I’ve just connected all the track for my ho scale ISL. I had most of it up last weekend and all was good, no stalls or losses of power. Tonight, once everything is connected, I’m losing power at a point where last week I was not. This spot is about a foot off of a turnout. I also have another point where the locomotive stalls over a turnout.
I’m running a DC power pack for the whole set-up. Track is only connected by rail joiners so far because I wanted to get a sense of what the layout would look like completed. All track is Atlast code 83 using Customline #4 and #6 turnouts. The locomotive runs across all other parts of the layout without issue.
My experience with anything electrical is minimal as this is my first adventure into the world of “layout building.” I need the “kindergarten” version of what to do. Videos are helpful as I’m a visual learner. Any advice for what to do to get things back up and moving would be helpful! Thank you for any assistance!
I’d be willing to say that most model railroad power losses like yours are because you’re depending on rail joiners alone to carry power from one section of track to another. Read up on using a track power bus and feeders if you want reliable track power.
All of the track and turnouts have been purchased within the last year. Rail joiners may be a bit older than that. After the turnout is where the track diverges, no loss of power going the other direction off the turnout. The power pack is a MRC tech 4 200 I believe, very basic and purchased 15+ years ago. The locomotive is an Athearn RTR GP50 purchased in December.
I don’t have any feeder or bus wire as the layout is very temporary until the summer most likely. I know I should, but I’d like to get the layout operational and begin working on other aspects of the hobby before it comes down to make way for a bed or baby’s room.
As I said in the first post, I had no issues with the locomotive last weekend over the same track. I did a quick check of the wheels to see if there was anything, nothing. Looked at the track itself and saw a small chip where it kept stalling, so I replaced that section of track, still stalling.
I’ll check the rail joiners at the locations to see if that changes anything the stall after the turnout had been taking place in a section of flex track, not near the rail joiner. I’ll look at everything again today
If you have a voltmeter check across the track at each joiner to isolate the problem.
If you don’t have a meter use a 12 volt bulb across the track to find where your loosing power. If you have a Harbor Freight close pick up one of their cheapo meters or go online and find a coupon for a freebee meter when you purchase something.
The turnouts might not be passing the power, use a jumper around the turnout.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
Even new rail joiners can fail to carry the current from one section of track to another section. What may work at first mail fail shortly after installation due to expansion and contraction.
What I do to test for failed rail joiners is to find a section of track where the loco stalls and then slide the rail joiner back and forth on each end of the section of with a pair of snip nose or needle nose pliers. Often, power is restored as a result, at least temporarily until the problem is permanently fixed.
I will start with this later today. Replace if needed. Next step would be the voltage meter. Thank you, all, for the advice. Hopefully it’s a quick solution.
NO!!! No need to replace joiners. You will have a hit 'n miss situation because the joiners are all pretty much the same. Pick one up, chuck it, take up another, and they are pretty much identical. It’s the mechanical connection you want from joiners, NOT the probability of reliable electrical connectivity over the gaps between lengths of rails. That is why we learn, all of us eventually, that when you have a new or well maintained locomotive that suddenly starts to stall just past a gap, you have a bad electrical connection at one of the two joiners just crossed.
What we do is to either clean the rail ends, or very carefully slightly crimp the joiner to get better contact, or simply solder the entire joiner into place…which makes the joint fully reliable both mechanically and electrically.
You don’t want to solder temporary track? Sounds perfectly sensible to me. Then figure out how to improve the joiner’s performance. It may be the answer to try another, but it will be a crap shoot if the ends of the rails don’t want to be in the alignment you are imposing on them at that joint. If the first joiner is being splayed, and losing contact, the next one is likely to suffer the same fate after 20 minutes, an hour, a week…
Realign the joint, crimp the joiners gently in place, or solder and learn how to use a wick to take up the solder when you need to separate the rails again.
Would the turnout happen to be Atlas? I’ve had problems with some of those not passing current from one end to the other. I’ve had one Atlas turnout kill power to a whole siding!
