Canes RR posted:My apologies as I believe there are a lot of past posts on MTH switch issues but I'm not finding specifically what I'm looking for and hoping someone can point me in the right direction quickly as I'm trying to get our layout working "smoothly" for my little man when he's here for Christmas.
I'm having two switch issues:
1. Whenever the Norfolk Southern (MTH) locomotive goes thru the switch (coming out of a O31 curve into the straight part of the switch) the back wheels get caught, loud "clunk" and the train stops in place...the motor keeps running but it can't move. I can back it out on it's own but when I come back forward it gets stuck again. If I give a little bump to the back wheels with my finger it goes on it's merry way. The front wheels are never a problem and it can go backwards thru the switch in either direction and forward in the other direction...only is a problem coming forward out of the curve thru the straight and only the back wheels. In the pic you see the arrow where I think it's getting caught up. Is this a switch issue, locomotive issue? On occasion it will go fight thru on it's own and even tease me and go thru smoothly every now and then but more often than not gets stuck. No problems in other switches with similar configurations. Our shorter Sante Fe locomotive goes thru it just fine.
Is the NS spec'd to go through O-31 curves ? You can gently "massage" the area where the wheels get hung up with a small file or Dremel attachment to create a straighter shot for the wheels to go through or more clearance (both horizontally and vertically) and see if that helps. It may take a few passes before the area is opened up enough but don't overdo it.
2. Another switch doesn't always throw completely to the outer rail in the curve direction...sometimes it does and other times it leaves a little gap as shown in the pic...when the gap happens all locomotives derail badly going thru.
You can "gently" bend the outer tip of the switch point to get it closer to the rail, but I emphasize the word "gently". The switch points are usually very brittle and can snap, so it do it a little bit at a time.
Too much time, effort and money invested in this Realtrax track to change now so working diligently to try to work out the kinks...switch issues as well as inferior connections causing too much bumping around...seems that the Norfolk Southern struggles the most with the bumping around on joints and thru switches.
Anyway, any help any of you can offer would be so very much appreciated.
