David - That may not have been a great purchase, sorry to say. It looks like a 27MHz system which will give you fits with glitching and finding a way to extend the antennae so that you can get any range will be difficult. The servos are standard full-size servos which doesn’t help.
If you look back I think you will see that we recommended a 2.4 GHz radio system and mini servos. I don’t know what you paid, but it’s possible to get new equipment that will work well for about $100 or so.
So, can you make Lemonade with these lemons ? Possibly.
First, you’ll probably need to settle for a single servo. I don’t know the Forney well enough to know, but Shawn could test his and tell us if it can be controlled with the Johnson bar alone by setting the throttle at about 3/4 open, then slowly move teh Johnson bar to forward or reverse. On some locos this will control speed as well as direction.
Next, you will need to get creative with the battery. Your receiver will operate on 6volts. 2 Lithium Ion cells would provide that in about half the space of the 4 AA batteries. The radio could be mounted on top of the tender and hidden in a fuel load with teh wires run down the water hatch.
The on/off switch could be replaced with a mini from a junk box or Radio Shack.
Last, the antennae will need to be extended. R/C cars use a hollow nylon tube. You can thread the wire through the tube and leave a length trailing out the top. You’ll never get great range, but if you can get 50 foot that would probably be plenty.
I started with a 49MHz radio system in my Shay that was very similar in size to what you show. The install is documented on my website. It didn’t work that well, so when the prices started to come down on 2.4GHz stuff I jumped on it.
