You made me look; opened mine up too. Two screws, check. Modest amount of grease, check. Gears are in great shape and the motor is tight. Packed it well with Red-n-Tacky grease, oiled the axles and put it up. Ready for next year.
The locomotive sees exclusive use on our club's modular layout. Handing off the remote to the children to run it a major plus. It routinely pulls 10 cars for 2-4 hours at a stretch. This is it's third season on the layout w/o failure. My Gen1 version was getting repaired/rebuilt at least once a year.
The only deficit, I may get Gunrunnerjohn to upgrade the smoke unit.
In defense of John Q Public that wants to buy a toy and run it; they don't understand that you actually have to work on these things. We had a family visit the layout on Friday with a 10 yr old Lionel 2-4-2 steamer. It would barely move under its own power. Gears/axles were dry and had wadded up cat hair. The pickup rollers would not turn. Five minutes of cleaning, oiling, and greasing, and it took off an ran like a scalded duck. VERY happy little boy!!!!
