Fried LED

[nachoman]

I have been trying to wire a headlight into an old MDC 2-8-0. I have white LEDs that I pulled from a cheap flashlight. At first, i tried a 330 ohm current limiting resistor. It flickered a few times, then quit. So, I dug out the LED and put in another one, this time with a 1000 ohm resistor. The loco did not even make it once around the layout before the LED quit. I am using standard DC. I am starting to think these are cheap LEDs and something else is killing them - back EMF from the open frame motor, or perhaps just the reverse current when putting the loco in reverse. Any thoughts?