Message For Phillyreading

[tex702]

Hey Lee thanks for the info.  However I am a novice from wayback and believe me I know nothing about anything.  I have a stickbuilt trestle.  The trestle has gargraves track on it.  When the trestle comes back down to the table level, I have fastrack adapters converting from gargraves over to fastrack.  Now my terminal tack is Fastrack.  I have turned the terminal track over and looked at the underside.  It has a black wire on one outside rail and a red wire on the middle rail.  There is no wire at all on the other rail.  Now remember the Gargraves and the Fastrack are joined by adapters so why would I have three wires on the gargraves and not the fastrack?  Man this stuff is ratteling my brain.  Hope to hear from you soon.  Greg

[wrmcclellan]

tex702,

Lionel Fastrack has a metal connector piece that bridges the outside rails. So if you have a wire on one outside rail of the Fastrack, then both outside rails are connected. Gargraves track does not have the connector bridging the outside rail and as you note, you do not need an additional wire to the other Gargraves outside rail as the Lionel terminal track is providing the connection. If you have a lot of Gargraves track and only the one Lionel Fastrack terminal track, then you may need some additional feeder wires to the Gargraves rails to (center rail and outside rails) ensure you have minimal voltage losses.

[phillyreading]

If you are having power losses at or near the bridge or trestle I would suggest running additional power wires to both side of the trestle.

GarGraves track has all three rails insulated due to plastic or wood track ties, so unless you supply power to both outside rails only one outside rail will have power. If used with adapters to other track systems the other track may supply power to the second outside rail, not sure how Fastrac works. I can help you with GarGraves track and Lionel post war or O gauge track and 027.  I am using GarGraves and 027 on my upper level.

Lee F.