Last night she would not run. I kept getting no engine on the rails. She has sat for the whole summer unused. The battery is fine BTW.
Today, She seems like she's getting intermittent power. I can hear the board clicking like crazy. I put her on the bench and apply power directly to the pick-up points, and she's fine.
I tried adding a wiper to the sides of the wheels as I believed the axles weren't doing well on the black wire to the board. No better. It appears that they get help from the same side of the engine's main drivers. So maybe they weren't even the issue?
So the other board wire is gray and it only goes to the front truck of the tender. So that's 3 (tender) wheels on one side doing all the work. They seemed to be stuck ( not sliding side to side) so I lubed them with a shot of WD40. I wondered if they were the issue so I traced the rest of the engine's wiring. The black wire seems like it's tied directly thru the harness from the tender up to the same side of the engine. The grey is not. (when the polarity switch is in one direction)
So I put my tester on the one side's engine main driver wheels and went thru all the wires in the tether ( and at the polarity switch in the tender) and none got continuity? It appears that none come thru to the tender? I also tested the drawbar and nothing there either?
There is continuity on the other side's main drivers to the tender wiring. So the board does not get help from the engine on power pickup on one side other than that one truck on the tender. Seems wrong to me. I'm not sure if that's the issue but I'm testing. I think next, I'll have to connect wires directly from the rail to the board, one at a time, until I can determine which side is suffering here?
Sometimes I get ideas like this while typing here. 
How did she run so good for so long until now?
I believe I'll have to add wipers to the other side tender truck wheel's sides now in hopes of curing this?
