Possible Track and Engine problems -- Need help

[JackGS]

I have been doing models for 2 years now. I have 6 spectrum engines ( GE-8 diesels), an FP Santa Fe and a GP-30 all with DCC on board. I have an EZ controller, over 400 feet of track (EZ-track) with 16 turnouts and 8 power strips attached to the track. Approximately 30% of my track is balasted such that you cannot tell it was EZ track.    My problem:

Recently I have my engines stop on the track at various spots then continue on. Sometimes they stop go into reverse then forward. While one engine stops at a place on the track another engine behind it will pass through OK. Then the engine that stopped will go through this section OK the next time around. It is unbelievable and driving me nuts. I have clean the track (over and over again), engine wheels and I also cleaned the wheels of each car that the engines pull. (Man were they dirty).

I need some advice and HELP.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Jack   

[Joe Satnik]

Dear Jack,

I'm going to guess you have loose/dirty rail joiners (connectors).

Push by hand a lit caboose or passenger car around your layout while flexing (putting some pressure on) the rail joints. 

A problem rail joiner will cause the lights to flicker. 

Hope this helps. 

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

 

[grumpy]

Jack
Do any of your locos have sound ?
Don

[mitremark]

Jack,

How do you have the EZ controller connected to the track?

[JackGS]

Jack
Do any of your locos have sound ?
Don

Don,

My engines do not have sound.

[JackGS]

Jack,

How do you have the EZ controller connected to the track?

Mitremark,

My EZ controller is connected to the track via 8 9" Straight terminal rerailers spaced thoughtout the layout.

Jack

[Joe Satnik]

How many are redundant mainline feeds,

How many feed isolated power districts or blocks?

Any reverse loops?

Joe

[mitremark]

Jack,
Did you use a bus wire or just splice the red power wires that come with the terminal track together? Also do you have a power booster?  I am new to dcc and just trying to gather as much info as possible. Thanks for your help

[JackGS]

How many are redundant mainline feeds,

How many feed isolated power districts or blocks?

Any reverse loops?

Joe

Joe,

I have 3 terminals on the main line (all approximately equal distant from each other), 3 terminals on my secondary track (which is connected to my mainline by a crossover switch) and 2 terminals on my small inside town track (Which is connected to my secondary track by a crossover switch). I also have 4 spurs to my industries.

I have no power districts or isolated lines.

I do not have reverse loops.

Thanks for the questions and I hope these can assist your poosible resolutions.

Jack,

[JackGS]

Jack,
Did you use a bus wire or just splice the red power wires that come with the terminal track together? Also do you have a power booster?  I am new to dcc and just trying to gather as much info as possible. Thanks for your help

Mitremark,

I use a bus that feeds power to each terminal on the system. I have two wires to the bus from the controller then split to the terminals.

I do not have a power booster and I think that my be the problem.

Jack

[USNavyChiefRet]

You might want to check the power connections on the loco's themselves. I found one of my locos with a ring connector lose on the rear truck of the loco, it would do the same thing. Go, stop, go stop. It can also be loose rail connectors as previously stated here. Good Luck.

[Jim Banner]

Two questions that should have been asked already:

(1) Do the headlights flicker as your locomotives move around the track?  Flickering headlights are a sure sign of poor pickup.

(2) How do you clean your rails and wheels?  If you use something like Goo Gone, you are probably leaving a non-conductive residue behind.  If you use alcohol, you may be suffering from dry wheel syndrome.

=========================================================== 

What is dry wheel syndrome?  If the rails and wheels are dry, then every time you run over a bit of dust they will arc slightly.  This arcing can often be seen if you run your trains in the dark.  The arcing pits the wheels, making the treads look dull.  This in turn helps them pick up more dry dust.  Dry wheel syndrome is at its worst when you are sculpting dry plaster on the layout, sanding drywall anywhere in the house, and if you have an open ceiling (joists & floor boards showing) over your layout.

The solution is easy.  Check your locomotive wheels under a good light.  If the treads are mirror bright, then dry wheel syndrome is not your problem.  But if the treads have a dull, matte finish, then you need to suppress the arcing.  This is easy to do with a thin (very, very thin) coat of conductive oil.  Conductive oils include Conducta Lube, Wahl Hair Clipper Oil, and my favorite, LaBelle 108.  A few drops worked into a small (~3") square of cotton cloth makes a wiper that will coat a hundred or more feet of track.  Just rub it over the clean rails.  Too much oil will cause the wheels to slip, but a very thin layer will have no effect on traction.  If you look down the track against a light, you can actually see the colour change as you apply the oil.  After running on oiled rails for a while, you will find the treads of your locomotive wheels will return to a mirror bright shine.  Best of all, your headlights will stop flickering and stalls will be a thing of the past.

How do I know this works?  I have been using oil on rails in a number of different scales for over 35 years.  Indoors, outdoors, built-in-place, and portable, it keeps them all running.  One layout is in a museum where it is operated by the public and runs about 20,000 trains a year.  We re-oil the rails 2 or 3 times a year and clean them about every 5 years.  Every time a train stalls, I have to drive 15 miles to start it up again.  I rarely make that drive more than once in a year.

[Joe Satnik]

Dear Jack,

It's difficult when your track is buried in ballast, but this is how I would troubleshoot my rail connectors:

Temporarily disconnect all power feeds but one. 

