@M. Mitchell Marmel posted:Actually, pretty much all Lionel motors will run quite happily on DC. You don't wanna run anything with a horn or whistle on DC, as DC is what trips the relay.
I've got that same Christmas trolley, and, yes, it can be rather persnickety.
Interesting. Yes, that other trolley *is* a Lionel, and yes, it will run on DC, but seems to not conduct enough juice through the axle to trigger either of my trolley stop installations, so it's been sidelined from such use (I'd been using it in bump-and-reverse mode on that loop, by itself, before the recent twin trolley conversion). I've never tried the other Lionel trolley on DC, but as it happens, I have that loop wired to a switch that allows output from a DC transformer to power that loop. I'll have to experiment.
However, I think the capacitor would still be a non-starter -- it would initially be charged to full track voltage (DC), and would IMHO rapidly be depleted trying to power the motor (unless it was a honkin' big capacity!), and *until* it is depleted, it would be trying to move the trolley forward at or near speed, and might succeed in pushing the trolley out of the stop section. You *might* be able to buffer that charge by using resistors as I did on the el loop . . . but ISTM it would be much simpler (and cheaper!) just using resistors directly with track voltage, as I did.
