Now this is baffling

[tex702]

I am kinda new to O-guage and have recently built a fairly large trestle.  I used gargraves track on the trestle and when the track reaches the flat table top I went back to fastrack.  I ran my train on it for the first time yesterday.  Here is the baffling part.  I do not have any dead sports on the track at all however when the train starts the climb up the trestle it speeds up and then the speed levels off on the flat part of the trestle and then speeds up again on the down hill side.  Then when its on the flat table surface on the fastrack it will slow way down.  I understand why it speeds up on the downhill side but why on the uphill side?  How can I slow the train down going down the downhill side and what makes it speed up on the uphill side?  Have I thourghly cornfused everyone?  Thanks for any and all help guys.

[fifedog]

Howdy TEX.

At first , it sounds like dirty track.  Go git yerself a bottle of GOO GONE, squirt it liberally on an old inside out tube sock, and rub it across all the rails.  You will be surprised how much soot will be on your railheads.

You didn't indicate what type of engines your running. Any MTH Proto 2.0 engine with SPEED CONTROL will climb and descend at same rate. Older Lionel engines will grind and slip uphill, and run rampant downgrade. Williams are good hardnose engines that will lug most anything upgrade, with only moderate speed change downgrade.

Hope I've helped.

[phillyreading]

Here is something that will help more than you think! Try wiring the power (both wires) to every three or four feet of track especially using Lionel track, power losses don't always show up even on digital multimeters. Other thing to check is the track pins, how tight do the pins fit? You will be surprised at the power loss at track connections.  I won't say who I think has better track but mixing track like you have mentioned can cause problems also.

Lee

[twaldie]

Hi Tex,

I had a problem with fasttrack that had me confused for a while also.  When I ran engines that had closely spaced pickup rollers, they would come to a dead stop on certain track sections.  I checked the voltage on the rails of those sections, and it was the same as all of the others..... what the heck was stopping the engines?

I finally thought to check the voltage on the troublesome track section when the engine was sitting on it, and it dropped to nearly zero from 12 volts.  My digital meter didn't create enough of a load to find a high resistance connection. (no current draw = no voltage drop in the connections (bad or good) = good voltage on the track)

Definately clean the track, then check what happens to your track voltage in the areas where you see problems when the engine gets to them.

Goor Luck,

Tim