2026 Engine stopped running


J

John in Texas

New Member
My 2026 steam locomotive was cruising along. It had been running for 15 or 20 minutes when all of a sudden, it just stopped running. The headlight still comes on, but the engine will not run. I dismantled it and cleaned everything. I sprayed electrical cleaner inside the E unit. The engine still will not run.

Any explanations or suggestions?

John in Texas
 
Does the E unit make any noise when you turn up the power? It's possible it got shifted into neutral when the train lost power for a second, and in the process of fiddling with it you managed to lock the E unit in neutral.
Does the motor rotate when you try you move it by hand?
Do the connections to the E unit and motor look good?
If you've run this "a lot", it's possibly you've worn out the motor brushes. Can you see them, and are the ends where they contact the springs easily visible, or do the springs seem to go way down into the hole for the brushes?
 
Thank you Gomez for replying. I will do my best to give you the information you requested.
*When powered up, the engine hums, and the headlight shines.
*If I hold the engine in my hand, I can rotate the wheels and the motor turns. ON the track with the power off, the engine can be pushed and the wheels will roll. Powering up and pushing the engine, the wheels will roll. Powering down then back up the engine will hum, but the wheels will be locked. When continuous powering up and down, occasionally the engine will lurch either forward or backward then immediately lock up.
*All connections look solid.
*Spring pressure on the brushes is good. The brushes are close to the top of the hole.

I hope this answers your questions. Thank you very much for taking the time to help me.
Regards
John in Texas
 
John in Texas said:
Thank you Gomez for replying. I will do my best to give you the information you requested.
*When powered up, the engine hums, and the headlight shines.
*If I hold the engine in my hand, I can rotate the wheels and the motor turns. ON the track with the power off, the engine can be pushed and the wheels will roll. Powering up and pushing the engine, the wheels will roll. Powering down then back up the engine will hum, but the wheels will be locked. When continuous powering up and down, occasionally the engine will lurch either forward or backward then immediately lock up.
*All connections look solid.
*Spring pressure on the brushes is good. The brushes are close to the top of the hole.
Click to expand...
Hmmm very odd.

First is this the locomotive you are talking about this one: Lionel 2026

Perhaps the valve gear came loose and is binding?

I presume you get the same behavior when you manually change the lever.
 
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John in Texas said:
Thank you Gomez for replying. I will do my best to give you the information you requested.
*When powered up, the engine hums, and the headlight shines.
*If I hold the engine in my hand, I can rotate the wheels and the motor turns. ON the track with the power off, the engine can be pushed and the wheels will roll. Powering up and pushing the engine, the wheels will roll. Powering down then back up the engine will hum, but the wheels will be locked. When continuous powering up and down, occasionally the engine will lurch either forward or backward then immediately lock up.
*All connections look solid.
*Spring pressure on the brushes is good. The brushes are close to the top of the hole.

I hope this answers your questions. Thank you very much for taking the time to help me.
Regards
John in Texas
Click to expand...
Hello John in Texas,

Your problem could be a combination of two things.................

There are two intermediate gears that help drive the wheels. They are known as the first intermediate gear, and the second intermediate gear. Both of these gears each spin on a metal pin protruding from the motor frame. If the hole in either gear wears enough, it may allow the gear teeth to come out of mesh with drive wheels and cause the drivers to lock up.

The E-unit has a contact drum with geared teeth that is operated by an electro-magnet plunger. Each time the plunger operates, it pulls the drum to a new position. The electrical path is properly rerouted through some pickup fingers in order for your loco to have its "forward-neutral-reverse-neutral" repeating sequence. These little fingers must maintain pressure against the drum in order to maintain electrical contact. This pressure can lessen over a period of time. If the contacts get dirty, this can affect the pickup. In the advent of a serious short circuit, one or more of this fingers can get hot and even burn, thus losing contact pressure or total contact altogether.

