Just finished an inexpensive Hail Mary to save about $300 in repair and replacement. My ancient Athearn Blue Box SD40-2, which the motor is highly handicapped, was moving at speeds that a snail could beat it in a race. From what I’ve heard, rail joiners are not the best conductors, but I have to live with it in three places on my layout-Crossing 1, Crossing/Terminal Section 2, and the newest, and problematic, Crossing 3. Crossings 1 and 2 were fine, 2 especially because of the power being so close, and 3 was 110% SNAFU. It was a mess. Many a time I was hunched over it wondering why it wasn’t working. So tonight, December 16, I made a Hail Mary: This may sound weird, but with my science knowledge, a pen spring, and a pair of needlenose pliers/cutters, I made my own steel feeders. It was simple-Pull the spring until only a little bending remained, insert into the rail joiner to the rail itself, attach the adapter for the track, and cut the spring down to size. Amazingly enough, I only made two of these, and they are proving to be invaluable. Of course, the pen had to be thrown out, but it served a greater purpose, keeping my old SD in the running on the original motor.
Eventually that steel wire will rust and no longer conduct, learn to solder and solder your railjoiners.
Yep, what He said.
The basic rule of track power is a track bus beneath the layout and frequent feeders providing power to the track above. You can solder the feeders to the rail, or attach the feeders to rail joiners on the bench and use those. Atlas sells these pre-made, but they are grossly overpriced, and they use really thin wire. And, like the old Model T Ford, you can have any color you’d like, as long as it’s black.
I make these up in batches, making half with red wire, half with black. I make the wires 12-16 inches long.
I do what Mr Beasley does. In fact this is my second layout doign it that way. EVERY rail joiner on my layout is a power feed. That means a turnout has 3 sets of feeders. The only joints withotu feeders are the ones with plastic joienrs where insulation was needed.
I do use red and white instead of red and black, since in the less than ideal lighting under the layout, red and black can look a lot alike. Plus the wire I make the feeders from comes in a nice spool of red and white, two conductor very loosely twisted ‘alarm’ wire. I make up a few dozen sets ahead of time at the bench so there are no delays when layong track - since I use caulk to lay track I can do quite a bit in a short time and having to stop to make more feeders is annoying at best. Thes feeders connect to red and white bus wires, eventually. My layout was working fine even with only a fraction of them connected, even after painting the rails, but I eventually go back and attach the rest.
–Randy