Today was a little frustrating. Was hoping to have some trains running but electrical issues derailed those plans - pun intended.
Issue: Track power is erratic. Engines will stall and the lanterns on the turnouts will go out.
I think part of the issue are the turnout’s sensitivity to how level they’re laying which I’ve already noticed. But now that I have the track Tetris’d together, the slight bows and humps are causing issues. If I press down the road bed, that section will be ok. I need to order more screws to fasten down a larger part of the layout. But before screwing everything down ….
After doing some searching, I might have a power issue - too much load per channel. The outer loop has 5 turnouts on track power. The 2nd and 3rd loops each have 4. The 3rd loop also has 2 lighted bumpers. It might be in order to run a bus around the layout to distribute the power better. I’m going to post in the electrical forum with some questions.
The other thing is that I noticed the ZW-L was humming. Not sure if that has anything to do with anything or if it was there before, but it was really noticeable today. I swear sections of the track sounded like they were humming too but that could’ve been sound from a different source that I couldn’t localize.