Ed: OF COURSE it happened in a hard to reach area! Don't you remember reading that in the 600-page government manual on how to be a successful model railroader, written by Harvard MBA's with no real model railroading experience?
Anyway, you should have no electrical problems with back-to-back turnouts as long as the power feeders are connected to the OUTSIDE rails on either turnout. Notice I said "OUTSIDE" rails, but not necessarily ahead of the points. The object is to make sure the closure rails are getting power from their respective adjacent outer rails. Since you ran two locomotives through the turnouts suggests to me that the third locomotive caused the short. Check it for wheel gauge, also that something isn't low enough underneath that it could be contacting a rail of the opposite polarity - I had this problem with one of my ALCO models locomotives where the gear case cover was so low it would brush against the top of a closure rail as it went over it. In my case, it was a microscopic burr left over when I had cut the rail for the switch points. A few swipes with a file resolved the problem. Bob Nicholson _______________________________________ --- In [email protected], Edward Davis <edandhdavis@...> wrote: > > When wiring back to back turnouts, does there have to be a piece of insulated > track between the two? I wouldn't think so, but some type of short caused > some of the plastic ties to melt on one of the turnouts. The two turnouts had > been working fine until today. Several locos ran over the area without a > problem. Then a third loco ran into the area and caused a short. When I > examined the turnouts, I discovered that some of the plastic ties on one of > the turnouts had melted and were warped. Puzzling. Any thoughts? Of course > this happened in a hard to reach area. : ^ ) > > Ed Davis > Stockton > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
