What did you have to do to it? I have three 2-8-8-2's from the same collection that all don't run, but light up like that Berk did.
You had included two in the haul. The one in the original box (how cool is that?) was more or less complete, and in pretty good shape, but as you noted, the lights were on but no one was home. The other was more of a basket case, with busted bits and parts of the running gear missing. In the end, the motor in the basket case worked, while the other better looking one was unresponsive.
My usual methodology of locomotive triage looks at three primary problems. 1: Does the motor work. For this I'll disassemble the engine, pull the motor, and apply voltage to the terminals. 9 times out of 10, the motor turns over, and if it does so reasonably smoothly and without heat or smoke, then I know the problem is elsewhere.
Next, I look at the drive train. With the motor out, you should be able to push the drive along and turn the wheels. Again, if there's no binding, or other obvious symptom that something is amiss mechanically, then the only other questions is the electrical pick up.
We know the motor works, because we applied power to it.
We know the mechanism should work, because it rolls reasonably freely.
All we have to do now is figure out what's going wrong as the juice moves from the track, through the pickups and to the engine.
In the case of the Berk, the light was on, so I knew that power was getting from the track to the bulb, but was somehow not getting to the motor.
Note that the terminals at the motor are just little nubs on the back of the case, and not the more typical brass brush housings we've become used to. The case is a closed can, so you can't see the brushes at all, and therefore, no way of inspecting for carbon build up or brush wear.
It may be that there was nothing wrong with the electrical path at all, and the motor was just stalled due to long term storage. When I freed it from the gearbox and tapped a 9v battery to the terminals, that may have been enough of a jolt to bring it back to life. I did spray some contact cleaner "at" the case, maybe some got in, who knows.
Anyway, I reassembled it, really without doing much of anything other than cleaning the bits and pieces and of course losing a critical part (thank gad you sent the other carcass!) and it fired right up. It's running loops pulling the Iron Horse Ramble as we speak, helped by two of my Atlas Roco FAs. It's got a minor wobble to it, but hell it's almost as old as I am... and I'm pretty wobbly too. For the moment, it is the Pride of the Retro Fleet.
I'd be happy to take a stab at one of those 2-8-8-2s...
Next I have a couple of Rivarossi Pacifics to tune up.
Lee
