EZ Track #6 Switch - Guardrail too far from stock rail.

[Pacific Northern]

I have been having problems with a couple of Bachmann #6 Switch or actually a few of them.

Using a NMRA template gage on these switches I find that the guard rails are too far from the stock rails.

I am not having any problems with the locomotives going straight through the switch, but am having lots of problems if I run the locomotive through the switch in a turn. The trailing trucks or the tender trucks derail, The gage shows the gap between the stock rail and guard rail is too large.

How can one close the gap distance? As these are n/s rails on plastic it appears heat would not work, are there any proven ways to move the guard rail closer to the stock rail.

[Joe Satnik]

Glue in plastic shims?

[Pacific Northern]

Glue in plastic shims?

Has no one tried to move the quardrail closer to the stock rail?

I am wondering if I pried out the quardrail and smoothed the base area under the quardrail if I could glue the quardrail in place at the proper location.

I am somewhat surprised to find that the quardrail was so far out of place, I can not help but wonder if there was a batch of these with the guard rail positioned too far away from the stock rail?

Anyway, I will have to attempt to either glue in a shim as advised or to move the existing quardrail, as the turnout is useless as it is now. I have a number of ez turnouts that I have yet to use, hopefully they are all in gage.

[ebtnut]

I would use the shims.  Trying to pry out the guardrails and reposition them might be a great deal more work.  If you have a micrometer or vernier caliper, you can measure the width of the gap, subtract out the needed dimension (check the NMRA standards), and that should give you the thickness of the shim.  Then get some stryrene strip of the closest thickness and ACC in place.  Note, don't make the gap too narrow, or you'll create a new set of problems.

[Doneldon]

PacNo-

Use shims. You'll have a mess on your hands if you try to remove and replace the guardrails.

                                                                                                                                -- D

[Pacific Northern]

Has anyone on this site every had to shim a guardrail?

[Doneldon]

PacNo-

No, and I've never heard of anyone needing to do so on RTR turnouts, either.

                                                                                                          -- D

[Pacific Northern]

PacNo-

No, and I've never heard of anyone needing to do so on RTR turnouts, either.

                                                                                                         -- D

Just my luck to get one out of gage, hope the batch was not too large. Can not run anything through without derailing.

[Jerrys HO]

Pac

Instead of messing with it, return it to service for a replacement.

Jerry

[Pacific Northern]

Pac

Instead of messing with it, return it to service for a replacement.

Jerry

There is no lifetime warranty on track, it is only 30 days and although only used recently the switch is over a year old. Bought it when I started to stockpile items for my future layout.