Ummmm, maybe it’s the turnout? [:-^]
Well I thought this but then I thought, EVERY turnout? 
Think I should pop open the wheel things and take a look at the axles? I’d rather try and avoid doing so but if it’s how I have to fix it, so be it.
That is REAL easy to have happen with split axle type systems like Athearn and Proto 2000. They don;t push in all the way - that makes the gauge too tight. But if you only back one out until the gauge shows correct, they are off center and will skew the truck. Even if it doesn’t short anything, it sure can cause derailments at turnouts as the points get picked or at the frog.
–Randy
So I’m guessing my solution is to pull the axles out and fix them?
Just check before you pull anything. Looking at the trucks upside-down, the wheels should be equally distant from the center of the truck where the gears are - and have equal play as you wiggle them. If they only wiggle one way and are obviously to one side or the other - then yes, remove them and adjust so that they stick out of the gear in equal amounts, and recheck the wheel gauge.
BTW is it definitely shorting, or just loosing power? Try this test - on straight track, put one truck deliberately on the ground so it’s not on the rails. See if it runs. Then try the other truck. If it has WORKIGN all-wheel pickup, it should be fine with either truck off the rails. If it’s liek the first AThearn RS-3 I got, it won;t run at all with one of the trucks off the rails, indicating no power pickup from one side on the truck that was left on the rails. This will cause a hesitation on an unpowered frog, if not a complete stall. But not a short.
–Randy
It’s absolutely a short, when it passes over a switch in reverse the short message flashes quickly and I hear the “cht” sound, and if I manually push the loco over a switch to a certain spot it can fully short out the whole system. I’ll poke around and see what I can find and let you know.
Edit: Huh, I opened up and got to the axles and everything is fine… It’s all in gauge and even. So maybe it is the turnouts?
Does it short regardless of the direction of the locomotive through the turnouts or just in one direction?
John Timm
Yeah, but, all of the turnouts? Doubt it. Somerthing is up with that loco.
Rich
Liek I said, creep into a turnout. WHen it shorts and stalls, take note of EXACTLY where the wheels are. The only way there shoudl be a short is if a wheel is simultaneously touching two rails that are insualted from one another by a plastic gap filler. If the wheel treads are wide enough to span the insulator, it will short. It is entirely possible that this loco has marginally wider wheel trads than others you have, and so is the only one to have this problem, which, dependign on manufacturing tolerances, would probably happen at every single turnout.
–Randy