Help a newbie troubleshoot a loop to loop layout?

The connections are fine, at least in principle. I do not know the condition (or brand) of your track. Doesn't matter. It should work.

You don't need multiple transformers.

One of the most valuable tools that a model railroader (of any kind) can have - indeed, it should be required with your first traxk purchase! - is a multimeter. They can be had a Harbor Freight (etc, etc) for 7 bucks, sometimes.

This allows you to, among other things, check:

1 - voltage, AC and DC; you need to know this, sometimes.

2 - continuity - that is, do we actually have a circuit? (as on a piece of apparently dead track...)

3 - can be handy around the house, in general

4 - just read the instructions 

How many places around the layout are you feeding power from the transformer?

Thank you for the quick response and good advice.  I'll buy a multimeter right away.

I did some experimenting on the floor, swapping out various pieces of straight track to see if some of the sections of Fastrack were problematic.  I'd try the 3 piece straight away setup and label pieces as "good," then proceed to test others.  Then I'd try different combinations to try to get it longer. Invariably when I lengthened it to 4 pieces of 10 inch straight away, it caused problems. 

BigBoy4005, I've only got one terminal section, so I'm only feeding power from the transformer to one section of the track.  Should I be doing it to more places?  Can I just buy a second terminal section and run some wire? 

Using a meter is a good idea. I kind of suspected you only had one feed. More couldn't hurt. I'm not very well versed in the particulars of Fastrack, especially the electrical details of the switches.

Push a lighted caboose around to see where the light goes out... Fast track?? there was a Lionel video on here a few days ago about  tightening up track pin connections.   You may have to run a wire from one outside rail to the other outside rail in a couple of spots depending which rail the lock on is on.  By the looks of your pic a good place for the lock on  ( or whatever is used)would be between the switches on the straight on the lower rail. .

A multimeter is a must and I would also feed power to the track I several different locations.  That should help.

Put the terminal track in the section between the two reverse loops.

Pete

Add a couple more power drops equally spaced around the layout.  There are tabs on the bottom of most pieces of Fastrack.  I'f you can find the crimp on connectors you can make your own.

Try this at your dead spot.

FasTrack Continuity Fix

Thanks, that looks really promising!  I'll give it a try and report back.

I soldered jumpers on the underside of each joint between the power rails, no voltage drop or dead spots.  Fas Track LionChief with a wall pack adapter.

This thread is more than four years old. I think he figured it out by now or moved on.