If a worn gear cause the locomotive to bind and stall, this could cause the E-unit to see excess current draw and heat up or even burn one or more contact fingers. The loco will need to be partially disassembled in order to investigate these problems,and possibly any other potential problems. If you're not up to digging in and fixing it yourself, you will need to find someone that can do it for you.

Incidentally, the light bulbs in these postwar locos are directly wired to the power, so they will always come on whether the loco is having running issues or not. If the light bulb doesn't come on, it's either due to a burned-out bulb, a broken wire, or a dirty ground. At least that's pretty simple to diagnose if having a lighting problem.

Hope this helps. This is my best guess based on your description. There could be something else at play here, too.
 
Oops, thought of another binding possibility that affected one of my 2026 locos a few years back (I have 2 of 'em, both early versions).........................

The early production 2026 locos (from the late 1940's) have nickel-silver "tires" that are press-fitted onto the drive wheels. On one of mine, a tire actually came loose from the driver, and pressed against the side rod while running, and was causing some binding of the running gear. It took me a little while to figure this one out, too. I'm guessing it was a factory boo-boo from the very beginning, as the "press fit" was evidently not very tight to start with. Musta' got past quality control back when new. I had to Loctite the tire to the rim to get it to stay put.

However, if you have a later version 2026 (early 1950's production), I don't believe it has nickel-silver tires, so this wouldn't be an issue for you in that case. Easy distinguishing features between early and late production: Along with the nickel-silver tires, the early version boiler has free-standing wire grab rails. The later versions are merely molded on. The early version has a two-wheeled trailing truck, surrounded by a die-cast metal trailing truck frame. The later version has a 4-wheeled trailing truck, with an internal stamped sheet metal frame. The four trailing wheels are fully exposed to view.

The link that Iron Horseman has provided (thanks I.H.) shows the early version 2026, and you can easily see these three distinct features - the nickel-silver tires (looks like a thin white ring around each drive wheel), the wire grab rails on the boiler, and the 2-wheeled trailing truck with the die-cast metal truck frame. The later 2026 version will probably look identical to this loco: Lionel 2037
 
My engine is the 2-6-4 version.
I'm new to this. Which gear is the valve gear?
Here are some observations in reference to your questions:
When the engine failed, it did not lock up. It acted as if the power had been turned off and just rolled to a stop.
With the reversing lever to the right, what occurs is what I outlined in my previous post. With the lever in the center position, nothing happens, and the wheels are unlocked. With the reversing lever in the left position, nothing happens and the wheels are unlocked.

Turning off the power to the track and rolling the locomotive by hand over the track, the wheels are a little "sticky". They will roll smoothly then grab for a second then roll smoothly again.

I am comfortable with the disassembly of the locomotive, but not with the disassembly of the e-unit.

I will disassemble again with consideration given to your suggestions. I did not look for those problems the first time I disassembled to clean the electrical system.

Thank you for taking the time to help.

John in Texas
 
The "Valve Gear" generally refers to the side rods and all the other associated linkages that steam engines have. Your 2-6-4 version will have simplified valve gear as compared to the earlier 2-6-2 version.

Sounds more like you might have a problem with a dirty E-unit. Spraying it with some CRC QD Electronic Cleaner (Walmart, automotive parts stores, hardware stores) should do a good job of cleaning it. Unlike the rest of the mechanism, the E-unit does NOT need to be lubricated. It needs to be clean and dry in order to operate properly. Also check for a broken wire or solder joint. This can easily be re-soldered if you know how.

The reversing lever is actually nothing more than an on-off switch for the E-unit. If on, it allows the Forward-Neutral-Reverse-Neutral sequencing to operate full time. If off, it simply kills the power to the E-unit. The contact drum will stay in whatever position it was in last, so the loco can only do one of three things - either go forward all the time, or sit in neutral all the time, or go in reverse all the time. To resume normal F-N-R-N operation, simply flip the reversing lever back to the "on" position, and the E-unit will resume working.

