My A4 live steam locomotive is slowing down without my command and jolting.
Hi, I recently got an unused live steam engine and it was working perfectly. Unfortunately, it has started to not work quite so well - it’s struggling to build up speed then starts ‘jolting’ and sometimes stops completely. I’ve tried waiting longer for steam to build up but it hasn’t solved the problem. Can anyone help? I am very new to this and I’m hoping someone else may have had a similar problem and could help? Thank you 😊
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It appears that there may well be two separate issues at play.
First the LED in the cab flickering and the locomotive slowing down near the power track and at the furthest point from the power track indicate power connection problems. This appears to be resulting in a drop in voltage between the controller and loco and this may well be affecting control of the opening and closing of the regulator. This could be either resistance caused by the poor track connections or it could be resistance on the loco, but is most likely a combination of both.
Secondly the poor running of the coco could be caused by old/worn cylinder seals or poor timing adjustment.
For the track see the info on bus wiring in the Knowledge Base, Getting Started, Are there any special needs for a layout section.
For the loco see the Knowledge Base, ools-maintenance-tutorials.
012 - Tender Chassis Service
011 - A3 Cylinder Service
014 - Setting up the Steam Timing
Please note that long distance loco unseen diagnosis is always a little hit and miss and these are not the only problems that might be occurring but they are probably the most likely.
For your information the club committee are currently debating the pros & cons of starting to offer a members loco maintenance service. A decision on whether or not to provide this service will be made over the next couple of months.