Graham Farish Jubilee tender pickups

[Swiss Roland]

I have recently managed to acquire two Graham Farish Jubilees, which must have been on the retailer's shelf for several years. I have discovered that the tender pickups are (almost) useless. For some reason they are only implemented on the rear tender axle anyway, and as supplied they don't even touch the wheels! I have bent them downwards so that they stand a sporting chance of working, but they still don't make adequate contact - just a tiny pressure with a screwdriver has the motor running away, but as soon as pressure is released the motor stops. I've thought of adding a bit of weight on top, but I don't think this is realistic in the space available.

Has anybody solved this problem?

[DCB]

Its difficult to get tender pickups to work reliably.  The pickups need to make contact and still let the wheels revolve which isn't easy, the successful ones use split axle pick up with the axle bearing making the contact.

The other issue is keeping the wheel treads clean enough to make contact on unpowered wheels and the more weight you can add over the pick up wheelset the better the contact.