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Turnout Fix Power Ground Problem

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  • Member since
    March 2009
  • 1 posts
Turnout Fix Power Ground Problem
Posted by coalcar on Monday, March 23, 2009 9:11 PM

I am building a new layout. About a month ago I completed the wiring. I am ready to do the landscaping. For the last month I have been running my trains with no problems. Last night I had a derailment on a turnout. I put the train back on the track. And found the turnouts had no power. The transformer breakers went off. I found the fix power wire to the transformer was grounded. I can run trains and everything else except the turnouts. I have disconnected the turnout where the derailment occurred and replaced with a manual turnout. I still have the ground. I checked the operation of the turnout in question and it works connected to another power source by it self. I disconnected all the controls to the switches still have the ground. I tried another transformer and still have the ground. I checked all the wiring looks ok. The only thing I can think of doing is disconnecting the power wire of the turn outs one at a time to see if there is a ground in a turn out but I cannot figure out why this could be when they were all working prior to the derailment.  Any ideas , thoughts, or suggestions?  

  • Member since
    October 2005
  • From: Ulster Co. NY
  • 1,464 posts
Posted by larak on Monday, March 23, 2009 9:54 PM

This may sound silly, but did you move any of the turnouts to the other position? Try moving them back one at a time. You may have a reverse loop somewhere that only shows up when a particular TO is in a certain position.

Definitely disconnect them all and reconnect one at a time to try to isolate the problem.

It's kind of hard to troubleshoot without an accurate track plan and accurate "as built" wiring diagram.

'could be as simple as some debris stuck in a set of points.

Karl

The mind is like a parachute. It works better when it's open.  www.stremy.net

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