Lionel " O " guage switches

[Blueberryhill RR]

I am still building my layout. It's Lionel "O" guage. Anyway, about 5 years ago I purchased a pair of Lionel switches marked " 0-31" instead of the usual " 0-22". I finally tried to use them and I have all sorts of problems. One is that my larger diesels like the FM Trainmaster keep going off the track as it goes thru the switch-out. Straight they are fine. The larger trucks can't seem to go thru the curved part and stay on the track. I changed the switch to an "0-22 " and it works fine. I tried my Budd cars on the " 0-31's" and they went off the track in the same manner. I noticed a slight difference in the way the two different switches are made. Especially on the grooved piece in the center My question is... Is this normal with 0-31's and is there a way to fix this ? Well, I would appreciate any information on this. Thanks.

[ben10ben]

The O-31 switches were an excellent concept, but not one of Lionel's better executed designs. The last I heard, they were still replacing them with modern O22s at no cost if you call them. It might be worth a try.

[Anonymous]

Blueberryhill, sorry to hear of your woes. I started a thread here a few months ago about problems I had with new Lionel O-72 switches. Hopefully you can get 'em returned without any trouble.

Ben: Interesting to hear about Lionel possibly accepting returns on their O-31's. Any idea if there's been enough bad PR to get them to take back their O-72's? I've seen a lot of complaints on various forums. They were absolutely hopeless in my layout.

Regards,
Dave