Steve, it has been my experience that Fastrack switches' nonderail feature works whether powered or not. Once a train goes through, there are no partially thrown points anyway. The only derailments I have had with 26 Fastrack switches have been due to not having a section of straight track entering the switch when thrown diverging. I have a RK Hudson that sometimes will pick the point because the lead driver is hugging the inside of the rail because of the curve. I like using them on reversing loops because they automatically switch and allow the train to go into the loop in the opposite direction of what it exited on the previous pass, without any manual interaction. I have had my present layout since 2014, and have only had to pull one up for repair, and that one had a melted wire when I bought it used and installed it without testing. In my opinion, they are pretty much bulletproof. This is certainly merely my experience, and others may have different results.
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