GP 15

[FCIN]

That's what happened with my RS-3. Soldering wires to the metal plates helped a lottle but it still stalled when the front truck was lifted. I didn't get around to it yet but the second part is the filing of the plastic core of the truck OR soldering fine wire to the little square bronze bushings - the bushings are not fully contacting the metal side plates on the problem truck and so soldering wires to the metal plates didn't do a whole lot.

--Randy

Randy;
Sounds like I'm going to have to try doing something like what you suggest if I can ever hope to get this thing running acceptably. I'll have to take a close look at how the trucks on this GP15 are put together and see what I can do. The truck design on these is different than what I've seen on Athearn before - being a lot more like the Atlas design. It's quite obvious that the bushings aren't making good contact with that metal side plate at all times. I really thought at first that I'd cured the problem, but after letting it sit for a few hours and then running it again, it was just as before. Stall, stall, stall! I'm actually hoping that there might be a simple way to put thin wire wheel wipers on the trucks and connect them to the power wires from the trucks.

It's a real shame that you can fork over almost $200 for a beautifully detailed model like this then have to almost rebuild it to get it to run good! From a few things I found on the web today, look's like I'm not the only one that has had real problems with these models.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ0DAj5Ll3I
This video shows the newer style truck on the GP15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L131IMFLfSk