Got a quick question guys that maybe someone with greater electrical understanding can answer. I have an Atlas GP38 unit that I was running on the new and yet unfinished layout and noticed that occasionally both the front and rear number boards were lit at the same time while the engine was moving forward down the rails. And to add to the problem, I'd only get both rear and front number boards to illuminate at certain sections of the track - not the entire layout. I cleaned the painted rails in the area where I first noticed this problem and actually think it helped. At first I thought maybe a power pack wire was touching the DC accessory screw and providing another source of DC power besides the track leads, but that wasn't the case. Then I wondered if I had mis-wired the three sets of feeder wires to the layout tracks, but that checked ok too. So I'm left with the diesel itself...this little guy has never sounded "right" when it ran on the previous layout and still doesn't sound like the motor runs well now on the new yet-unfinished layout. I removed the shell and can't find a stray wire or lead...so for all you Atlas diesel uber-electricians - could I get some ideas of what else to check? Is it possible (however improbable) that there's too much paint on the inside of the rail and current is being picked up just sporatically enough to "fool" the circuitry? Additional facts...this diesel has never ran well and sometimes the motor changes the way it sounds - going from what I'd call a normal nscale motor sound to a higher pitch sound. It's done this from day one out of the box. Also, I think this Atlas product is about 5 years old, not one of the more current motor/frames recently released.