I don't think we've have had a stupid question in a while so rather than y'all nod off with celebratory Christmas grog and nosh, I thought I'd post.
I have bought several of my 141/181s secondhand and although some of them are 'new', they have probably been lying in a box or on display for several years. I noticed that some of my locomotives do not run as smoothly as others. Some are really quiet, begin to crawl at a lower setting and have a greater top speed than the others. I suspect that some need servicing but other than saying that they are a little noisy or something I do not really know why exactly qualifies them for needing a service.
More to the point, I do not really know how to do 'a service'. I know things need to be oiled sparingly but that's about it!
I 'ran in' several of my locomotives and then noticed an eBay listing where the seller had test run the locomotive for only half a circuit of an oval to test "to prevent burning out the motor" as it obviously needed a service. I hope I've not done any damage to my locomotives when running them in if they needed a service and I did not realize!
I also have several Woolies that are obviously noisier than my baby GMs, likely a product of different motors etc.
Any advice on how to optimize my fleet would be appreciated so that I don't have a slow-mo in consist with a hard working engine or derailments in a push-pull setting.
Thanks,
Kevin