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I got a MTH 30-2115-1 Sante Fe Dash-8 engine for Christmas. I was supposedly new from e-bay and looked like it. We ran it on the layout and it did fine, but it didn't have a lot of runtime. I packed it back up in it's box to bring to work. The front coupler was broken off in the box and I wanted to get a second opinion. We just looked at in and did some planning for extra detailing. We took it out of the box a couple of days later and it stopped working. When you give it power the sounds start and as soon as you put in forward the breaker popped. I checked everything and didn't see any problems. We tried it on another layout - a simple realtrax circle and it did the same thing. I opened it up and didn't see any loose wires, nothing jumped out at me. Put it back together and it worked a little better. It started moving went a track length or two and popped the breaker again. I tried it again this morning and it ran around the layout but I noticed the back truck was sparking a lot over the switches. When I picked up the engine I noticed the back pickup roller was very hot.

Help?
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I had a similar problem with a MTH SD70, Doctor Matt took a look at it and we determined it was a direct short, but where, the old Doc Matt patently went from steam to stern looking for the problem area which was a pinched wire where the truck swivels, the lead from the pick up wire was the culprit and not noticeable until the motor and truck were separated. From now on I start at the front and work my way back , you will find it however it takes a bit of time but less time and no money because you did not send it back to the factory or importer. Hope it helps.
John

I also have a dash 8 new in January of 2012. It sparks at both sets of wheels. Trips the breaker . Only just started to do this. I examined it and found wires were chafed down to bare metal. They were rubbing every time the carriages swiveled as it negotiated a turn. Too complicated for me to fix. will MTH pay for my shipping to get it to them?  It is definitely a flaw in manufacture. 

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OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

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