Hello everybody, I am new here and i hope i am not posting something already on here, i looked around but could not find anyhting too related to this, anyway i am new at model railroading, i have bought a larger train set for me and my girls but my turnouts dont work for anyhting it seems. i have a bachman n scale ez track setup. when my trains run over my turnouts they derail or just stop working. sometimes they will run on one direction of the turnout fine but if i switch the turnout direction it seems to kill power to the whole track. these things happen whether i use the turnouts manually or electrically....anybody have any solutions? any help will surely be appreciated... thanks
Ah the problem is they are Bachman turnouts. If you are serious about N Scaling do yourself a big favor and throw away all the EZ track, If you like way EZ track looks with the roadbed attached you can use Kato Uni track or the new Atlas track. Probably not the answer you want to hear, but I bought my nephew a small Bachman set with the ez track for Christmas a few years ago, we could never get the turnouts to work properly, no matter what we did , they are just too poorly built. For him I ended up making a small layout the size of the Bachman using Uni track , It cost about $60.00 more with turnouts, but well worth it. Cheers.
Sounds like you could have two problems. First your locomotives may not have all their wheels in proper gauge. This is not unusual given that the axle/wheelsets by necessity have to be three pieces. You will need an NMRA gauge to determine which are not in gauge. You local hobby store should have them. Your problem with your turnouts sounds like you have what is known as a "reverse loop". That is you have a turnout with a loop of track that rejoins the main track so that a train will reverse direction. In this situation without proper isolation of the rails that exit behind the frog in the turnout you will create a dead short in the track and nothing will move. Again your local Hobby store can help you with this. One more thing, you apparently have a Bachmann train set. Bachmann has a mixed history as far as producing quality locomotives. Most people here will tell you that Kato, Atlas and LifeLike/Walthers locomotives are superior to Bachmann. There are also Model Power, InterMountain and Micro Trains locomotives, none of which I own, that others may comment on. Prices among all them are comparable. I leave others here to add their comments
Welcome to TrainBoard suptrooper15! The "just stop working" issue, I agree with inkaneer saying it is a reverse loop problem. Each rail of the track needs to remain isolated from the other, however, with out proper electrical circuitry, a reverse loop makes the outer rail loop around and re-join the opposite rail, causing an electrical short. For the derailing issue, it's probably a combination of the quality of Bachmann track, and the quality of Bachmann locomotives and wheels. All three of which are generally agreed to occupy the lowest end of the quality spectrum of MRR products, especially in N Scale. Using what you already have, just run the trains as slow as possible over the turnouts and try to see what is causing the derailments. Sometimes you'll be lucky to find it's one wheel particular, always catching on one of the points, and other times it will appear that nothing is consistent in operation. Just focus on the issue and try to tune the turnout/locos so they can run consistently with out derailing. Worst case scenario, know that, as mentioned above, Kato/Atlas sectional track, as well as their locomotives and rolling stock, rarely require as much maintenance/tuning to both work in the first place and also to continue to run with out issue. Good luck!
Trooper- It could be a number of reasons. We will need more information before coming up with a solution. Do you have a simple circle for the layout with one or more sidings or do you have a layout where the train is supposed to go into the turnout and then travel a bit and come back to the same place but facing in the opposite direction? Do you have a copy, even crudely handmade that you can scan and post here? Is there a certain section of the turnout where the problem occurs?
