My little Roxey shunter was working O.K, but showed considerable differences in running ability depending on direction of movement.

Even stalls on clean straight level track when running at slow speeds I want, let alone stalling on insulated frog points.

Everything was clean and adjusted correctly, the only obvious discrepancy was the weight balance, being much heavier at the cab end.

Failure was in my opinion a failure to pick up current from the track, be it wheel to track, or wheel to motor contact wipers. I decided to try

rubbing the wheel rear faces with a pencil, rubbing the wheel treads with particular care to the flanges as the B2B was slightly wide, and

finishing off rubbing the track head in the locations of stalls.

I could never have imagined the improvement this gave. I have quite equal running qualities in either direction and although these Tenshodo

SPUDS have no reduction gearing I am getting slow running to an acceptable & useable level. There is some aparent jerkyness, although

some of that is the small wheels crossing turnout frogs. The wagon is from a Parkside Dundas 10 ton insulated van kit.

A warning - remove track current, I burnt my finger when I accidently shorted the graphite pencil across an insulated frog, Boy did it spark !!

Dad-1