Speaking of Early Conrail

[Green_Elite_Cab]

What happened?!

I have no Idea, but I have some suspicions. The model is one of the "new" MTH GG1s. It literally came out just last month. It was working as it was intended to work for about an hour (with all the usual growing pains of a brand new locomotive).

The first problem occured as it was travelling down a long straight section of tunnel. It was consisted with a Broadway Limited Imports GG1, and so they were making plenty of noise. I was waiting for it to come out the other end of the tunnel when I heard sudden silence. I figured maybe the MTH jumped the tracks on a hidden switch down there, but when I found the pair of them, both were still on the rails, and they were just sitting there.

the MTH's headlight was flashing briefly every few seconds, the universal sign that something was up. I pushed the trains out of the tunnel by hand (they were already near the exit), and I lifted them off the track momentarily. The BLI engine started right up again and never had another issue for the rest of the night. The MTH one though, it DID start up after some coaxing, but it traveled maybe 10-15 feet and then seemed to die again. Before I could get to it, it started up again, and so I kept going for about another 8 feet, and then it died again. This time, however, the BLI engine was still going. Since the pair of them were stopped behind a pillar, I decided to just rev up the BLI GG1 and shove the MTH one back to somewhere I could reach it. the MTH unit made some sort of HORRIBLE buzzing sound just as it came into reach. I quickly lifted it off the tracks, checked the engine for blue smoke (the magnetic lid on the BLI GG1 was kept for the MTH model as well), and I didn't smell anything that smelled quite like burnt out electronics.

I set the model on the side for a moment, then brought it back. It wouldn't start. I tried the club's programming track, but it couldn't read the CV (indicating that the programming track might not be powerful enough for the MTH unit, or that it is scrambled). I wanted to avoid the "Recovery programming" on the NCE DCC system since MTH's DCS/DCC decoder doesn't technically fit the NMRA requirements for a decoder, and I didn't want to scramble the brains of the unit any more. Our club doesn't allow programmin on the main, so I took it home and tried programming on my MRC system. Still no response. It won't even respond to DC track power.

I did take off the body shell briefly to see if i could clearly identify a damaged circuit board. Its about this time I noticed a missing numberboard, and that the "rear" drivers were slight higher than the front ones. I couldn't find any visible damage, but then there is about three miles of wiring in the locomotive between the decoder, the headlights, the trucks, the "coupler" motors, the pantograph motors, and all other assortment of electronic devices in there (if you think DCC was bad, don't go for MTH. Atleast DCC equipped engines tend to keep the wiring down to about 8-9 wires).

It looks like my only option is to bring it to an MTH authorized repair dealer, and the only one within a reasonable driving distance is at a nearby flea market, but it has weird hours (thursday-weekend). There is an "MTH National Repair Center" within half an hour, but its also got weird hours, and since I didn't buy the engine from any of them, who knows if they'll do the work. Whats more, it looks like most MTH stuff is O scale, so they might not want to tinker with my HO one.

Its just really making me mad, since I was really excited to have this new GG1 (good GG1 models are hard to come by, and the old IHC/AHM ones don't cut it for me). Hopefully this can all get sorted out.