Advice? Piecing together a vintage Tyco HO for husband's nostalgic Christmas gift & tree layout

[MissArgentina]

Not sure how that will separate it from the spinning nut it seems to be connected to. They're spinning together. This is the track I'm talking about. I can take a close up pic of the terminal tomorrow if that helps anyone.

[richhotrain]

Ahh, both the screw and nut are spinning. Not good. And, you indicate that you cannot get hold of the nut in order to get the screw out. If it were me, I would return it for a new one, or just buy a new one. Christmas is only a week away. No time to mess around with faulty equipment.

Rich

[Overmod]

Lastspikemike

For me, and assuming you can reach the backside of the nut,  I try to jam a very thin blade screwdriver between a side of the nut and the plastic recess  in order to stop the nut turning by just enough to get the screw tight.

Two other approaches: you can use something like a razor saw to cut a small slot pointing in a nonessential and 'nonweakening' direction to align with one of the nut flats, then use a more solid screwdriver tip or piece of flat metal like the back of a knife blade to hold the nut from spinning; or you can carefully cut away plastic from around opposing flats to allow tips of a small pair of pliers to hold the nut across its diameter, which usually suffices.  It seems to me that this latter could be done by drilling holes which could subsequently be filled by short pieces of copper wire, providing 'keys' to some number of the flats of the nut and spreading torque across a much larger area of the plastic, but that might be overkill in this context.

I have used a small amount of epoxy like J-B Weld carefully buttered around the periphery of a rounded-out hex recess in plastic, with the nut then carefully set into this and any raised material smoothed down against and over it.  When this has set up completely (over about 24hr to ultimate strength, whatever is on the package specs) it provides flats much more resistant to being 'cammed out' than the original plastic was.

Remember it is likely that the other screw, at some point, may develop comparable difficulty, and it might be wise to butter its nut in, too, with epoxy or comparable material to secure it from trying to turn.  This is a very small amount of adhesive, perhaps a couple of toothpick-tips' worth.

One more little note: it is possible to use longer screws in these terminals, and if you have any room "under" the track grade, you can provide washers in the stripped-out recess and a nut that can be easily reached from the underside or given better 'fixation' in stronger materials.

[MissArgentina]

So we went to a local hobby train shop and we came home with some terminal rail joiners and it's working like a charm! Not sure if it's the best choice but it's working! :) He seems pretty happy.

[Overmod]

MissArgentina

we came home with some terminal rail joiners and it's working like a charm!

That's likely a fine solution for your purposes, and reusable as well.  (You can also use these for feeder connections if at any point you observe hesitant operation due to poor electrical connection between track pieces...)

[richhotrain]

MissArgentina

So we went to a local hobby train shop and we came home with some terminal rail joiners and it's working like a charm! Not sure if it's the best choice but it's working! :) He seems pretty happy. 

That's all that matters. He's happy. You did the right thing to get a new one and not mess with a broken one. 

Rich

[BigDaddy]

The most expedient solution possible.  Sometimes getting things running is more important than doing it the cheapest possible way or figuring out how to fix it yourself.