George S posted:John Smatlak posted:A new O gauge arrival- a Zeuke FD50 streamlined 4-6-0 (or 2' C in Europe), made in East Germany. Several interesting features- it's made largely of Bakelite, including the wheels. It was designed to operate on 3-rail track with the outside rails isolated from each other, which was used to implement reversing. To make it operational on ordinary 3-rail track I isolated one of the two outside rail pickups (after checking which one would result in forward operation). It runs fine, although it does not like the gaps in some of the Lionel switches on my O gauge loop. It's a nice looking train; check out this website for more info (follow the links at the top to browse through the Zeuke / Liebmann product line, all kinds of interesting stuff there): http://www.spur-null.de/triebf...euge/z_fd50_1c1.html. Zeuke also made TT gauge trains.
Fascinating! I was wondering how it would get track power with bakelite wheels. Now I see the sliding pickup shoes on the underside. Is it hanging up on the switches or losing power? I'm not sure why it would lose power since there are two sets of pickup shoes that seem adequately spaced. Maybe it's the outside shoe on the frog side rail since you isolated the opposite side?
George
It loses power going through the curved part of the Lionel 022 switch. Since it's only picking up power between the center pickup and one outside pickup, it stalls on the insulated section intended for anti-derailing. The springs under those pickup shoes are also a little weak and sometimes the shoe sticks in an up position. I will also add jumpers inside so that the outside pickup shoes are common, that should resolve the problem.