Also, visually check the gears on the drive wheels and motor shaft to make sure you haven't picked up a piece of dirt or grime in the teeth, which could be causing intermittent stalling. Clean up any dirt, then re-lubricate the mechanism. A light oil for everything that turns and spins, like axles, bushings, bearings, and even the valve gear, and a light amount of grease on the gear teeth. Go easy on the lubrication, a little goes a long ways.

You could run the mechanism without the shell in order to better observe it. If something still isn't working properly, you should be able to figure it out a lot easier if you can actually see what it is doing, or not doing, as the case may be.
 
John in Texas said:
I'm new to this. Which gear is the valve gear?
Click to expand...
Interesting, it just occurred to me it is not really a gear.!?!! Anyway in the photo below the yellow is the main eccentric rod, the pink is the eccentric crank. These are the two main parts of the valve gear. It can cause a jam if it gets a bad offset from the main drive rod.

valve gear.jpg
 
Mixed Freight said:
The "Valve Gear" generally refers to the side rods and all the other associated linkages that steam engines have. Your 2-6-4 version will have simplified valve gear as compared to the earlier 2-6-2 version.

Sounds more like you might have a problem with a dirty E-unit. Spraying it with some CRC QD Electronic Cleaner (Walmart, automotive parts stores, hardware stores) should do a good job of cleaning it. Unlike the rest of the mechanism, the E-unit does NOT need to be lubricated. It needs to be clean and dry in order to operate properly. Also check for a broken wire or solder joint. This can easily be re-soldered if you know how.

The reversing lever is actually nothing more than an on-off switch for the E-unit. If on, it allows the Forward-Neutral-Reverse-Neutral sequencing to operate full time. If off, it simply kills the power to the E-unit. The contact drum will stay in whatever position it was in last, so the loco can only do one of three things - either go forward all the time, or sit in neutral all the time, or go in reverse all the time. To resume normal F-N-R-N operation, simply flip the reversing lever back to the "on" position, and the E-unit will resume working.

Also, visually check the gears on the drive wheels and motor shaft to make sure you haven't picked up a piece of dirt or grime in the teeth, which could be causing intermittent stalling. Clean up any dirt, then re-lubricate the mechanism. A light oil for everything that turns and spins, like axles, bushings, bearings, and even the valve gear, and a light amount of grease on the gear teeth. Go easy on the lubrication, a little goes a long ways.

You could run the mechanism without the shell in order to better observe it. If something still isn't working properly, you should be able to figure it out a lot easier if you can actually see what it is doing, or not doing, as the case may be.
Click to expand...
It's running again. I sprayed the E-unit as suggested. This seems to have done the trick. While it now runs, not all is good. As I was removing the bushing, a small critical piece of the fiberboard holding them in place broke off. Where can I get a replacement?

John in Texas
 
John in Texas said:
It's running again. I sprayed the E-unit as suggested. This seems to have done the trick. While it now runs, not all is good. As I was removing the bushing, a small critical piece of the fiberboard holding them in place broke off. Where can I get a replacement?

John in Texas
Click to expand...
Not sure what "bushing" or fiberboard holding "them" in place you are talking about. Do you actually mean the brush holders and the fiberboard plate that they are assembled to (Brush Plate Assy. part #2036-150)that hold the motor armature in place? There are various suppliers for Lionel postwar locomotive parts. Simply do a google search for thus, and see what pops up. I have bought parts from "Trainz" in the past. And there are a bunch of others.

Another possibility, maybe glue your fiberboard pieces back together with super glue or a 2-part epoxy. Make sure they are clean and free from or grease as best as possible. The CRC Electronic Cleaner I previously mentioned will do the job, or mineral spirits paint thinner. Be very careful if using alcohol or stronger paint thinners as a degreaser, as these can harm plastic, remove paint, harm the enameled coatings on armature and coil wiring, etc.
 
You're right. I meant "brushes", not bushings. I'll check out Trainz for starters and go from there. The brush plate assy is exactly what I need.

Thank you again.
John in Texas
 
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