I’m cetain that I will get a quick reply to this problem.
I just got one of my steam loco (with tender) back along with a diesel…the disel runs great on the payout but the steamer stops at the switches…any advice.
Sam
Need a little more info: gauge, manufacturer of loco, age of loco, type of switches…
I would suspect insulated frog switches and an old or short wheel-base steamer so that it gets it’s wheels to where it can’t get any power.
Jim
I have some Like-Like Proto 2000 0-8-0 switchers. They do not have tender powerpick-up. (This was corrected with the next run of 0-8-0s.) I was in a club that had Atlas switches with un-powered frogs that were slightly higher than the rail. This lifted one side of the 0-8-0 off the rails and thus I lost power to the locomotive. Look for a unpowered frog that is higher than the rail.
Thanks for the replies…it is a N gauge Bachman 2-6-2…bout one year old…and I use Atlas snap switches…again any advice or assistance will be appreciated…
Sam
You should be able to tell quickly if this locomotive has tender pickups. However, even with pick-ups everywhere, it doesn’t mean they are all working as intended. You may have a bad solder, a bad lie with the pickups somewhere along the line, or, as Eric suggests to you, your turnout may have “issues”.
Often it is the tracks that are problematic. There may be a bit of a non-conductive coating somewhere near the frog such that the pickup wheel that should be helping at a critical time is not getting contact. Or, the point rail may be loose and the loco’s wheel spacing is narrow enough that the flanges allow the point to fall sideways enough to lose contact with the stock rail. Or, again to give credit to Eric, the frog may cause all wheels to ride up high enough that their rearward cousins lose contact with the rail due to the rigid frame lifting them clear.
Clean the track, and watch this loco’s wheels and trucks as each axle traverses the frog. Do it forwards and backwards in slo mo. If cleaning doesn’t do it, and the loco doesn’t rock, or its axles look to be content with the frog, then let the locomotive stall at slow speed, and then meter the points rails for juice. Do this carefully or you may force them back into contact if that is the problem, and you’ll get a false positive. Place the probe right under the tender wheels, not back at the sharp end of the points.
If all this points to no problems, then you have a broken solder or wire that only gets gapped at the turnout due to something that happens as it traverses the turnout.
That’s all I can think of.