New rail joiners are always better than used ones because they are tight. Used ones get bent out of shape and become loose. Make sure all of your rail joiners are tight. Wiggle the track around at the places where you lose power. If the track suddenly starts to work you have found the problem. Either replace the rail joiners with new ones or use pliers to squeeze them until they are tight.
You probably only have the power connected to your track at one point per block, or maybe even one point for the whole layout if you are not using the block system. Either way you should have more power connections to help avoid this problem. You can buy rail joiners with wire soldiered onto them or you can do like I do and soldier wire onto them yourself. I do it at the workbench because it is easier. I cut wire into six inch long pieces and them soldier it.
I hope this helps.
I believe I got one of the spots figured out. Replaced and crimped rail joiners snug. Seems to have done the trick. Now, the other spot which occurs off straight section of an Atlas Customline #4 turnout is still stalling the locomotive. I’ve tried replacing rail joiners at each end of the turnout, crimping them snug each time. Tried different track, too. Still have the loss of power problem.
You definitely need to get a meter or a bulb and see if the turnout is letting voltage through. Those things can have an “internal” problem that you can’t find or fix from the outside.
Mike, I don’t mean to challenge you on this, but that would be highly unusual for an Atlas turnout to be incapable of passing current to the end of the rails on the turnout. What specific type of Atlas turnout gives you that problem?
Atlas turnouts are not power routing, so it is easy to test continuity with an ohm meter. Place the two probes at each end of a rail and see if any rail fails the continuity test.
Here is another easy way to test for connectivity between sections of track when a loose rail joiner is a problem.
With the power on and the loco stalled, take a piece of solid wire and touch one end of the wire to the rail of one section of track and touch the other end of the wire to the adjacent rail of the other section of track so that the wire is bypassing the rail joiner. If power is restored and the loco starts moving again, you have found a faulty rail joiner, If power is not restored, move the wire to the other rail and keep doing it until you find the faulty rail joiner.
Rich, over the years I’ve actually had several Atlas turnouts lose contact through the rails. I wish I could be specific on the correct terminology to describe the particular rail that goes “dead”, but this has happened on about a half dozen of my #4 and #6 turnouts. They are all over ten years old. There is a STATIONARY rail that adjoins one of the movable rails that loses contact under the rails. I have had over the years installed springy wire “jumpers” to get power to and through the dead spots. It seems, years ago, I contacted Atlas and a fellow there (I think his name was Paul) offered to replace ALL of my bad turnouts as soon as he got them in stock. I found it much easier to fix them, rather than to replace them, as all of my joiners are soldered, and some have powered frogs with a “snap relay” installed. Too much of a pain in the ****! At one time, they knew they had a problem…
I assume you must mean the closure rail. It’s impossible for the storck rail to go dead as it’s one solid piece of rail from one end of the turnout to the other. The closure rail gets power in two ways - the first is the bit of metal under the stock rail that also forms the hing point for the moveable point rail, and the second is the opposite end of the turnout, as those rails are continuous under the frog.
This is why I always put feeders on all three legs of mine. The only thing that could possibly go dead with power fed from all 3 sides are the point rails themselves, but if the contact at the pivot should fail under the stock rail, I still have power coming in and the point rail may well still have power. Do this and the only possible place where a jumper might be needed for added reliability is around the pivot point for the point rails.
I’ve had two Atlas turnouts fail, both were well over twenty years old. I cut the second one up to see if one could be repaired if it happened again. There were two .02” rods under the frog imbedded in the plastic ties spot welded to the under side of rails. One of the diverging rail spot welds was open.
One failure was about eight and the other six years ago and I haven’t had it happen again. The easy fix would be to solder a jumper wire between the rail joiners. Two out of 23 turnouts over roughly 30 years isn’t to bad.
I don’t think usage had anything to do with the two I had quit, one was hardly used for over 20 years the other was highly used. I think it was bad spot welds in the manufacturing process.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
