Layout
Track Plan
DCC
Structures
Scenery
Railroad
Locomotives
Rolling Stock
Maintenance
Layout
Track Plan
DCC
Structures
Scenery
Railroad
Locomotives
Rolling Stock
Maintenance
Daley Train Log
Page 36
This was an interesting afternoon. I was having problems running my steam locomotive along a section of track in the Coaldale Yard.
Troubleshooting was an adventure.
I first thought it might be the locomotive since my diesel locomotive ran fine on that section of track. I cleaned all of the wheels and contact points. That seemed to help a little but it still stalled out on one switch.
I then thought there might be a problem with the switch so I switched the switch with another in a rarely used section of the layout. But I still had the problem.
I then began to key on the actual track. By placing a postcard under various sections of track I was able to finally solve the problem. Apparently the track needs to be very level in order for the wheel contacts to remain solid.
I spent about 4 hours on this, and ran the loco over the problem area at least a hundred times as I watched to see what was happening.
I now feel quite confident in the locomotive and will assume that any future problems will have something to do with the track.
In the process, I learned how to control the sound levels with the locomotives that have the Tsanami decoders. This can be done with the hand controller and some special cv's (control variables). Neat. It is now obvious that I need to remember which locomotives have which decoders as some of the commands are unique to the particular decoder. I continue to learn.