Joe,
Thanks for posting. My 86-year-old walking Lionel Service Station--my dad--has been working and tinkering on this piece for the last several months. We picked up ours about 10 years ago a TCA York Meet. Your advice about the connecting rod to the pellet door might have just helped us complete this repair lengthy project.
We were able to find replacement gears on eBay but just buying bags of assorted gears for RC models.
John