Hi everyone! My father setup his old Lionel train set from the 50's for Christmas. This is the first time ive seen it setup in 20 years and we have really enjoyed it so far.
He was running a 2065 engine and I bought him a used 2046, and a Gang car to run in addition to what he had. Both pieces after they were cleaned up and lubed run fantastic.
The problem we are having is they wont all 3 run at once for very long without blowing the breaker in the LW transformer we have.
So far, what I'm reading is after they heat up the output of the transformers decrease and so my guess is running the 2 engines pulling cars, the gang car, lights and switches are just too much for it.
I was thinking to purchase a ZW transformer and surprise him with it but we are running everything all on one big track not multiple tracks so that makes the ZW pointless right since the 275w is cut in half (137w to each track output)?
So would it make the best sense to buy a TW transformer since it outputs 190w out of one output?
Any info and suggestions would be great. Thanks everyone!!!!
guero6371
Hello & Welcome to the Forum!
If you will follow the link and go to page 44 of the pdf, you'll be able to use the table located on the page to figure out you power requirement needs.
http://www.slsprr.net/history/1954LionelTrainsAccess.pdfOnce you figure out how much power you'll need to operate your trains & accessories have and take into consideration any possible future power requirements, you can decide on a transformer to meet your power needs.
Happy Rails.
Dave
Thanks for the info it has been a fantastic read and given me a lot of information!!
You can use the ZW to power your trains with no problems. There is no limit to the power output of each throttle. You can get the full available power from the ZW at one throttle if you want. Just because the ZW has 4 throttles does not mean each throttle has only 1/4 of the output- that is a common misconception. You can draw any combination of power from any combination of throttles until you reach the transformer's power limit. You will be hard pressed to overload a ZW unless you have 4 trains running and many accessories and lights.
Larry