We often hear about something going wrong with an item, but in this case something went right. I've always like the Lionel Rotating Beacon accessory, since watching it at a hardware store layout in the little town where I grew up in the 50s and 60s (they were a Lionel dealer, back in the day when sometimes hardware stores sold Lionel trains.) A relatively simple accessory, but I find it alluring, for some reason.
I bought one years ago, but could never get it to operate successfully for long. Then I got a MTH version to see if that was any better, athough it was a mirror image of the Lionel one. Nope. Then went back to another Lionel one. Still not much luck, although I tried different tweeks, and so it sat on an attic shelf for probably 6-7 years. But I decided to bring it down for the Christmas under-tree layout this year and see what would happen. Put on the beacon housing, washer, rubber grommet and metal ring, which I'd kept separately in a plastic ziplock, set it at the far end of the layout, wired it to a small transformer and turned it on.
Amazingly, it worked flawlessly! For good measure I added a little more graphite powder to lube the surface where the rubber grommet rotates, and it has continued its flawless operation, even at slower speeds (where it is somewhat more realistic). Apparently, like a fine wine, it got better with age. What do you know?!
