Woot… lol… that is so funny.
Oh hey… just a beginner here… but I gotta add my two cents. Heck… why not… I’m one for beginning ideas that help bring on newer better ideas.
When I read you thread… I must admit… if I was at your house… and you were telling me this… this is what I’d say.
“Well ghee I dunno~ I’m just a beginner… but here’s what I’ve noticed. When I was laying track and switches for my yard I had to cut and recut… wrestle a bit… rework… push… pull… and all that torque… and banging… moved the rails into the plastic on one if I remember. And some of the switches had lost their ‘click’ because of it. Readjusting and looking closely at the rails and their alignment I would gather would be my first area of concern. Say you would happen to have a magnifying glass would you?”
Just my two cents… but I know those rails can move… Its like working on a car… you start with the battery. I think you should really check the rails… and how the meet up. Good luck.
I just started working on this type of issue on my three modules last night.
During the last show, one of our operators was having particular difficulties passing throug on facing-point turnout. It was probably exacerbated by him having the biggest train (over 100 cars), but he’s fairly diligent about maintenance (coupler height, wheel gauge, and weight), and the biggest problems were on my modules.
What we eventually determined is that it probably had to do with the “remote” mounting of my Tortoise switch motors. Because I’ve got 1" foam making up the top of the modules (to allow for cutting ditches and other features), AND I don’t want them mounted vertically (the modules are only 4" thick), I have an extra lever between the Tortoise’s activation wire and the throwbar. Between the “give” of the lever (despite thick brass rod for the lever, and replacing the Tortoise OEM wire with stiffer piano wire), there wasn’t enough pressure to ALWAYS keep the points against the stock rail.
I’m replacing the lever with brass bar stock (1/4" x .025") with rod stock soldered on the end. The rod stock is only long-enough to reach through the roadbed and the throwbar; the bar stock should be MUCH more-resistent to flex.
Point being, you can also check how firmly the points are kept against the stock rails.
One thing I’ve found and I’ve had some old modelling hats mention to me is that Plastic wheels can be part of the problem. Plastic is relatively soft, so when it “picks” the switchpoints, it gets caught and rides up more readily. Metal wheelsets do not have this problem. They are much harder and so they will “win the war” with the switchpoint. Of course, It’s important to start out with making sure your wheels are in gauge and your track is well laid, but when you get down to 1 or 2 places where you’re having a problem and there’s no blatant problem, it might be more profitable in the long run to switch to metal wheels and see if they track better. I’ve found in general metal wheels to be far more forgiving and so it’s worth the cost to upgrade versus hours of fussing over each switch making it “perfect.”
I’ve had metal wheels ride up on points, mostly 6 axle loco’s. Usually on the stock rail where the points rest. A little filing usually corrects the issue.