Track shorting out

[TRAINCAT]

Like the other poster said, its not at all uncommon to buy new track and one of the insulators be missing or damaged. Check your track carefully.

Roger

[Curmudgeon]

Hopefully you are using only one Lockon. Two or more are easy to cross wire.

Connect power to one Lockon. Apply power. If shorted, turn power off, go halfway around loop in both directions and disconnect track (now you have a half circle only).

 

Apply power. If short is gone, issue is in disconnected half circle, ir still there, it's in the connected half-circle.

If in half circle still connected to power, remove two or three sections at a time from one end, then the other, until the fault disappears, then narrow it to one section of the two or three removed.

If there is no short in the half circle connected to power, then disconnect from the previously disconnected half circle two or three sections at a time, and connect to the powered half circle until you find the fault.

Once you do this and learn from inspecting the bad section what exactly caused the short, next time you will probably be able to do a quick visual inspection and find it without doing all the disconnecting of track.

Since you posted this, I am guessing you don't have a VOM, so we're doing it this way, using your power source to locate.

[KRM]

ssdmax,

First, I would look for a problem on the insulation paper on the center rails. Sometimes one may slip out of place when you are pushing the track sections together.

[Stourbridge Lion]

ssdmax - Welcome to trains.com!

[ssdmax]

I have purchased all new Lionel O-27 tube track and when put together it shorts out.  Any ideas as to why this would happen?