Morning all and Merry Christmas! A local hotel has set up a gingerbread village of local landmarks as a Christmas feature again this year. Part of the display is a Christmas train. We are using some of the same components we used last year and are discovering some interesting maintenance items. For background,we are using an Eggliner as motive power pulling three Christmas themed cars. The indoor layout uses about 30-40 feet of track and has two very sharp curves which the train negotiates easily but does slow down through this section. We are using track power and an LGB transformer same as last year. The train runs about 14+ hours per day and has been in use since Nov. 29. We've used 2 different Eggliners. The one used last year has probably 500 hours of run time and the one pulling it right now has closer to 150 hours. They are only used for this event and are stored the rest of the year. The cars are regular flat cars with four wheel trucks and steel wheels that we've decorated as Christmas cars. They each have less than five ounces of weight added to them in decoration. I try and check on the layout every couple of days. On three occasions I've found the train not running. Once apparently involved a small child getting out of control and doing some damage including knocking the transformer to the floor and pulling the wires loose. The wires were re-attached incorrectly and when that was corrected everything ran well. The next time I discovered the train stalled in the tight curve section. The motor had gotten extremely hot and I pulled this Eggliner off and replaced it. The new Eggliner ran well and exhibited no problems. The overheated one has since operated just fine but with a bit less enthusiasm. When I disassembled the overheated unit there was quite of bit of a black powdery substance, enough to completely cover my hands and ruin a shirt before I got the thing back together. This same substance seems to build up on the track but does not seem to be causing any loss of power. We clean the track maybe twice a week but the buildup continues. Then last night I checked on it and it was not operating. All connections were good and I had to move the throttle a bit and everything worked fine. I watched it run for about 15 minutes without problem and then left. This is my first time running a G-gauge train for so many hours. The gentleman who did it last year passed away and his wife gave us all of his railroad stuff and this was part of it. Some of these maintenance issues are new to me as they don't come up on the other trains which run only a fraction of the number of hours we're piling up on the Eggliners. My questions are: 1. What is all of this black crud that builds up on the track and on the locomotives? I'm not seeing excessive wear on any of the wheels or rail. We keep all of the moving parts lubed with lithium grease. 2. Why would the Eggliners start to move more slowly with a given throttle setting? Just the motor getting worn out? All the internal powertrain parts are well lubricated with the proper grease. The motor still runs and isn't overheating but doesn't have the pep it used to. I suspect it got so hot being stalled in the curves and don't know if that caused permanent damage. 3. Could the LGB transformer be getting worn in some way. It isn't used the rest of the year and has performed well. Maybe it got damaged when I was not around but seems to have a small dead spot in the rheostat at the spot where we allow the train to run all day. 4. Any idea of the number of hours a properly maintained Eggliner is good for? As I said one has more than 500 hours while the one running today has maybe 150. This layout will come down probably Jan. 2. I'll clean it all up and store it in a climate controlled environment and will run the Eggliners occasionally during the year. I hope to be able to do this again next year and would like to avoid some of the problems if that is possible. Any answers or hints would be appreciated. Have a good holiday everyone. Rick H.
The black powdery substance is likely from your motor brushes. Which the above and other materials, plus stray lubricants get on the tracks and cause the black crud. You can easily over-lubricate. That can cause all kinds of troubles. What lubricant does the factory recommend? Lithium grease may not be the right thing to apply. Sometimes things do wear out. Heat in the motor and those constantly moving parts.
