EZ-Track terminal track problem

[Don Stafford]

I have small ez-track oval with a totally black terminal section and an unpowered switch on one of the straight sides. Power is provided by a Digitrax Zephyr. The track reads 13 volts everywhere. The terminal track is all black vs. the model Model: 44510, which has short gray sections at opposite ends. (I have no idea what the difference between the two is, other than appearance.) The issue is that my DCC 4-4-0 with Digitrax sdxn136ps sound decoder stops dead on the terminal track. It runs perfectly on the rest of the oval. Does anyone have an idea of what may be wrong or what I might check next?

[Len]

Check to see if there's anything in the flangeways of the terminal track that might be lifting wheels out of contact with the rails. Also check to see if anything on the bottom of the loco is coming into contact with the plastic in the center of the terminal track and lifting the entire loco.

Len

[Don Stafford]

Thanks Len,
Further experimenting leads me to believe that the problem lies in the odd way that this locomotive's power pickups are wired. (There is pickup between the two non-traction tire equipped locomotive drivers and between the two front and rear tender trucks.) The tender trucks have axle wipes with insulated wheels on alternate sides. So, for track current to flow to the the decoder input, current must flow between the tender's two front and rear axels. I cannot visualize the wiring diagram, which, Bachmann chose not to show in any of their documentation. Also, by the way, the turnout which is adjacent to the track pickup, has an insulated frog, and if the engine is going fast enough, the aforementioned stall does not occur.
Don