Improved Electrical Pick Up = adding wheel wipers

Most brass locomotives draw electrical current thru the locomotive drivers on one side and the tender trucks on the other side. This means that a stream locomotive is only drawing power through half the available wheels. A typical brass 4-4-0 has 16 wheels, but only draws current from 6 of the 16 wheels available. Its no wonder small locomotives have trouble with any amount of dirt on the rails and these models can stall frequently. This only gets more annoying if sound is installed. If there is any interruption in power the decoder may reset itself to the “power on” state and it sounds like the loco is starting up all over again.

It is possible to avoid these problems by installing more electrical pick-ups on these small locomotives. My personal 4-4-0s pick up current from 12 of the available 16 wheels. That’s all 4 drivers and all 8 wheels on the tender. Dirty track does not slow these little teakettles down when I am done fussing with them. And the advantages are not limited to small locomotives. Every locomotive can benefit from additional electrical pick-ups.

The extra wipers shown above draw current from the insulated tender wheels. The wipers shown in the picture at the top of the page draw current from the rim of the insulated drivers on the locomotive. Did you notice the wiper on the driver on the right? These wipers are almost unnoticeable when the loco is viewed from a normal angle.

I have encountered another problem with older brass locomotives on DCC powered layouts. It doesn't happen with every loco on every layout, but some locos on some layouts cannot pass from one power district to the next unless they pick up power from both sides of both the tender and the locomotive. Adding just one wiper to the tender and one to the loco fixes this problem.