Railking Challenger stopping going over Atlas switches

Yes that is the problem with AtlasO switches especially with steam engines. The diesels have a pickup roller on each truck which helps getting them thru the switches. 

Dave

I was thinking of putting a pickup roller on the tender?

Well, to be fair, it really isn't the turnout's fault if the pick-up rollers on your model are too close together. You might want to add a pick-up roller on the tender, and wire it into the electrical "hot wire" circuit. I had an MTH Premier NYC Mohawk with that issue (we have all Atlas solid nickel silver track & turnouts), and I simply purchased another pick-up assembly from my local hobby shop, mounted it on the lead tender truck, and wired it into the circuit. Problems solved.

Thanks for input. it sounds like I was on the right track by adding a roller to the tender. 

I've added rollers to many tenders to solve this issue.  For some MTH tenders, there are already provisions on the trucks to simply bolt on the roller.  For those that don't have the provisions, here's a couple examples of the rollers I've added.  I use either my fiberglass sheet or Styrene sheet to fabricate the roller mount.

Brass Tender added roller

Diecast Tender added roller

Is this something new to this locomotive, or is this a new locomotive to you that has always done this?  If it only started doing this recently, you should check to make sure the pickup rollers it has are still connected.

I ran feeder wires to the dead spots on my Atlas turnouts, and it fixed the problem.  Remember, that if you run DCS these feeder wires have to conform to star wiring.  Until I used star wiring the switches would trigger Legacy couplers to open up on occasion (though once is too often.  It's a terrible sound to hear your engine hit the back of the train).

Alan

Sinclair - I have switched from the MTH track with the roadbed attached to Atlas track. This is when the problem started. The pickup rollers are only 5" apart on my Challenger. The shortest distance between my  other diesel loco pickup rollers is 8" and I have no trouble with them.

Aizend - I did star wire my layout. I checked my track quality feedback and I have 9's & 10's throughout.

Gunrunnerjohn - Thanks for the pictures. I believe adding a roller is the easiest and best answer. I'll let you know how it goes.

Everyone - Thanks for all the input.

Don Keence

Here's how I make my one-wire tether, machine pins and sockets and heatshrink tubing.  Obviously, you can use black wire for the tether, this one was for an antenna inside a steamer.

John,

Thanks for more information. I'm going the talk to my local hobby shop resource and see if he knows someone who might help me attach the roller and make sure it gets wired correctly. I've never done anything like this & my loco is too expensive to mess up. Basically, I'm chicken. LOL

Must be someone local that can do this, if you have a tender with trucks with the mounting hole for a roller, it's as simple as bolting the parts on and then running one wire.  If your tender doesn't have roller provisions, it's not that difficult to do as I posted earlier.

If there is room, some units have double rollers, (4) pick-up per engine.

A stutter or stop at a switch usually involves (2) holes in track power.  This large E8 can find hole(s) even though the pickups are 14" apart.

Note the two back to back switches.

The Atlas track dead spot is about 1 5/8"

It takes (2) dead spots to cause the stutter or stop.  The two holes are about 14" apart but matched up to the Weaver E8 pick-up rollers.

Both Atlas and Ross have details on their website about non-derail wiring of switches, and logical power routing of the small dead rail section positioned in the dead space pictured above.  There is also information about the Atlas 6924 switch relay board.

One of several threads on automatic non-derail and power routing.  Click on the underlined phrase.