I found a problem, and fix, for Lionel's New FasTrack 031 Manual Switches

Too large of an engine, perhaps. You have to get down at track level and watch the wheels and then push it through slowly by hand. Find the point where it is shorting.

Perhaps a pilot wheel is missing the guard rail and contacting the center rail where the turnout begins.

Are you crossing to another transformer/power district or same power district?

There's nothing inside but basic jumpers for the rails. A meter could rule out a factory problem by checking continuity for a center rails not having continuity with the outer rails.

on my o27 and o42 switches some engine wheel flanges will contact the center rail on the side as it is turning the corner.  get a few small pieces of electrical tape and put it on the side of the center rail.  trial and error placement until you stop the shorts. 

Moonman posted:

Too large of an engine, perhaps. You have to get down at track level and watch the wheels and then push it through slowly by hand. Find the point where it is shorting.

Perhaps a pilot wheel is missing the guard rail and contacting the center rail where the turnout begins.

Are you crossing to another transformer/power district or same power district?

There's nothing inside but basic jumpers for the rails. A meter could rule out a factory problem by checking continuity for a center rails not having continuity with the outer rails.

Thanks, Moonman, I appreciate the time you took to respond.

Ron

Miken posted:

on my o27 and o42 switches some engine wheel flanges will contact the center rail on the side as it is turning the corner.  get a few small pieces of electrical tape and put it on the side of the center rail.  trial and error placement until you stop the shorts. 

Thank you, Miken, I appreciate your advice but am afraid I might be dealing with a product defect since these are new Lionel products.

Ron

Thanks for your post I was baffled why the switches would not work and your fix saved the day.

Thanks hansh

Good catch, Ron. Those two outer rail segments must be electrically unconnected because part of the time they are being grounded by a wheelset and part of the time they are live because a pickup roller is making contact with them. In your track switch the screw is live because center rail and that tab making contact will make the curved outer rail live. With the switch aligned for diverging a wheelset is grounding that rail segment at the same time the tab's contact with the screw is making it live: dead short circuit.

My fat finger is pointing to the two outer rail segments of concern. The upper (curved) rail is the one made live by the screw contacting the tab.

This is why this forum is so great. Being stuck at home I was playing around with next years Christmas layout plan and tried using o-31 as I only have a 5x9 to play with. First I found a figure eight track plan on the forum with the 4 switches (somehow I had just enough of all the smaller pieces that you need). Well 3 of the 4 manual switches worked great but the 4th had the same problem as above. Did a forum search which led to me this thread. Pulled of the piece from underneath, bent the tab back off the screw, and now it works great. I was actually surpised the non-derail function works as well as it did. Thanks for the fix.

Im not real familiar with Fastrack switches, but it was my understanding that the non derailing manual switches relied on just the wheels pushing the switch points over.  Is that not the case anymore?   

Train Nut posted:

Im not real familiar with Fastrack switches, but it was my understanding that the non derailing manual switches relied on just the wheels pushing the switch points over.  Is that not the case anymore?   

What makes you think that? I can't see anything above suggesting that it had changed.  ... but you are right in that they have(had?) slip points on manuals.

Rather than simply bending it up, which may allow the rail to loosen over time, can't the tab end be trimmed with a set of side cutters, file, etc, etc  so you could push it back ?  Just a thought.

Thank you Ron.  I bought two of these for a Christmas layout 2 years ago, but when they didn’t work they were put in the pile of endless layout chores at low priority.  Now that you have done the leg work I can pull them out and they will be a easy fix.

I am so glad that I used tge search! I just bought an O 31 switch and was going crazy trying to figure out why it was shorting out. Lifting that tab was such an easy fix. I know this post is from 5 years ago but it goes to show how good the information on this forum is. Thank you @ronald1