I am running Digitrax DCC with Shinohara and ME insulated frog turnouts. All my locos run smoothly thru these turnouts, but the P2K Heritage 0-8-0 stalls. I suspect pickup deficiencies because of the short wheel base. Is there a way of adding the wheels of the tender as a pickup source and will this solve my problem? Thanks.

-- John Podobnik (podobnik1@llnl.gov), February 28, 2005

Answers

John,

Stalling on insulated frog is a common problem for a short wheelbase locomotive. But for an 0-8-0 with ALL WHEEL pickup, that should not be a problem. ALL WHEEL are the operative words. I have the feeling, given your problem, that you do not have all wheel pickup. So you have two choices: 1) Add Tomar pickups to those wheels that do not currently have pickups or 2) add power pickup to your tender.

You should be able to buy what you need at your hobby shop. Either approach should work for you.

-- Allan Gartner (wire4dcc_admin@comcast.net), February 28, 2005.

John,

I had the same problem with my P2K Heritage 0-8-0. I added pickups to the tender wheels which solved the problem. I used etched phosphor bronze pickup parts - sorry I can't remeber the name of the maker. I believe that Life Like later address this problem with a kit of parts that you can obtain from them. The tender is the same as the 0-6-0 and Life Like put pickups on the 0-6-0 tender and made these parts available for the 0-8-0.

Dale.

-- Dale Gloer (dale.gloer@telus.net), March 01, 2005.

Hi John. I solved the pickup problem with the 0-8-0 by purchasing a spare P2K 0-6-0 tender, which has the necessary pickups as someone else mentioned. The chassis (floor) and trucks of the 0-6-0 tender are exactly the same as the ones on the 0-8-0 tender. It was a simple job to remove the four screws on each tender and swap the floors, trucks and all. Fortunately, Life Like has made the 0-6-0 tender available separately for about $20.00US. Canadian Model Trains has a good supply (www.modeltrains.com).

-- Steve Bourdon (nevermoreproductions@bellnet.ca), March 05, 2005.

This link - http://www.users.bigpond.com/gerrymmr/Pickups/Pickups.html has information about adding tender pickup to the 0-8-0. I did it, and the results are amazing.

bp

-- Bill Powers (b.wilpwr@verizon.net), March 08, 2005.