hello: maybe someone out there experienced this. when my pw fm rolls over this track it goes to neutral or reverses direction. any ideas?
Think good thoughts, do good deeds!
Your FM is probably shorting out. Run the engine as slowly as possible while watching underneath to see exactly what's going on when it stalls. It's position should give you a clue as to where the short is occurring.
hello: i will try that and get back to you with results, thanks
You are losing power to the center rail, rather than shorting out the power is being interrupted and causing the E-unit to cycle. The center rail pick-up shoes are causing this because the track spacing at the uncoupler is too large! To solve do one of two things; 1) remove the Gargraves track section that you have a problem with, 2) add an extra wire from a car behind the engine with a center rail pick-up, wire will need to go to the engine's motor before the E unit. Lionel used to sell an add-on center rail pick-up that fit under most of the 6464 series boxcars or equivelent and will help with center rail power.
If you have a short, the power will be interupted on the whole track area and not just at one place.
Lee F.
I stand corrected--I should have said the power is being interrupted causing the e-unit to cycle. However, the test is the same.
The spacing between the rollers on a Train Master is about six inches, whereas the entire Gargraves section is 6 3/4-inches long and the gap is only about a third of that. So I doubt that both rollers could be off the center rail at the same time.
A possibility is that one of the Train Master pick-ups is disconnected. Try putting an inch or two of masking tape on a center rail elsewhere on your layout and running over that at low speed. If the locomotive stops with one roller on the tape, the other roller is the problem. Look for a broken wire between the pickup and the wiring inside the locomotive.
It's probably not applicable to this problem; but there is a simple modification to Train Master pick-ups that makes them much more tolerant of curved track, particularly in turnouts: You can with little difficulty reverse them to bring them within 1/2 inch of the nearest flanged wheels, instead of 1 1/2 inches. This keeps the rollers much closer to the center rail on curves. It is part of what is needed to run them on O27 track.
Bob Nelson
Just for your info, I have had plenty of power interuptions over the past few years with some of my Williams engines. The lights would stay on in my passenger cars but the engines wouldn't move, so I figuired the engine wasn't getting power. In my case instead of the center rail it was the outside rail not getting power to the engine, example of this, traction tires and accessory tracks or accessory lockons. Posting this to help others.
hello: as far as i could tell rollers of fm hit the raised portion of the uncoupling track. it does not happen with dump cars. its on a siding. i have three of them and they all do the same thing. i called the good people at gargraves and they said check this and check that which i did to no avail. the two inside rails of the unloading track are higher than the two out side rails. those contact rollers are hitting them and causing head aches! not much experience with this stuff bot unafraid to try different things. thanx!
Maybe my last comment about the rollers' being located too far from flanged wheels has some relevance after all. I just compared my Train Master to my other locomotives and found that the width of the pickup rollers is matched only by my 681. Evidently, Lionel used the widest rollers they had, to keep the pickups on the center rail despite their great distance from the flanged wheels.
So let me suggest that a combination of those wide rollers, the long lever arm (1 1/2 inch) holding the pickups away from the flanged wheels, and the truck rotation allowed by the very short wheelbase (1 7/16 inch) between those flanged wheels is moving the rollers farther to the side than the uncoupling track can tolerate. If that is the case, perhaps a pickup rotation is in order.
hello: when i run a variety of engines over a lionel unloading track no problemo; using extreme measuring tolerences i have found the gargraves unloading track is @ 1 32nd of an inch higher than the lionel unloading track! are you kidding me? holy smokes; at these small tolerences how can my grandchildren have any fun? you are correct in the width of the rollers on the fm. next step i guess is to change the rollers; inexperienced but unafraid. just need a little guidance. thanx!
I found a similar problem with the GarGraves unc/unl track. The rollers of my Williams E-8 diesel hit the unloader rails, specially if the preceding track was a curve, as it is on most of my sidings. These unloader rails raise the roller up and the engine loses contact with the center rail. Even with a straight track leadin, my Williams GG1 and the Williams S2 Turbine also lose power.
My "solution" was to remove the unloader rails for now, and use the track as uncouple only. Maybe some time in the future I will look into cutting the height of those rails.
A little guidance:
The pickup as built sits on and is keyed to a square plastic board, which in turn is keyed to the bottom of the truck by two bosses. There is a round-head 4-40 screw down through the truck that holds the pickup to the truck. It passes through a lug for the electrical connection, then a .485-inch-diameter plastic washer recessed into the top of the casting, then a hole much larger than the screw, then the square plastic board, and finally the pickup's base. There are 2 steps in the casting surface, first, from the thinnest part to the level where the pickup is mounted, then a larger step up to the part that encloses the worm wheel.
The idea is to make a new hole in the thinnest part, a little bit farther away from the flanged wheels and fasten the pickup there, reversed 180 degrees. The new hole needs to be as close to the old one as possible, but not so close that the roller will touch the larger step in the casting. Mine is about .14 inches from the smaller step and is 5/32-inch in diameter. There is some tolerance here, since the 4-40 screw will be able to move around in that hole.
You will also have to enlarge and square off the side of the original hole to accomodate the tab that keys the pickup to the square piece of plastic. Also put a bit of insulating sleeving on that tab. i suppose you could instead just shorten the tab so that it doesn't reach past the plastic square.
Because of the smaller step in the casting, you will need to shim up the area where the new hole is. I used several number-10 washers with one side cut off.
When you replace the 4-40 screw, keep the plastic washer under it. It should reach far enough even though the washer is no longer in its recess.
This whole operation can be done without even taking the shell off, not that that is difficult.
hello: thanks for the reply; all my track is gargraves, so i thought i would make the unl/unc track the same. swaping it out for lionel is a bummer; but it is either swaping out or tinkering with fm as Bob Nelson suggests. read his response to me for some interesting ways to fix problem.
hello: whew! it'll take me about a week to digest that solution. although i could just stop running the fm on the siding. aw, what the heck; thats no fun. maybe i'll give it a try when things settle down here a bit. thanx!
Due to the location of a couple of my GG uncoupling tracks next to switches I was having a similar problem with a couple of engines loosing power. My solution was to add a 1/8" wide stip of metal tape (metal duct tape) from the center rail over the plastic portion of the track. No more problem.
Could possibly glue down a strip of aluminum foil but I have the tape on hand.
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