track power supply

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

I decided to jump from the previous post on the gate man to some other track power issues. I have pretty well resolved the gate man with some clean up of track connections. The layout had been idle for a year or so and that didn’t help.

I have one section of track about 5’ in length that is giving me problems. I have done all the normal checks and all seems well. The train slows going through this section. The voltage is right on target with the rest of the track and the track seems to have the right voltage. I am not sure what is going on but I think I will take this section apart tomorrow and look for a bad track joint.

Any suggestions???

Bob

2

The voltage will be the same unless you are reading the meter as the train is traveling over the questionable section. You have to test under load.

3

Thanks, Do I connect to the lock on with the volt meter and watch as the train passes?

Bob

4

That is the tricky part.

Start by connecting the lockon(with no other wires connected - a spare) and meter to the trouble spot and watch what happens. Then you’ll need to keep moving the lockon to locate the issue.

If you could keep the load on the trouble spot for a longer period, the area where the problem is will warm up.

5

I can shut the other lock on power feeds off and see what happens. I think I did that yesterday and the train ran about the same. I am thinking I will take the three or four sections of track that seem to be the problem area up today and inspect/replace each and see what happens.

Thanks,

bob

6

A sort of easy test with a train is to use two powered diesels and see what happens rather then your regular train, motors pull more power then light bulbs. Back to the track, it may need a jumper on the outside rail power, normally lots of people just supply power to the center rail and forget to power up the outside rail as well. You may find that it takes a lot of additional power supplies for a larger layout, sometimes more then you think it will.