[simonj]

I ordered and bought a Class 23 Fleischmann N gauge loco a few months back. The shop ordered it direct from Fleischmann so I know its new. Of all my loco's, this runs the worst and I'm wondering what can be done to improve it. Its difficult to get it to set off slowly. Basically as I turn the power up it hums, hums then as I increase the power it sets off going a bit too fast to be realistic. If I then turn the power down it will go slowly, but its this stalling that is annoying. Any idea what the cause is and how it can be fixed? Even my Fleischmann 0-6-0 indrustrial loco runs far better and thats F's cheapest offering in N!

thanks

 

[Brian Considine]

QUOTE (simonj @ 18 Jan 2008, 01:22) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I ordered and bought a Class 23 Fleischmann N gauge loco a few months back. The shop ordered it direct from Fleischmann so I know its new. Of all my loco's, this runs the worst and I'm wondering what can be done to improve it. Its difficult to get it to set off slowly. Basically as I turn the power up it hums, hums then as I increase the power it sets off going a bit too fast to be realistic. If I then turn the power down it will go slowly, but its this stalling that is annoying. Any idea what the cause is and how it can be fixed? Even my Fleischmann 0-6-0 indrustrial loco runs far better and thats F's cheapest offering in N!

thanks

You could check that all the bearing surfaces are lubed (just a little) then try a good run or return it - pretty rare for a Fleischmann to have any sort of fault from new.

 

[34C]

That's a pretty classic description of a mechanism that has a tight bearing or two somewhere. This is usually 'a fault on the right side' in that some running time will ease the bearing, and it will then run very sweetly. As Brian suggested, check that there is a little lubrication distributed to all bearings, then set it going at a medium speed, reversing direction every half hour. Test it on the hour to see if the slow starting has improved. I once had to 'run in' a mechanism eight hours to get the slow speed performance I wanted, but thirty years later that same loco is a fine runner.

 

[simonj]

Hi, thanks for the responses. My current set up is end to end so I'll have to set up a loop with some old set track to give it a good run in. It seems worse in reverse than going forward, I'll update later once I've left it running a while.