I'd go after the fan motor first. These models are notorious for bad fan motors.
3 blinks is the onboard diagnostics for a bad smoke unit fan. Was it noisy when it was working?
You could try a drop of oil on the fan motor shaft bushing behind the impeller. However, Its likely you'll have to replace the motor.
Lube does help many motors from Lionel and MTH, with exception of the Lionel offerings from 2011 and a year or two beyond.
IMO the bushings in these are incorrectly manufactured and the fan rotates in an orbital motion creating the noise, excess power draw and then throws the code.
FYI: When it shuts down and throws the blinking light code you get 3 resets via the remote. After that it shuts down for good until you remove power. You will get another 3 resets when the loco is powered up again and so on.
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