MTH PS3 Hudson Burning

Sounds like you have a short.  Now the fact that it won't run at all, you may have fried something.

But why o why did you bring it home from NS if it had problems at the shop?

Ron

Thanks for the responses, so to start, it was a new in box ProtoSounds 3 Hudson #5401 with the pt-tender, built last year. I had issues with a 2-10-4 Pensy MTH that I fixed by hardwiring the tender and engine together which has worked great ever since. N/S only had 1 left and i figured it was just because the bad / old track they tested it with so I took it anyway. Ran okay on rollers at home on display case I made, then once it was moving on track it started acting weird again. Shutting down, etc. Then I went to try it again, and the drawbar started melting at the tender side. Here's the catch, the tender still worked while I was trying to inititially find the source of burning. Sounds worked, lights worked on tender. Engine was flat dead though. So even though the drawbar started glowing cherry red, the tender still responded to all commands except movement and lights on engine were out. So fast forward to today, I drove all the way to Brooklyn to Train World, they opened up a brand new one and guess what. Same. Exact. Problem. Engine would shut down, stop moving randomly, same thing the one I got at N/S did. So that made me feel a lot better knowing that 2 different dealers 123miles apart both experienced the craziness that I was having with MTH. Train world was awesome and opened up another one, this time #5342, which is still the PT tender style with scullin wheels, but worked right out of the box no issues. Packaged it up and then drove 2 hours to N/S, they accepted return without issue, and being as I hate returning expensive items to small businesses, I opted to get myself a new ES44AC lionel diesel and some gargraves track to lessen the blow of refund. Drove all the way back home to N/E PA, fired up both new engines and they are working perfectly. The MTH # of the defective engine was 20-3867-1. Both N/S and Trainworld have done right by me and now I know that there is basically a warehouse full of trains in brooklyn that isn't too far from where I work. But after seeing 3 MTH engines with drawbar issues, this really makes me wonder; is this the best they can do? The fact that the tenders dont even have 3rd rail pickups makes me wonder. (I know they have super capacitors so when they hit bad track or switch etc.)

Thanks!

P.S I also have some interesting ideas for some computer/train email action/notification integrations, but not sure where appropriate place to post would be.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck with MTH draw bars. The only issue I have had is the draw bar coming out of it's socket, which is an easy fix by putting a black rubber band or piece of tubing on the post. As for me I have over a hundred MTH engines and have never had the problems you are experiencing.