Poor performance with Austrain’s NSW 80 class 421 etc.

These locos have blacked wheels and worst of all, where the axle bearings locate in the bogie pick up side plate, these slots during manufacture of the locos, have been painted. Paint being and insulator, this is affecting the electrical pick up via these “square bearings”. This paint causes very erratic running of the locos. This is even worse when the loco is converted to DCC. This paint has to be removed to give the best possible contact area for the bronze bearings to contact onto, to provide the best possible electrical pick up.

Keeping the track and loco wheels clean is hard enough and with these “dirty slots” this loco mechanism can be a real bad performer.

The disassembled 80 class bogie with axles removed. Notice the paint on the square axle bronze bushes. These locate into the plate slots. The slots were painted but the paint was not removed resulting in intermittent/poor contact. I am amazed that the loco even runs. Scrape away the paint from the axle bearing surfaces and from the metal side frame slots. While disassembled, add a drop of Peco “Electrolube” to each of the axles and bearings to aid in better conductivity. Re-assembly the bogie and fit to loco.

The Austrains NR and the 421 are chemically blackened. This also creates a problem to a much lessor extent. If you are experiencing problems, clean the axle slots and bearings as above. The photo shows an NR bogie dismantled with the metal side frame slots scraped clean. There was no “residue” paint/dirt on the axle bearings.