I really appreciate the suggestions. I think replacing the "trace" (Thanks Adriatic) with foil or copper is probably beyond my level of dexterity. However Gunrunnerjohn made me think about how I could run the red wire but not under the switch parts and if I can clean up the burned area I may be able to run a wire outside the switch from the third rail over to the screw terminal on the side of the switch. A much less elegant patch I'll admit. JonG you mentioned replacing the pcb and I was wondering what that might cost, part# to order, etc. I liked Stan2004's close up of the assembled switch, it shows that for the switch to work right, I will have to be very careful. Adriatic you mentioned changing the fuse values so that this condition would blow a fuse before the trace would burn. Do you happen to know about fast acting circuit breakers that I could install on each block to protect the switches?
Again many thanks for the help.
