Power For Diesel Area 51 Locomotive

June 2, 2015

Joe sent in this idea to share –

I just wanted to tell you about the fix I came up with for my Lionel wireless locomotives. I bought two locomotives from a hobby shop last Christmas. One is the diesel Area 51 and the Scout locomotive. These locomotives run on the track with wide open power for the transformer and controlled by a battery operated hand held pendant. I supply power to them from a Z transformer. When I had a derailment or passing through a track switch, the track would short out, causing both locomotive components to burn up. However Lionel did honor their warranty, I wanted a better fix. I laid out a dedicated track without switches.

My theory is that with AC current from the transformer to the track is 18 Volts. The Z transformer has higher Amperage output than smaller transformers. I relate electricity like plumbing. Voltage as the water pressure and Amperage as the water supply. There are two legs from the transformer, a hot and a common. In ideal conditions, the AC current is produced evenly on both legs. If of the legs allows more electronic flow than the other, (short) the voltage drops like water pressure would. At this time the transformer tries to keep the balance by using providing more amperage to produce more voltage. This is called an IN RUSH. When the higher voltage is supplied to the components it is turned back to Amperage, through resistance and heats up the components burning them up.

I couldn’t get any information from Lionel as to what the accepted threshold of amperage is for the their locomotives.

As a fix, I went to the auto parts store and purchased a Buss fuse holder and a box of 5 AMP fuses. I wired up the fuse holder in series to hot terminal of the transformer to the track. When there is a derailment or a short, the fuses blow instantly without damaging the locomotives.

With the 027 tracks, Switches tend to have small shorts as a lighted car on some locomotives pass through. Lionel calls them snaps. These snaps will burn out the locomotives if not protected in your train stops in the switch over a very short time..

I know it’s confusing to some, but the fix works. Some new transformers produced by Lionel have this protection as a circuit breaker starting around $150.00.