Dead Spots FasTrack

Check for loose or broken layout wiring.  I had a signal strength issue over 10 years ago, and found a ground wire had come loose.

 

Check the connections on the TIU terminals.  Be alert for terminals that have come loose inside the TIU.

Are your wheels and pick up rollers as clean as the track is?

Try testing the voltage on the bad spots with a load, say a lighted passenger car.  I find that poor connections with no load might look good.

We had this problem with our fastrack modules. We ran jumper wires to the bad section. Everything looked and felt tight and metered out correctly, but still had a dead spot. Jumper wires fixed the issue. It was the outside rails, but I have had similar issues with the center rail on my home layout. 

 

Bob

Without seeing a diagram, I'd lean towards no common.

If you roll a caboose along does it stay lit? That would tend to say the center rail is ok.

Missabe,

   These gentlemen are giving good advise, if you have the newer made FasTrack you could have a couple sections of bad track, usually another drop will cure the problem, however sense you indicated you wired correctly already, I would replace those track, after test bending the join pins slightly.  Or you might just have some real dirty track than needs to be cleaned, use some CRC on a soft rag and see what happens.

Further when your FT layout is constructed absolutely correctly, you should be able to run with all 10's, minus the switches.  If you are operating Command Control FT switches with track power, you will be able to tell right away if your voltage has dropped off, the low voltage FT CC switches will start to operate slowly or not at all. When everything is correct the CC Switches with operate quickly & perfectly, thru out the entire layout.  

PCRR/Dave  

Mike at Lionel has a video where he describes the most common issue with Fastrack connections.  The cure is pretty simple, just slightly bend the center pin inward on each piece.  This results in a tight connection for the center rail and solves many continuity issues.  The outside rails are less likely to be the issue as they're both common and you have two sets of connections instead of one.

I had a very similar issue. I cleaned and bent the center pins it has worked well since.

What CP says. FT pins get flacky when left to sit. Taking the track apart and putting it back together fixes it most the time.

Gentlemen,

    It seems that the newer FasTrack pieces do have some pin problems every now and then, however I have never had any problems with the older FasTrack, especially the original mid black rail stuff from inception, very high quality track, I still have and use lots of it, with no problems what so ever.

PCRR/Dave

All my FT is from first production to 2006. Not knowing where his layout is, it is more common in a basement with higher humidity levels. When my son and I built carpet centrals on my carpeted basement floor, they would work perfectly. come back 2 days later and the trains would not run. Might move a few feet and stop. Cleaning the tracks did nothing. taking all the track apart and reassemble always fixed it. I call it the tarnish effect causing high resistance. We get this in the automotive field with airbag wiring connectors. Open circuit faults that are repaired by unplugging and plugging in the connectors fixes the problem caused by connectors exposed to damp conditions from winter conditions. With my track on a layout now, it only happened twice after letting sit for one year after only using for Christmas layout. Once was with O track.

I also use a little electrically conductive grease that prevents corrosion. I get mine at work, I would bet any electrical supply store would have something similar.

On my home layout I soldered the pieces to fix some dead spots. Always happened inside the mountains.

 

Bob