Hello everyone, and thanks for your help in advance. I recently started an N Scale layout during quarantine, and my only previous experience with model railroads was in high school about a decade ago when I had a 4x8 HO loop. The hope was to have a layout with operational capabilites and not just run in circles, but that seems to be impossible. My previous layout was DC and had no issues, but I am having an electrical issue with my N Scale layout.
My locomotives (a Bachmann RS3 and a BLI NW2) start and stop randomly all over the layout. It isn't only frogs, but random sections of flex track. I have cleaned the track, dropped feeders around each turnout, and even purchased Frog Juicers. No matter what I seem to do, the problem will not go away.
I appreciate any ideas on what the problem could be and how to fix it. What started as a fun project has turned into an incredible frustration. I don't want to move onto scenery until I have a reliable railroad, but at this point I want to just throw the whole thing out.
Here is a link to a video I took to show the issue I am having.
https://youtu.be/P9W9MgAT_I0
That is very much a loss of power. It might not be the track, if you have adequate feeders (in no case should unsoldered rail joiners be the only way a piece of track is powered). It could be the wheels or the pickup wipers on the locos collecting dirt and lint.
Wheels can be claened by laying a piece of pwper town over the rails and wetting it with isopropyl alcohol, then carefully holding the loco, run it up to speed and let one truck spin on the wetted paper towel. You'll be surprise at the black streaks it will leve. Repeat a couple of times until it stops leaving streaks, then turnt he loco end for end and do the other truck.
Cleaning the wipers is a little more difficult, as they are rather delicate and if bent out of shape they will stop working completely. Also every loco is different in how they do it. Some rub the backs of the wheels, some rub the axles, some rub the flange. If there are tufts of fluff caught in there, you can carefully scrape them out with a toothpick.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Vertical alignment of the rails can also cause stalls. A dip on one rail can cause the wheels to lose contact briefly. This is especially true with short wheelbase and four axle engines like RS3's and NW2's. You may need to shim a low spot or improve the roadbed. I have always block sanded my N scale cork road bed before laying track.
Martin Myers
Hey everyone, thanks for the help! I have gone through and soldered all my rail joints. This has almost completely eliminated the problem in the one section I have been able to complete. I also have started adding more feeders after turnouts. My layout is a small industrial switching area, and I have 13 turnouts in about 6 linear feet of bench work. So between the solder, additional feeders, and I have leveled a few joints, I think things will be working out well in the next few weeks!
Thanks for your help, I never had any electrical problems with using just rail joiners and a few feeders before, but it appears I have now!
I have this problem with one of my HO Athearn RTR dcc/sound locomotives. It ran fine, then one day it started the stop and go routine. I eliminated the track as a problem because all my other locos run fine (Athearn, Bachmann, Proto, BLI, Genesis) and of course it is one of my favorites. I will do more with it when the winter weather starts giving me no reason to go outdoors.
So I just got done soldering 20 feeders to my layout, along with every rail joiner there is, with the exception of one I left unsoldered for thermal expansion. I still have this problem. I now have 28 feeders on a 6 foot long layout and every turnout is hooked up to a Frog Juicer. Admittedly, my soldering isn't very good. Is there a way to see which track is getting good power and which is not? I have a multimeter? Does that work with DCC on only one track? Anyone have anything else it could be? Thanks for the support to a new modeler.
Have you cleaned your track. Every once in awhile my DCC engines in HO do that and a quick cleaning of that spot fixes it.
Sorry, I should have mentioned that when I posted the update. I have cleaned the track and the locomotive wheels. Everything is clean, which I thought might have been part of the problem, so I eliminated that possibility.