Postwar Erie ALCO’s

[pjdog350]

I have two engine sets of AA Lionel postwar Alco’s. Silver UP’s & Black Eire’s. I’ve got a Bridge rectifier in one of them to replace the 1.5 volt flashlight battery. Works great. No worries about leaking batteries now. I had two (2) rectifiers but wired one wrong a cooked it. Now I can run only Alco Diesels on my small garage layout as I only have two mainline tracks. I want to make a  Video and call it Alco Diesel day. Sense I have MTH Realtrax as my track Magnatraction does not work so I’ve made both AA units powered. I can now pull 10 to 15 postwar cars.

These little Alco’s are fun to work with and cheap to buy. EBay is flooded with them and parts are available. Just about anything you want is available. Seems like almost all of them are battery damaged. Only thing I don’t like about them is the magnets tend to pull the drive wheels in so hard sometimes they drag on the magnets. Makes running a little difficult. Tends to draw allot of amps. I removed the magnets off on power truck and it’s super smooth now. I also put rubber tires on one and it pulls well.

Wonder how many different road names are available in these. I mean only the die cast frame models. I’m not real interested in the stamped steel frame models. Shame Lionel didn’t have rectifiers in place of the 1.5 volt batteries. Would have made for allot more cleaner models would be available. Maybe electronics had not come up with rectifiers in the  1950’s?

[Terry]

They had selenium disk rectifiers which probaby cost much more than the battery box. That's the big gold disk inside the transformers with whistle controllers.

Are you using the track voltage or dropping it somehow?

I think the best looking alcos are the Erie and Rock Island. Black and Yellow or Black and Red.
They also made 3 versions for UP - Yellow, Silver w/gray roof and all Silver.

The Eire's you can get the decal lettering off and run them as just black demons.

[pjdog350]

Terry:

I am using the track voltage. When the new rectifiers get here I was going to do a video of the install process and testing. There’s  a capacitor in the circuit and when you turn the power off to the track you can see the red LED keep  going for a while. They Bridge rectifier only cost $ 6.99 for two of them and they work very well. As Jim pointed out the 1950’s Lionel Diesel horns really sound stupid but it was the best they could do at the time. Today’s modern diesel horns are awesome!

[pjdog350]

Two new Bridge Rectifier's showed up in the mail yesterday. They are very cheap. Only $ 6.99 for two. You only need one per postwar Diesel that you want to install them in. They use track power. Come with two red wires and two black wires. You use the red wire showing the AC in on the board and solder it to the hot side of your E-unit. Solder the DC red wire shown on the board to the Battery bracket. Then the black wire below the red wire shown as AC in solder that to the ground on the frame somewhere. I used the rivet holding the battery bracket plate. That gives you 1.5 dc volts to the battery bracket which the old Lionel electronics will use to the horn. Works great. Shame Lionel didn't have these in the 1950's. Would have saved allot of battery damage to Postwar Diesels. 

The black wire that's behind capacitor for this application I cut off.

I saw a video on you tube by dagryffyn hobby that showed this Bridge Rectifier and ordered a couple. Glad I did as they are great. dagryffyn hobby has a video showing his application!

[pjdog350]

Working postwar Lionel Erie Alco horn with bridge rectifier video.