QUOTE They seem to be very thin sprung wires, is there some way to improve them
Our engine is too new to need any fettling of that kind so I can't help on that score, though my experience is that if this type of pickup works from the beginning it tends to stay that way, and if it isn't it stays that way too.
I have managed to diagnose pickup problems using a rolling road. I arrange the road so that the pair of wheels under test are the only ones supplying power. Then I run the locomotive and wind the speed down until it stalls. I have "flying" leads attached to each rail. When the locomotive stalls I connect each flying lead in turn to the appropriate point on the motor side of the pickup and see which one restarts the motor. By passing the pickup in this way shows me which one is at fault.
I have used this method to greatly improve a Hornby Fowler 2-6-4T. I discovered that there was a quarter of one wheel where there was an invisible isolation layer on the back of the wheel face. Once I had cleaned this up, pickup was improved a lot. Richard had pointed out in a previous post that he had encountered a similar problem on such a model.
I realise that that's probably not much help to you, sorry.
David
