Lionel 350E Locomotive (

[ROBERTW]

Lionel 350E Locomotive and Tender


I recently purchased a Lionel 6-51000 Hiawatha set which I believe was manufactured by Williams around 1988.  The set has never been used ( shows no signs of wear on the electrical pick-ups or wheels). The problem with the 350E locomotive is that the electrical motor shows no signs of life. I can hear the solenoid engaging but no motion or sounds from the motor.  Is this symptomatic of a train that has been left in the box for 22 years and  do you have any suggestions regarding how to resolve this problem.  I have opened the unit and the solenoid moves freely and no apparently visual problems.  Mechanically everything moves easily.

The second problem is with the whistle unit in the tender.  It doesn't generate sufficient rpm to make a whistling sound.  I opened up the unit to clean the brushes (rod 2/3rd  of length is a constant diameter cylinder and the last  1/3rd  is a cylinder of smaller diameter).  The smaller diameter end was in contact (for both brushes) with the armature disk which I think is backwards.  (I think the smaller end should fit inside the spring which causes the brushes to be in contact with the disk on the armature.)  Changing the orientation of the brushes didn't help; in fact it made the problem worse.  Here again everything is new. 

I'd appreciated any help you can provide regarding these two problems.  Also, I would like to get a copy of the instruction booklet for the Lionel 6-51000 train set

Thank you
Bob Weinraub
raweinraub@hotmail.com   703 816 5468.

Please forgive any typos,  I am on the AMTRAK to NY and it is very bouncy.

[Joe Satnik]

Dear Bob,

Wow, drop dead gorgeous set. 

Example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=360300184467

Contact the seller above, and ask him to put you in touch with the auction winner.  Ask the winner to photo-copy the manual shown in the auction photos for you.

Here are some electrical troubleshooting tips:

Locomotive e-unit and motor:

I think the old e-units depended on gravity to work, so you should troubleshoot it upright.   

Just in case your engine suddenly starts to run (in either direction), be ready to catch it, or have soft landing spots for it.  I think someone makes 3 rail track rollers, but they are kind of spendy...... 

Does your e-unit actually rotate?  Inspect it as you cycle throttle power on and off.   8 cycles (F-N-R-N-F-N-R-N) per revolution of the drum. 

Do the contact fingers move up and down as the drum rotates? 

Set your DVOM to 20 V A.C.  Connect the black probe to the outside rail lock-on terminal.

Measure the voltage of the motor brush terminals with the red probe.   

In forward or reverse,  one terminal should be very near the throttle (center rail) voltage. 

The other motor brush should be around half the throttle voltage.

In neutral, both are equal voltage.  (More than likely both zero volts, though they could be both "near center rail" voltage.)   

In the other direction, the "near center rail" and "about half center rail" voltages are on the opposite brush terminals.

Report back your findings and readings.

Tender whistle:

What transformer are you using?  The old Lionel transformers had a "voltage boost" winding that added about 5 V A.C. to the throttle voltage

when the whistle was activated. 

This was to overcome

1.) the added load of the whistle tender's D.C. relay and inefficient universal motor to the track circuit, and

2.) the reduction in power from the transformer's rectifier, which blocks part of the throttle AC to cause a D.C. "signal" to be sent to close the tender's D.C relay. 

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik     

[DominicMazoch]

I thought the Lionel Classics were made by.......Michael Wolfe for Lionel!

[3rail]

Dear All,

Dominic is correct.  Williams never made this item.  Our tinplate offerings were sold from 1971 until 1981.  In 1984 all of the tinplate tooling and inventory was sold to Mike Wolf of MTH.

Regards,

3rail