Hello everybody,
Im new to this Forum and wanted to say hi first off.
Im all about Halloween. I exclusively do all Halloween themed trains. My Layout exclusivesly is Lemax Spooky Town and a few Dept 56 pieces. I have been collecting this stuff for years and finally own a home with a nice big basement to make a permanent display yearround. I played around with adding a train to my layout and decided to do with out in the plans of my village. I then started seeing all the cool Halloween themed trains Lionel had avaialble and was drawn more and more into the direction of adding a train. But,I couldent overcome the idea of tarring the layout all apart to accompany the train. Until one day I came across a real neat bump and go Zombie trolley. This could work and I decided to add an extension shelf around the front of my layout with bumpers on each end. It was real cool at first but I wanted more. So I decided to go for it. I took it all apart section at a time and added the track around the whole thing. Then it was time to go shopping for the trains. I started out with the Halloween General,but as the train grew the General couldent handle the amount of cars. So I sold it off and got the A5 switcher for a great price on Ebay. This was enough to pull the house down. But Lionel came out with the Lionchief plus engines and I was impressed by them and had to have one even if it wasnt Halloween themed. The A5 was sold off as well. I picked up the NYC Hudson. I know own the Santa Fe Mikado and luckwana Camelback. Camelback is my favorite out of all of them. But, I really wanted the Hallows Eve steamer and the 4 passsenger cars to go with it. The only problem is that it only ran on 36 curve and I had 31. So I had to add another seperate track around my carnival to accommodate this engine. I hunted down the cars and Locomotive and I was set. I decided to collect only halloween boxcars and sold off all my other rolling stock. I have all the scale and most of the traditional Boxcars. I was able to find another General. I kick myself for selling the one I had. I was able to find theHalloween A5 brand new for $299.99. I picked up the little Dockside switcher as well.That little guy sure can haul.Im currently running 2 Lionchief plus engines and cars on the main track and whatever I feel like on the inner track. Im using a CW-80 on ech track. Everything is running excellent except for one.
My all Hallows Eve Steamer is having issues. It seems to be only going up to half speed. It was working fine until A few months ago. Dont know what happened. I barely run my trains. I cleaned the track and cleaned the wheels and contacts and still wont do no more than half its speed. Everything else still functions as it should. I bought it used from Ebay, but it looked like it was never used. So Lionel wont warranty it. They do sell the parts for it fortunately. I was going to change the Speed control PCB and hoping that was it. But I was reading it could be the Capacitor on the motor or the motor itself. Before I started replacing stuff I wanted to ask and see if anyone had advice on what it could be or how to test the parts. I took it apart and didnt see any loose wires or pinched wires. Didnt smell anything burnt either. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
