Paul2's comment on flanges, I just noticed he is referring to WHEEL flanges (the most common use of the term flanges here). Getting the lock-on flanges to grip tighter is advantageous and shouldn't affect tracking at all. Pressure of electrical contacts is directly related to a connections quality. More pressure will produce a connection capible of flowing more power; it reduces any connection resistance (that is scientific fact most folks are unaware of )
(Adjusting wheels on the axles for proper width between the flanges is "gauging the wheels". When you wrote of tightening flanges, if it was on wheels, that could have caused issues binding in the curves. (Adjusting is sometimes needed, but not really very often on a wheel set that isn't really spinning yet; no way to know yet 
)
