# Atlas loco keeps cutting out



## crackymule (Nov 1, 2018)

Hi all,

I'm a noob here. I bought this loco like a month ago. I'm using kato unitrack. It's all pretty darn new, I have not been running trains day and night by any means.

Atlas Master Line N 40003860 Gold Series GP39-2 Locomotive

Setting up a track I was running the trains and all seemed good for quite some time. But I started to get issues with just the Atlas.

Power cuts out on it. If i let it travel at 1 speed, it loses power. What gets it going is if I press down on the loco from on top.

I can't figure out if it's a connection issue to the track, or if there is some problem within the truck.

Could someone offer some suggestions on how to fix this? 

I don't see this problem with my two other locos.


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## CV-62 (Dec 9, 2018)

Have you cleaned the all the wheels very, very, very thoroughly? I do not recommend using a 9V battery to spin the wheels for cleaning. I just kept setting the loco on the live tracks about a dozen times. Some Atlas locos, such as my S2 Gold Series needed a good cleaning out of the box and now it runs like a champ even at Speed 1.

I'm pretty sure your loco is factory equipped with a ESU LokSound Decoder. My research has yielded that these decoders are great low speed performers and mine does not disappoint. Your's will not either.


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Track and/or wheels are dirty.


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## crackymule (Nov 1, 2018)

Does there need to be visible dirt to affect running? Because the darn thing looks clean, but I will clean it as recommended online as well as the track.

So the latest was I made sure I had plenty of feeders for my little setup, and then I thought I would try to reset the loco to factory by setting CV8... I was just wondering since I'm still new and I have a NCE powercab, I often trip the short cut-off due to bad turnout management or experimenting with a new layout.

It has gone from cutting out very consistently to very infrequently now. I'll keep monitoring, but will do the cleaning. 

Thanks!


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## rrjim1 (Mar 12, 2015)

If I had to guess, sounds like the DCC board to frame contacts to me. I wouldn't keep pressing down on the loco you might do more harm than good. Won't hurt to clean the track and wheels first. If that doesn't help and your not familiar with working on these I would just sent it back to Atlas for repair.


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

DCC seems to be more voltage sensitive than straight DC. I noticed that after about 20 hours of running my locomotive performance decreased substantially.

After a thorough track cleaning and wheel cleaning on all, the locomotive's performance was restored.

I bought a track cleaning car and this cuts down on a lot of cleaning chores. Locomotives wheels still need cleaning every 20 to 30 hours of operation.


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## CV-62 (Dec 9, 2018)

My loco was brand new out of the box. The wheels looked exactly like they should being brand new, but my guess is they had some film of oil or whatever on them from the manufacturing process.

This is a known issue with some Atlas locos. There is a YouTube video about it and I posted it here some time ago. Good luck.

Another thing you can try is to reset the decoder back to factory settings. This is easy and Atlas claims almost 25% of all returns could have been fixed with a decoder reset. Just exhaust all the easy solutions first before tearing into it or sending it back. 

Best of luck to you.


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## rrjim1 (Mar 12, 2015)

You shouldn't have to clean your track that often. I only clean mine three to four times a year. I also have two Atlas Gold GP39-2 locos and they ran perfect out of the box and now have several hours on them. The only Atlas locos that I own, and I have well over 100, that the wheels had to be cleaned when new were the Atlas S2s. Another thing I would do is to run a abrasive track cleaner or some very fine wet/dry sand paper over your track and then clean it with what ever you use. Even though the track is new it still could have tarnished sitting on the shelf.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

If pressing down on the loco restores power after track and
wheels cleaning, it may be that a wheel power pickup
wiper is not making firm contact, or there may be a 
wire to decoder that has bad connection.

Don


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## CV-62 (Dec 9, 2018)

rrjim1 said:


> You shouldn't have to clean your track that often. I only clean mine three to four times a year. I also have two Atlas Gold GP39-2 locos and they ran perfect out of the box and now have several hours on them. The only Atlas locos that I own, and I have well over 100, that the wheels had to be cleaned when new were the Atlas S2s. Another thing I would do is to run a abrasive track cleaner or some very fine wet/dry sand paper over your track and then clean it with what ever you use. Even though the track is new it still could have tarnished sitting on the shelf.


Mine is the S2 and had the issue. No harm in still cleaning the wheels. What's he got to lose but 5 minutes of his day?


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## rrjim1 (Mar 12, 2015)

CV-62 said:


> Mine is the S2 and had the issue. No harm in still cleaning the wheels. What's he got to lose but 5 minutes of his day?


Well, if you got back up and read the posts you will find I did recommend he clean the loco wheels and track.


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