If the transformer is hot to the touch after about twenty minutes, your electrical load is too high. And if the transformer has a thermal switch incorporated in the circuitry, it will cut out the power.

Check the little wire hanging from the coupler. It might be hanging too low and you need to bend it up a little.

long distance solutions are usually very tough to come up with as is the case here. Assuming the contact ( interference 0 is small, perhaps lengthening the front truck pivot arm may be alternative. It is possible the factory installed the wrong pivot arm, although it is unlikely this would pass quality control.

From your original post, you are converting an old locomotive into a DCC compatible locomotive ? Make sure the motor is completely isolated from the frame.

Is it possible for the manufacturers of model steam engines to build a box where the foam dividers are cut in a way we cah store the locomotives and tenders together after assenbly and attaching the wires ?

You are not the only one learning things here. i cmpletely took down a 2-10-2 steamer without completely thinking thru the reassembly sequence..

if you are an old guy like me with sorta good eyes don't dissassemble a fime machine like a 2-10-2. I managed to wedge in a small screw in the works and to find it, i had to take the body off. there is a silver lining, i know now where all the wires go. And finding a black screw in a black locomotive is a work of art.

me thinks someone just got tossed off the dinner table 

when programming
CV49 sound off/on set it to 1 (on)
cv56 chuff volume 1-3  ( 3 being really loud )

interruption of power to the decoder can cause resets

CV125 set to value 1 will restore factory settings

I don't have trouble with the MRC decoders i have bought so far.

from the way you framed the question i think you know but just to roll along, the tender is the motive power.

feel for you, man. I finally decided not to butcher the tender so i got an early period flat car and mounted the decoder and speaker on it. Now i have to figure out how to butcher the log load i am planning to hide the stuff with.

I have one and just had to have the wood burner tender option. kinda dates it back to the pre coal days but what the heck, it is mine.  Runs good too. But I think mine is going to require a z-scale sound decoder ( or an n-scale decpder mounted in a car behind the tender with only the wires for lights and speaker going thru the tender )  Or even some wires going to the guy walking ahead of the locomotive with a lantern ?

Hopefully they will have a standard wire color and location code that applies to all manufacturers. I don't know at what point the line is crossed between NMRA standards and proprietary design.

I have one, still in the box. Although I like the drawbar configuration with the wires within, i don't like this machine lacking the 8 pin connector I have gotten so used to.

thank you. i went back and carefully reread all the instructions for the MRC console and decoder module and found i had made an error on the starting voltage parameters.