Hi all and thanks for your responses. Here is a picture of the underside of the loco. No pickups on the tender.
What I'm really trying to get the answer to is if there is an issue with my locomotive and I need to send it in to an MTH shop under warranty? Unfortunately this is a bigger problem for me as nearest one is 300 miles away. I hope that gives some context to the problem solving. Now, here are my discoveries:
1. One roller was not quite going as far down, so I adjusted it. This helped somewhat, especially when smoke unit was off it functioned with only a little pause but didn't stop completely on the spots anymore.
2. When smoke unit is on, the loco is a bit erratic with speed control and slows and speeds up. It is also more likely to "stop" at the points previously discussed at speeds under 10 mph. This is probably my bigger concern about whether there is an issue with the loco. The erratic speeds being something I haven't had an issue with other locomotives using DCS.
3. I used my awesome K-line Voltmeter car and went over the problem tracks and there was a slight and sudden drop on the straight section. My theory is that the distance between pickups on this loco is slightly different than any others I have and therefore I have never noticed this problem before, even though it exists. The diesels are much closer together and some of my other steam engines are further apart. Not sure what the solution would be on the switches other than what Toledo Ed mentioned above. Please comment on whether this theory makes sense. I can certainly swap out the tracks I'm having issue with and see if that solves that spot.
