Hi,
This post is a follow up to one from Henry1022 from back in 2012 that is closed to new replies:
i just bought an MTH 90-degree crossing RealTrax section along with other pieces to construct the twice-around track shown in my 4/22/2015 reply to the following post:
When I took the section out of the plastic I was immediatly struck at how the center of the cross is much higher than the rest of the track. It is black plastic and there are no rails going through it. The center piece actually bulges. When running my MTH SD70ACe, it can get stuck on the crossing and the engine will power down. The track does not short out. if I manually move the engine past the cross to the next section, it powers up again. I've just started to analyze patterns, but in one case it was quite clear that the pickup roller was on the black plastic square at the cross center. Another time, because the rear wheel of the front trucks doesn't really contact the rails, that non-functioning wheel was sitting on the plastic. I will try and isolate which one happens more often.
Slow speeds as noted in the earlier post may play a role but it's clear to me that this raised plastic section is the cause. One prior poster suggested lowering that area, which also came to mind to me but the section is a little too new for me to feel comfortable sanding away at it. Note that my Lionel 0-8-0 steam engine doesn't have this problem, but it is more likely to derail and trip the circuit breaker. Some of that is because this particular track design incorporates the 90-degree crossing in the middle of an 0-31 S-curve. (Talk about a problem writing to happen!) Some of it is because the Lionel wheels are kind of sloppy in the MTH track. Just wanted to share my troubleshooting data that seems to corroborate some earlier theories.
Tomlinson Run Railroad
