Follow up thought: This Locomotive has been run so little, that on the rims of the driver wheels, only a very thin strip of the original "new rough pewter" color on the rims has been worn off to the normal smooth silver color. Could it be that when traveling over some track irregularities, these pewter parts of the rim are bearing on the tops of the rails, and receiving a reduced amount of current compared to the worn silver color parts of the rim which are normally bearing on the rails in the straight sections?
If so, could it really hurt anything if I gently sanded off all of the pewter colored coating on the rims of the drive wheels?
Thanks, Mannyrock
