Traction tires or bullfrog snot?

[RobertInOntario]

Good news. I bought a tube of silicon caulking from Home Depot for about $4.00 and "painted" some of this onto the traction grooves of this loco using an old paint brush, and let it dry overnight.

It now runs and pulls two coaches easily. It hauled 3 OK but started to derail ether pulling 4. The only problem is that it's a little jerky and doesn't run as smoothly as it used to. This is probably b/c it needs some running in and b/c the caulking needs to be smoothed out a little more, removing some unneeded clumps, etc. (Or, perhaps I should have done a neater job in the beginning!)

At any rate, the problem is solved although this might be temporary (b/c the caulking could wear off easily) and might need re-applying at some point. Bull-Frog Snot or traction tyres are probably still a better long-term solution.

Thanks for your help with this.

Rob