Hi Bill,
That is excellent information you have provided.  I bet that there is a cold solder joint on that PCB that you mention and possibly when I opened it up, the wires got bumped a little allowing it to make good contact again.  So likely the joint will fail again soon, but I can track it down as you suggest.

thanks again!

Chris

Chuck,
The voltage was the first thing I checked and at full throttle it is 16V.  When the train is running it would drop down to 11V which doesn't sound right.

The funny thing is that my son was just messing around with it and it suddenly started working again. Now with the train running properly at full speed, the voltage on the track doesn't drop at all.

At this point, I am thinking that there is a resistive short in the motor that was causing the voltage to drop.  Now somehow that short has cleared itself, at least for now.

thanks,
Chris

I opened up the engine compartment and there is absolutely no carpet fibers in there, so that isn't the problem.

Any other ideas?

thanks.

Tom,
The engine runs slow by itself and runs even slower, barely moving, with cars hooked up.  So there is nothing wrong with the cars.

I could open up the motor and see if there are carpet fibers in there.  Seems unlikely as it is a low pile carpet and I would expect to see some fibers sticking out.  But it's something to check.

thanks,
Chris

I am running it on the floor on carpet.  Why is that a problem?  I don't see any sign of carpet fibers in the wheels.

The motor does not run balky, it's just slow, the motor and the wheels.  I don't smell anything funny either, like a motor that is straining and I don't hear any funny chattering noises like there is a problem with gears.  You cannot move the wheels by hand when the motor is off.

I don't believe there is any problem with the terminals, they look quite clean.

Any ideas?

thanks for the help.

I got a L'il Big Haulers set for my son about 10 months ago and it worked fine until about a month ago.  Now the engine runs at less than half the speed and has no power when the cars are hooked up. 

I first cleaned the engine wheels and track with a soft cloth and there appears to be minimal crud on both.  Next, I checked the voltage on the track and it varies with the controller setting as would be expected and is about 16V when at the maximum setting. I also took the terminal and applied it directly to the engine wheels and the wheels ran at about the same speed as when on the track.  So there does not appear to be anything wrong with the controller or the track.   

The engine is less than a year old, so it is still under warranty, but before returning it to Bachmann, it would be nice to confirm that this is really a problem with the engine.  Any other thoughts about what this problem is?

thanks in advance.