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Yeah help I have an electrical problem I’m like a third of the way end of my Christmas garden trees done power strips up I have two 190 KW transformers. I’m running 3 K-Line engines & my pride and joy a Lionel 1934 752 streamliner which seems to be the least problematic. Anyway all four trains work on the inner three loops however the Outerloop no matter what I do Will not run a train. They all work even though they all work on the inner three loops m, none of them work on the Outerloop. It’s not the transformers it’s not the engines because I took the ground wire and the hot wire to the engine and to the roller and they all run fine. When I hook it up to the power feeds from the Tinman track nothing happens Or hooking up a feeder to a clean piece of track,  nothing happens. So I disconnected from the feeds to the Tinman track and used the new feeders to the lock-on to the outside loop and still nothing. I inspected the track on the outside loop all center rail insulators are in place all all track is tightly hooked together with Lionell rail clips but still nothing. I’ve tried everything I could think of, I’ve tried different transformers and for some reason I’ve tried different power strips, why I don’t know, because they all work on the inner three tracks. I am baffled. I’ve been running train since I was six years old and have never had a problem like this.  Call me back I’m totally baffled I don’t know what to do or what else to try. Any advice anyone can give me would greatly appreciate it.  814-952-2762

Cheers,

Jim

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From what I see on the Tinman site, that track is refurbished and painted.  That implies that Lionel lockons will not make good electrical contact with the rails.

Troubleshooting.  You either have no power getting to the rails, or a short that shuts down the transformer (trips the breaker, or otherwise).  Disconnect the lockons and remove any rolling stock from the outer loop.  Use your multimeter to measure the resistance between the center and outer rails.  I should be infinite resistance.  If it is 0 ohms, or a few ohms, then you have a short.  Finding the short: break the loop into two halves.  Determine the shorted half, and repeat the division until you are down to the shorted track.  Note that a visual inspection of the center rail insulator does not always find the culprit.

If the multimeter does not indicate a short, then you have a connectivity problem with the power feeds (wires + lockon).  Install the lockon.  Use your multimeter to test the connectivity between the lockon terminals and the track rails.  It should show 0 ohms.  If not, then examine how the lockon attaches to the rails and clean that area of the rails to shiny metal.  Reattach the lockon and retest.  If OK, attach the feed wires and test from the wire ends to the rails.

The Tinman site describes how they solder track feed wires to the underside of the rails.  If the lockons don't work, then try soldering track feeds using the Tinman description

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