Temporarily break apart any track loop or oval.  (Pull two track sections apart anywhere on the oval.)   

The idea is to have only one path between the power source and any point on the track, that is the rail itself.

Put your loco on the track near the remaining active power feed, and drive it around til it stumbles.   

When the loco's back truck clears a bad joint, it will stop or stumble.

A gentle squeeze with a pliers will tighten up a rail connector.   

Fix the joint, then continue on to the next bad joint until they are all found.   

When you get to the end, return the loco to the power feed facing the other direction, and work your way to the other end of the broken oval. 

Tune up that split joint, then re-connect it.   

With one feeder, your loco should now be able to go anywhere on your layout without a stumble. 

With all locos off the tracks and power off,  check for shorts across the two rails with an ohm-meter.  Start re-connecting power feeds.  If you observe a short, unplug and reverse the polarity of the feeder. 

When all feeders are connected without shorts, you are good to go.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik       

[USNavyChiefRet]

I am having similar problems. I only have a loop with two switches at each end that go off to spurs. I thought initially it was my problem, i.e. loose rail joiners, so I soldered some of the rail joiners to the rails with a small amount of solder to make a good electrical contact. Afterwards I Ohm'd out the rails and they checked good .2 - .3 ohms at the most. I also had a problem where the booster section of my DCC system failed and I had to send it back to them for repair which I might say they were great about. I just got it back, and in the mean time I made doubly sure of my track connections, i.e. wiring, rail joiners, etc. I connected it up tonight and put my Bachmann 2-4-4 Forney w/Tsunami sound and I am experiencing similar problems that I had before the booster section failed on my DCC. The Forney goes around, stops, then goes again, then stops and sometimes it goes past a place that it stopped at before. Now after I shipped my DCC Command Sta/Booster to the manufacturer I took the Forney out and began checking it over, looking for the obvious. What I found kind of shocked me. on the rear truck there are two wires with ring terminals on them that come down and attached underneath the truck. My impression is that these are the pickup wires for the decoder. One of them was loose, the ring terminal was not tight where it screws to the truck in the middle. These two wires seems to cross and there is no insulation on the wires, which makes me nervous. I tightened the loose ring terminal with a good grade phillips screwdriver and put it back in it's box awaiting the return of my DCC Cmd Sta/Booster. Well I got it back today as I mentioned and the same thing is happening. It goes around then stops and goes quiet, then it will start up again, sometimes without help, and run and then stop again. Now here's the kicker. I have Bachmann Rail Truck (Item # 29162). It is strictly DCC, no sound. I placed it on the track and it runs around the track with no problems. I ran it around 6 times with no problems. What do I do? Contact Bachmann Service?

[USNavyChiefRet]

I am having similar problems. I only have a loop with two switches at each end that go off to spurs. I thought initially it was my problem, i.e. loose rail joiners, so I soldered some of the rail joiners to the rails with a small amount of solder to make a good electrical contact. Afterwards I Ohm'd out the rails and they checked good .2 - .3 ohms at the most. I also had a problem where the booster section of my DCC system failed and I had to send it back to them for repair which I might say they were great about. I just got it back, and in the mean time I made doubly sure of my track connections, i.e. wiring, rail joiners, etc. I connected it up tonight and put my Bachmann 2-4-4 Forney w/Tsunami sound and I am experiencing similar problems that I had before the booster section failed on my DCC. The Forney goes around, stops, then goes again, then stops and sometimes it goes past a place that it stopped at before. Now after I shipped my DCC Command Sta/Booster to the manufacturer I took the Forney out and began checking it over, looking for the obvious. What I found kind of shocked me. on the rear truck there are two wires with ring terminals on them that come down and attached underneath the truck. My impression is that these are the pickup wires for the decoder. One of them was loose, the ring terminal was not tight where it screws to the truck in the middle. These two wires seems to cross and there is no insulation on the wires, which makes me nervous. I tightened the loose ring terminal with a good grade phillips screwdriver and put it back in it's box awaiting the return of my DCC Cmd Sta/Booster. Well I got it back today as I mentioned and the same thing is happening. It goes around then stops and goes quiet, then it will start up again, sometimes without help, and run and then stop again. Now here's the kicker. I have Bachmann Rail Truck (Item # 29162). It is strictly DCC, no sound. I placed it on the track and it runs around the track with no problems. I ran it around 6 times with no problems. What do I do? Contact Bachmann Service?

Guess what? I soldered rail joiners, added power to the track in 5 different locations so I have power spread throughout my layout (11' x 5"), I ohm'd out the track all the way, both rails and come to find out, when I ran a check on the Tsunami decoder in my 2-4-4 Forney that the decoder is flaky. One time it will tell me it's decoder #80, the next time decoder #89, the next time decoder #44, then decoder #49. I would set CV-29 to 2 and then look at it again and it was set to 255. I know my programming track is good using the PTB-100 because I can read a decoder in another loco and it comes back right away with the correct manufacture # and decoder #. Now to get Bachmann to replace it. I just bought this thing February 5th, 2009 and have been working all this time thinking it was my track, etc. and all the time it was a faulty decoder. I thought Tsunami was better than this not to mention Bachmann.