Wow. I wish I had found this post two months ago.

It is the exact issue I am having on a brand-new Athearn EMD SW1500 locomotive.

I have been tearing my hair out for some time trying to figure out this electrical conductivity problem.

I also use RailPro and have used this forum to look up other things but found this specific post through Google while researching the stuttering issue as it relates to Athearn's pickup design.

After rewiring and soldering the pickups to the tops of the gear towers multiple times and cleaning and lubricating the wheels, axles, square phosphor-bronse bearings and the metal sideframes (as well as going through FOUR different RailPro modules, two LM-3S-21s and two LM-3Ss to be sure they weren't defective), I came to the conclusion that it must be poor electrical contact with the phosphor-bronse bearings on the axles as they sit in the square notches of the metal sideframes. Nothing else made sense.

I even went so far as to make additional pickup connections. First with wire soldered to the bearings and then stiffer phosphor-bronze wire normally used to make handrails. See attachment.

Still, the issue has persisted.

It's difficult to solder to the metal sideframes directly so I was going to try a better connection to the grommet. It seems from your experience, the grommet itself may very well be the issue here.

One question: Were you able to successfully solder the wire to the sideframe after drilling the hole? Your photo shows it prior to soldering.

I have found the sideframes to be very difficult to solder to. Just wondering how you did it.

Thank you for posting your solution.

Rob S. "Sieggs1"

Philosophy does not equal reality. There are a multitude of examples of trains around the world that are pushed by the locomotive in one direction of the journey. Of course, we are talking passenger trains, like the OP post is about. If I looked into it deeper I'm sure I be saying 100% of the models of trainsets here that have a locomotive at both ends have a powered model at one end only, the locomotive at the other end is a dummy.

It will all depend on what Rapido actually does. If each cab is actually powered and contains a plug for DCC/LM then yes it should be as simple as plugging in your LM's and setting everything up. I can't say I've ever seen anyone offer a self contained set like the Williams is and both cabs are powered (let alone thinking of the cost of two decoders/LM's  to run on DCC/RP). I would expect one cab would be a dummy but it certainly appears Rapido is doing them with two powered cabs as the default option. Interesting.

- Tim

Has anyone tried running the motors in series? What was the result?

Full load current for this F7 is 1370mA. I only know that means heat won't be an issue according to Ring....no idea if that also means I could have used an LM-3S instead. I have a couple Red Caboose GP9s that were converted to NWSL Stanton drives, and I'd bet money I can use the LM-3S as when I did the full load current test on one of them it only read 650mA.