Sorry for such a long delay in my follow up everyone. Turns out, Scott was on it from the start...... the scale wheel sets that I picked up (12 axles in total), were obviously a mix/match of components, and were not all from the same type of loco, as described....long story short, out of the 12 scale wheels/axles I had, only 6 of them had the appropriate insulator and gear combo make up to prevent the short. I was intitially installing the axles with gears mating to the existing idler gears (the ones between each axle), so my guess is that there may have been a 4 axle scale wheel set mixed in there with the twelve ? As some had the gear and insulator on the same side, and vice-versa.
I did hook the electronics back up, and tried it, but nothing, no lights, no hum, no anything, but it now rolls around the track behind the powered units without issue, so it’s a dummy for now.
A big thanks to everyone's input, it’s truly appreciated.
