Breaking Fastrack connectors

Holy cow!     Do you mean you're breaking the metal connectors or the little plastic tabs?

Regardless, in 13 years of running Fastrack I have never encounter this issue.

The metal connectors!!!

I had the same issue on some new track I purchased late 2020, It seemed like the pins were defective, seemed to be made of pot metal, store replaced all pieces due to flaws, good luck.

Its the 072 curve pieces. It might be from trying to twist them some to get them to snap closed to each other. No problem with the other pieces. All of this is new this year.

Experienced the same thing.....I bought a full circle of O72 at York, in the fall of 2019, brand new from a dealer in Orange Hall. Got home and the connectors were very brittle.  A bunch snapped and broke when putting them together and pulling apart. Seemed like a different metal make up compared to Fast Track pins I already have. I have older fast track of different radius and NEVER had a problem.  Chalked it up to a bad metal run by Lionel. My fix was that I went to my local TS and bought the cheapest section, 1 3/4 inch straights, of Fast Track to cannibalize the pins. No problem with those pins. Just a pain to bend the tabs and take out all the broken pins. Hearing your story I'm hoping it was a bad moment in time for the metal pins for O72 in the manufacturing process.   

Zinc pest is killing the connectors. I have had to replace a good number and spares are not made.

Lionel sells the fastrack connectors. A Lionel service center was able to order both types sometime last year.

There were some defective ones, for the older Fastrack I've used for years, I've broken one center rail pin and never an outside rail pin.  However, as previously stated, there was some casting issue with a run and they were breaking a lot.

Chiming in on this; never had a problem, but bought 98% of all my FasTrack years ago. To take pins out (and then replace), is easy. Under the track, bend the tabs totally straight up on that section with a thin screwdriver and long-nose pliers. Then carefully pry up the rail itself from where it sits in the track - it's not hard, but use care, remove the offending piece and replace it, then do the opposite, exactly in reverse to get the track to sit back in its little groove.

This is also a great way to make insulated rails - just remove a rail joiner pin or two (I forget now, but same sequence for removal as 027 or 0 gauge track pin) and you will have an insulated section. You will need to buy the little pin fasteners used for track wire connectors, available from any good electronic shop. They are failsafe. Do one and you'll have the hang of it and save a lot of money on buying specialized FasTrack pieces!

I have been using Fastrack for at least 10 years and haven’t broken any.  So far, at least, I haven’t encountered zinc past, either.  You do need to be gentle when separating Fastrack pieces.  I use a small pocket knife and a smallish flat blade screwdriver.  Use the knife to begin separating the sections then insert the screwdriver into the separation between the center and outer rail; just a twist and they pop apart.

Great information. I now believe I was doing too much bending and twisting to  join and the unjoin the 072 curves.

I did disassemble a spare 10" piece to get the parts I needed to fix the broken connectors.

Great idea about making insulated sections.

Last night I searched the Lionel site and found the replacement center rail and outer rail parts and put an order in. Hopefully they are in stock. 

I still wonder about why it is so difficult to join the 072 curves to each other and to straight pieces. Some snap together readily but some will not completely have the plastic male/female connectors underneath snap together. That leaves a small gap between tracks. I haven't run anything on it yet, and thus I do not know if it will stay together or if the track pieces will separate.

I'll keep working on it.

David

1. Try using mechanic's or similar gloves when connecting or taking FT apart by hand.

2. Use small (3/4", I believe) binder clips on the underneath of the FT to hold the sections together and keep them from coming apart.