RTDM

On the wall of the computer room where I used to work there was a rather large sign displaying the letters RTDM. I imagine there are quite a few such rooms with the same sign. There should be one on every workbench, including mine.

Okay....so I bought one of those Bachmann Consolidations. You know the Spectrum ones like the image at the top of this blog. Beautiful model, probably the most detailed piece of motive power on the roster. Actually the only piece if you only count the actual Average Eastern equipment. Anyway...Not only does it look great it also runs perfect. Great low speed response..all that sort of thing.

In building the yard at Average I used Atlas turnouts I had on hand. I was able to install most of the trackage in the yard proper. So I put the 2-8-0 on it's home rails and put the little critter through its paces. Ran exactly like it should until...

Apparently the little gem does not like my Atlas turnouts. At low speed, crawl that is, it stops dead at every turnout. The only way to get it through the yard non-stop is open her up and whiz through the turnouts at rather unprotypical speeds. Hit a freightcar at those speeds and you end up watching it launch off the end of the layout.

One of the videos I made shows the 0-5-0 giving the little Connie repeated assistance as it makes its way through Average yard...

I did a search on the web for "n scale bachmann spectrum 2-8-0 and atlas code 55 turnouts" to see if anyone else has encountered this problem. Didn't really find anything useful. On most locomotives this could be a symptom of poor electrical pickup. Many of the older Trix engines don't use tender pickup and stall in the same manner. The Bachmann, however, has locomotive and tender pickup...

Bachmann Tender

I changed my search parameters to "atlas code 55 turnout stall" and found several discussions including this...

"This problem is caused by failure of the built in jumpers on the turnouts. If you look at the photo you can see a small copper strip that acts as a jumper between the rails. It is molded into the ties and makes contact with the bottom of the rails at the small holes shown by the red arrows. 


There are also two similar but shorter sets of these that connect the point rails. These can lose contact with the bottom of the rail. In many cases, but certainly not all, this seems to be caused by shorts from derailments. The contact area made by this jumper appears to get hot when this happens and breaks the connection with the rail. It’s possible that corrosion, or expansion and contraction can also cause this. 
Getting a replacement from Paul is certainly a prime option, but if you don't want to rip up part of your layout and wait for a replacement, it is relatively easy to repair, and in most cases can be done with the turnout in place, although a bit of ballast and roadbed needs to be excavated. You just need to feed a small jumper wire under the track and solder it to the outside of the rails where the yellow arrows show. If the jumpers to the points fail (they are located at the hinges) they can be repaired in the same manner.
Incidently, I have seen this in other scales over the years, it is not isolated to Atlas code 55."

Now that's all well and good, but what has it to do with the issue at Average? While my turnouts are similar the problem is not with the points. In my case the locomotive seems to stall at the frog. Still the info gave a place to start. I decided to check my turnouts.

Fortunately for me I don't fasten the track down permanently, at least not until I want to. It's all held down with track nails.I tried gluing it down, but this doesn't work for my method of tracklaying. I like to be able to tweak the track in case there are issues, like turnouts that stall locomotives. Thus I was able to pull the turnouts up without issue and check them over. I got out my trusty multimeter and did some tests.

First I fliipped several of the beasties over and tested the "jumpers" shown in the images above. None of mine were "burned". They were all intact and doing what they ought to...

Jumpers

With electrical devices a visual check isn't quite good enough. You can't see the flow of electricity, hence the multimeter. A particularly useful function of said apparatus is the continuity test. You can check a circuit to see if it actually conducts electricity without having it powered up. I used the probes to see where the electricity went, or more importantly, where it didn't. To check for continuity you set the meter to measure ohms or Ω. If you probe a circuit and the display changes from 1 to anything else there is a path for the current. This tells you A..a circuit is working or B.. there is a path that should not be there, as in the case of a short circuit. So I use the probes to see if the jumpers are actually jumping...

Probing Jumper

The meter display changes so I know that jumper is working...

Continuous Circuit

I tested all the jumpers underneath the track and everything looked okay. Then I flipped the turnout upright. Because they are metal, the frogs on these turnouts are insulated from the rails. That means the frog is electrically dead and carries no current... 

Insulated Frog

I used the meter to make sure. No path between the frog and any other rail in the turnout. Hold on a minute...there is a small "ring" at the end of the jumper. Hmmm...I test the continuity between this ring and the frog. This is one of those "Ah Ha" moments...

Ah Ha!

Maybe I should say "DUHHH" moments...So the issue is the frog. The locomotive gets to that part of the turnout and stalls because there is no power. The "ring" is a terminal to power the frog. At this point I should quote another message I found...

"If this is one of the Atlas turnouts with a cast metal frog insulated from the rest of the turnout, there are two possibilities. One is that the frog is slightly higher than the adjacent rails. When it lifts the wheels in the rigid frame of a small steam engine, they lose contact with the live rails and are only contacting the dead frog. The easy way to fix that is to use a small mill file to make the frog level with the adjacent rails.

Once the frog is level you may still have troubles just because the frog is dead. If you use switch machines you can power the frog through auxiliary switching contacts on the switch machine. If you use ground throws or some other manual operation, you can power the frog through a Tam Valley Depot Frog Juicer circuit. This requires connecting three wires, one to the frog and one to each turnout stock rail. The Frog Juicer then powers the frog and automatically switches polarity when it detects a short circuit. It's all electronic, and no mechanical switching is necessary."

I'm pretty sure there is information from Atlas detailing this exact situation. Maybe I should have followed the advice of the big sign, the one that reads RTDM.

Oh yeah...I forgot...RTDM?

Regards,

Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad