Chuck Inlow said:
Nice looking RS-3 Vincent, did you custom paint it yourself? When you say, “still runs like crap” what is it doing? My RS-3 runs very smooth and it works great for switching. Oh course I’m running on batteries and don’t have to worry about dirty track or power. BTW the railroad is looking good.
Hey Chuck, I bought the RS3 from a local hobby shop about 10 years ago.
This particular shop caters to a local HO club that models the Providence & Worcester railway, one of the members wanted to paint a G-scale engine and the P&W actually had a RS3 so that is how it became to be.
The engine never ran well from the day I purchased it (It was new, just custom painted). It would always get stuck on my old layout which had 5’ diameter curves, I just had figured it needed 8’ diameter to operate smoothly so it spent its days just being on display in my house.
When I started making plans for the new railroad I new I would be using 8’ diameter turns and decided to test the RS3…still didn’t work, just stopped as soon as it hit the curve.
A local shop I deal with ordered a new set of Aristo power trucks and installed them, it does run…sort of. It makes it through the turns but it just randomly stops! It will run fine then stop, give the engine more juice from the transformer it moves…then it will stop again.
I know it’s not my track as it has all been cleaned while we are laying it down, plus, my USAT 44tonner and my Bachmann Shay ran perfect on the same track today.
One thing we did notice is that the overall width between the wheel flanges is less on the new trucks (about 1/8th inch) as compared to the original ones.
I don’t know what to do with it, it most likely will just go back to being a display piece.
When the outer loop of track gets completed I will give it another try and see how it goes.
