At the end of the day, this is a remake of an old school 1950s basic solenoid coil activated design. Back then there were no electronics, big heavy transformers, big heavy AC motors, big fat wires. You could arc and spark all day long, create tons of voltage spikes and do no damage. Follow that with conventional operation, typically lower track voltages, less plastic and more cardboard and paper style insulators, coil formers and so forth. They could take some abuse.
Then we get into the modern age of plastic- take the same low tech brute force design, attempt the same old school insulated rail activation- but if this is Lionchief and Plug and play modern- we probably have DC instead of AC power and a full 18V. So now, when we create a voltage spike, we get some serious kickback on DC. Then on top of that, the same coil on AC power VS DC power draws more current average over time and thus more heat at a given voltage. Being plastic VS paper and cardboard, the coil former that is a tube where the plunger must slide- now can melt and deform.
Take lack of user knowledge, call it "plug and play", introduce modern materials and construction techniques, change power sources, give a user a tiny oval of track with a set and a longer train so the net result is frequent and longer activation- insulate the bottom of the accessory with a cardboard base that also traps the heat, and then we "wonder" why these degrade and fail.
