Gargraves switch question

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

I was doing some test runs on the various sidings and switches on my newly wired layout and noticed that there was a considerable “spark” as the loco and cars tried to negotiate three of the switches. Sometimes it would short out bad enough to stop the train or pop the circut breaker. Two of the switches work great but the other three are haveing the problem. I noticed that the two good switches have a solid metal “frog” where the other three are stamped sheet metal. I did a little readjustment with some needle nose pliers and fixed some of the problem but still happens sometimes. I was wondering if it is OK to grind some of the metal down on the "frog with a Dremmel to give a bit more space between the “frog” and rail. Has anyone else had this problem? Thanks.

STEVE

2

Steve,

Sounds like you forgot to power your outside rail after the switch. Unlike Lionel or MTH the Gargraves switch don’t give power to both outside rails so you may need to add an extra wire to the one of the outside rails to keep this from happening. Buy or make a jumper cable to test the outside rail power with, hook the small alligator clip to one outside rail with good power and hook the other end to a suspected dead rail and see what happens, try this with all outside rails near a Gargraves switch.

Lee F.