When my Erie PA1 broke down, the problem turned out to be the electronic reverse unit, which went bad. If you have a DC power supply, you can check to see if the motors (which are DC) are OK by attaching wires to the contacts on the motors. If they are OK then it's probably the reverse unit.
This goes off on a tangent, but I bought Lionel/AF trains to operate rather than collect, and haven't hesitated to modify them. After experiencing lots of frustration when I was young, with locomotives hitting a dead spot and changing directions (even more troublesome when running multiple powered diesels), I prefer DC to AC. I removed the Erie PA's reverse unit, and rewired the engine so it ran on DC. It ran fine, so I converted my MP and UP PA1's the same way, then bought two pairs of can motor power trucks for my earlier B&O and SP PA's, which broke down relatively soon after I bought them and had not run for years, and converted them, too. Finally I repowered a Gilbert PA, for which I had no good parts to repair it. I did these conversions several years ago, and they run fine. Other people have said that they don't like the Lionel can motors, but I haven't had any trouble with them. My original condition AF locomotives are all AC (unless they were made DC), but I have converted most of my kitbashed and repainted locomotives to DC without any regrets. I converted all my S Helper Service and American Models diesels to straight DC, too. I have DPDT switches to switch between AC and DC, and Rix handheld throttles to control the DC. AC is handled by 18B and 30B transformers, which also supply the power to bridge rectifiers for conversion to DC. Mike Vana Omaha, NE. S-Trains list sponsor: http://www.americanflyertrains.com All the Flyer you desire...books and accessories too! To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list send a note to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
