I do not understand why it is thought that a 773 has a higher voltage motor than other Lionel locomotives of the same era. In looking in Bob Hannon's "Reference Manual I" it shows the 671, 681, 726 and 773 all having the same wire size on both the armature coils and field coils, and approximately the same number of turns on the armature and field coils. What would limit the operating voltage on a low voltage motor like Lionel used would be either poor commutation or excess temperature of the armature coils. By increasing the voltage the current would also go up thus the HP would go up. The risk in doing this is a failure as I described above. What is different about the 773 is it has larger wheels so it will go farther, thus faster, for each wheel revolution. Lionel compensated for this by making use of the larger wheel diameter to put on a larger gear, which slows the locomotive down. I have never looked at the design closely enough to under stand the full impact of these changes, but apparently it went wrong. For years all I have heard is how the 773 preforms poorly, when the increased weight should have improved its pulling performance. The way to get more power out of a small motor is to run it faster. Some day I should take the time to figure out how the motor speed vs. the track speed of the 773 compairs to the other locomotives of this era.
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