Hello all!
I have just purchased a Plarail Steam Along Thomas from eBay. I have been after this item for a long time so you can imagine how happy I was to find it (finally). However, despite what was advertised by the seller (a highly reputable eBay seller), the engine will not produce steam. I have triple-checked the batteries, made sure the switch on the underside of Annie is turned on, and only used distilled water, but he simply won't make steam. Any ideas? Help is greatly appreciated!
Welcome to BluePlasticTracks.
These are great engines but can be a little finicky at times. Sometimes what I have found to help is to take the small “wick” out from the bottom. It is a small piece of cotton like material, which is in a small read plastic piece. Put some distilled water on it and soak it through, sort of ring it out a bit then put it back in. If that doesn’t do the trick it may be the small metal piece inside the engine which makes the steam. I have only had to replace one of those though in the many that I have repaired.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Ok, so he makes steam now, but I didn't realize I needed distilled water, so I used purified bottled water. Now, he seems to be producing less steam and, in the times when he comes to a stop and lets off a large burst of steam, it seems to be the case that the steam comes out weakly for the majority of the time, then a strong burst at the end. I have put fresh new batteries in, but that leads me to a tangental question about Tomy / Plarail / Trackmaster engines in general: what are the best batteries to put in the engines and how is the best way to keep them running at full capacity? Thomas is also making a louder-than-normal whining noise when he runs which I assume is an issue with lubrication in the powered Annie. Any help you guys can give is great- I want to keep this guy in the best shape possible.
Keep I mind these are fairly old and if it were used by children which it likely was, there is really no telling what has been done to it. It is great that it is now working a bit for you, you can definitely try distilled water to see if that helps, which it may or there may be deeper lying issues. Regular tap water has minerals and typically some sort of chemicals so it is likely that may have been used over time and caused some sort of issue. Regarding the whining noise, does it sound more like the motor (possibly due to its age) or more like gears (maybe cracked or going bad, etc...)
Probably the motor. I'll try distilled water and see what happens. Thanks!
What was the problem T-Blue? What did you do to fix it?
![[Image: super-smiley-emoticon.gif]](http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/word/super-smiley-emoticon.gif)
![[-]](https://www.blueplastictracks.org/images/collapse.png)
