I have some older passenger cars(Reading King Coal set of six) that the wires to the lights keep coming off; either at the base of the light socket or at the center roller. When this happens it shorts out the whole track it is on.
What I have done to a couple of the cars is to re-solder the connection but it happens again after a few months.
The newest repair I did to these was to install a 4.7 MF capacitor and replace the light socket with one the has terminals on the outside of it and soldered slightly heavier wires to it, today, I will have to see how well this takes. So far I have a little better constant lighting in the passenger car that I did today.

Lee F.

3Rail & Bach-Mann,
Thank you for the help!
The F-7 units I have are most likely scale, I want to add some passenger cars to them. The road numbers for the Pennsy set are 9754, 9750 on the two A units, B unit un-numberred. The length is 12 inches or 13 inches with couplers on the A units(each one) and the B unit is 12 inches long, all units are about 2 and a half inches wide and 3 and nine sixteenths inches high. Only one A unit is powered, the A unit just has a light bulb in it.

Lee F.

 I appreciate the reply but it still leaves wondering if the new Pennsylvania passenger car sets are the same size as the older Williams F-7 diesel engines. Comparing them to Lionel tinplate doesn't help me!
Maybe what you mean is that they are not the same size and would not look good together?

Lee F.

While you are discussing DCC, is there any way to tell if you have a DCC equipped engine? That is other then opening up the unit?
If I don't have a DCC equipped engine I won't buy the DCC power unit or what-ever it is that is needed for DCC.

Lee F.

There should be a small adjustment that can be made with a small flat tip screwdriver, the piece that is to be adjusted has a small hole in a circular piece and looks like an old style tv volume switch.
The F-7 B units I have had a place to adjust the volume on the circuit board, looked like a small tv volume switch mounted on the QSI circuit board.
As for adjusting the brightness of the headlight you can put in a lower voltage bulb, anything under nine volts will burn out quick.

Lee F.

I have seen the Ready To Run sets advertised in Classic Toy Train magazine,
in the future I may be temped to buy the Pennsy passenger set. My question is this; are the FA diesels the same size as what Williams made approximately five(maybe longer) years ago? I have a set(A B A) of Pennsy F-7 diesels that are the same size as the F-7 diesels used in the Santa Fe 'El Capitan' set, the B units  have a sound system in them from QSI that has a station leaving announcement and has a bell and horn feature as well.

Lee F.

The light bulbs that I usually see at my Radio Shack are the 14.4 or 14.8 volt bulbs, unless you run your trains at full transformer output 14.4 volt bulbs should work fine. Unless you put in a bulb that is too tall(the old Mazda Christmas lights should not be used as they are too tall and they need close to 16 volts to have a bright glow) I don't see any problems, but I am not a service tech, just experianced in low voltage electric.
The passenger cars that I have are the older Williams style passenger cars and 14 volt bulbs should do fine, the only thing about 14 volt bulbs is that they may not be as bright as say 12 volt bulbs but will last a little longer.

Lee F.

 I appreciate all the replies, thank you! This is what I have done, I am using flextrack for curves under 15 inches but limit the amount of curves because I found out too that very little runs through tight curves. Also I have cut done some older style Atlas H.O. switches, taken some track off the ends that won't matter with the switching operation of the switch, to make some tight clearances work a little better.
For me N scale is way too small!

Lee F.

How about some GP-60's in the Norfolk Southern roadname?
Are you considering doing any Florida East Coast Railroad stuff? Like SD-70-ac's or GP-50's in FEC colors? While you are at it how about some FEC freight cars or TAXX?
Maybe some Reading Lines or Central of New Jersey would be good while you are considering new items. Other possible items might be freight cars lettered for the Reading & Northern Railroad, it is a regional railroad in northeastern Pennsylvania that is growing.

A few words of interest; the Reading Railroad owned close to 51% of the CNJ in the 1960's and 70's. Also there was the Reading Seashore Lines in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Lee F.

I was just curious does anybody make a curve in H.O. smaller than 15 inch radius?
I am wanting to do a small H.O. layout and so far the smallest track I can come up with is 15 inch curves. Have very limited space for a layout.

Lee F.

What I have done to lock a Williams engine in forward is to remove the circuit board completely(in other words, gut the engine and put in only the bridge rectifier)and put in a 6 amp 50 volt or higher bridge rectifier and wire it straight from the center rail to one unmarked terminal on the rectifier and wire the ground or frame to the other unmarked terminal on the rectifier and wire the motors from the bridge rectifier negative and positive posts to the motors, be sure to keep the same colored wires together coming off the rectifier. Be sure you know which way the motors are going before you solder the connections if you do solder.
For lights you can wire them straight from the track pickup and use a 14 volt bulb from Radio Shack. Standard light bulbs don't care if it is A.C. or D.C. but not so if you are using newer low watt bulbs.

Lee F.

I would recommend using 16 gauge wire from the transformer to the track on any transforer with more than 150 watts, or 14 gauge wire on anything over 300 watts per output channel. Don't forget about circuit protection, like circuit breakers if you have an older transformer, my preferance is breakers(10 to 20 amps) designed for up to 50 volts A.C.
Some guys have gone with 12 gauge wire but I feel that you are waisting money, unless you have a 450 foot run(resistance won't be a factor on a shorter run) with the wire, with a model train transformer that usually puts out up to 25 volts at 300 watts. Your transformer only uses up to for the new ZW at 360 watts at 120 volts, your input wires on the transformer are only 16 gauge wire at best.
The reason I used 12 gauge wire, coming off the transformers, is that I had it on hand(left over from an attic wiring job) and didn't have to buy other wire.

Lee F.

I have a slightly older Williams steam engine # 671 Pennsy S-2 and it will pull about 26 small to medium sized hopper cars. It has the True Blast 2 horn that plays the crossing sequence(two long-one short-one long). I was able to purchase this engine from a friend of mine, who used to sell Williams, for only $200.00 new about three years ago.
The only thing that I have noticed is that the track gets dirty quick when using smoke fluid.

Lee F.

I have about 12 Williams engines ( three GP-9's, four SD-45's, six F-7's[four A units and two B units]) and would not trade them for other brands. Williams have great features for the money, ok so you don't have cruise control or able to uncouple an engine any where you want, in my opion it is just something else to go wrong.
I have noticed that in the new catalog for Williams, there are sets that come with both track & transformer, that was something I was hoping that Williams would have done before being sold to Bachmann, and I think that it is a great idea to sell more train sets.
Something that I noticed in the most recent issue of Classic Toy Trains is that the Williams set is selling for almost half the price of their compitition.
Also some people on  here may know me from the CTT forum site.

Lee F.