trying to get horn to work in a 2245 Texas Special

If you have access to a dc voltmeter, verify that the horn is receiving the full 1.5 volts.  You can manually lift up the lower contact on the horn relay to power up the circuit and check the voltage.  If voltage is not 1.5 volts, attach one lead to the loco chassis and start checking voltage back to the battery. Sometimes the contacts on the swivel plate or the upper spring contact on the battery bracket do not make good contact.

@Jolodo posted:

I am trying to get a horn to work in a thanks 2245 Texas.The horn works fine outside the engine. I match the electrical connections with another 2245 that works fine. The battery is full charge. I even changed out the horn relay and get  the same result. A horn that makes a low grade tick tick. I don't know what else to do.... any help would be greatly appreciated.... thanks

Wire it to a 9V battery to give the horn a workout.  Sometimes, when the horns are original or old, the 1.5 D battery doesn't have enough "juice" to get things going.  The 9V does, and for whatever reason it seems like once you give the horn a good workout with the 9v, it will work with the 1.5V D installed in the locomotive.  Good luck, HTH.

I have replaced the batteries on my Postwar Diesel horns with a 3rd party "battery eliminator".    The ones with a voltage adjustment built in.  Allows me to set the voltage to 2-3 volts to help the old contacts on the horn and relay have enough voltage to work well.  A DC voltmeter is needed to do the adjustment once installed.   There are even ones that also replace the relay. 

The advantage besides a little more voltage is you never have to worry about a leaking battery causing problems.

I have changed many of my horns to 3 volts,using AA or AAA battery's with no problems..