Model Railway Forum

What are your secrets to getting these to run correct, I always seem to have poor connection between tender and loco for the current collection. The little wiper arms feel the weak link on a couple of examples I have hard wired them.

I've used thin wire soldered on both sides at convenient points to bridge the gap between tender and loco on a couple of mine.
The same solution used on Dapol tender locos.

I find the tender drive versions much harder to get reliable running with, generally the loco drive models run more reliably.

I think the main issue is

A, the drawbar not always making contact

B, the pickups in the tender are just about pointless, what the point of putting pickups on a wheel that has rubber traction tyres.

I actually have up on the tender drive models and sold them all and will now only by loco drive tender models

Steam locos can be made that run beautifully.
Union Mills pick up one side on the tender and he other side on the loco, which I think is called the American system. The wire they come with connecting loco and tender is bit thick, and I have replaced them with finer wire to no ill effect.