire on the locomotive’s axel is to make sure each side is isolated. I’ve had a few older locomotives where this trick failed as the wheels and axels were designed in such a way that adding the wire created a short. These I had to be content with just a good cleaning. I also had to be careful about how tight the wire was wrapped around the axel. My BLI loco wanted to grab the wires and pull it and wind it around its wheels. I had to keep the wires more loose than my other manufacturer locos. I hope this article helps you to get a few of your locos running better. Watching a good or poor runner turn into a great runner is very satisfying and gives more enjoyment to the hobby as you run your trains without issues.
