Fastrack Switch causing trains to jump

You might be hitting these at a pretty good clip, I never had that issue, and I had a ton of Fastrack at one time.  I've moved on to Ross switches, but generally the Fastrack ones were pretty reliable.

Is this happen on the thru (straight) route, or when you take the out (curve) route?  Sometimes problems like this are due to wheelsets that are out of gauge.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

You might be hitting these at a pretty good clip, I never had that issue, and I had a ton of Fastrack at one time.  I've moved on to Ross switches, but generally the Fastrack ones were pretty reliable.

Is this happen on the thru (straight) route, or when you take the out (curve) route?  Sometimes problems like this are due to wheelsets that are out of gauge.

This is happening on the straight route, the curve also has a bit of movement to it as well but it's mostly the straight route

Check the wheels to see if they are gauged correctly.

@SirCaptain posted:

This is happening on the straight route, the curve also has a bit of movement to it as well but it's mostly the straight route

That's even odder, usually switch issues happen on the out route, straight typically is more trouble-free.  Wheelset gauge has to be a possibility.

3 rail seems to have standards all over the place for measuring gage, is there an easy way to measure gage across trains? (I only run modern legacy / ps2/3 trains). Have never done a gage measurement before so not 100% sure where to start with that.

Also here's a video of the jumping that's occurring on the thru in forward / reverse:

@SirCaptain posted:

3 rail seems to have standards all over the place for measuring gage, is there an easy way to measure gage across trains? (I only run modern legacy / ps2/3 trains). Have never done a gage measurement before so not 100% sure where to start with that.

The width between O-gauge rails is 1-1/4".  This is the track gauge.  The flanges on wheel sets have to fit in between the rails.

Support your loco on its back and measure the flange width on all your axles.  This is the "wheel gauge" that needs to fit between the rails.  They should measure somewhere around 1-1/8", give or take.  But more importantly, they should all measure the exact same dimension, or pretty darned close to it.

If they are varying in measurement (like perhaps more than a 1/32" variation), then this could be the problem.  Some wheels are out of gauge, and need to be adjusted somehow.

Confirm your wheel gauge and get back to us.  If your wheel gauges check out as okay, then there could be a few other possibilities causing the jumping.

Obviously, the flanges are hitting bottom there on that metal strip.  I did a bench test of an O72 Fastrack switch and several powered diesel trucks from my parts box.  Indeed, they do lift up a bit on the metal strip while passenger and freight trucks seem to have a slightly shorter flange and don't noticeably bump up.  However, try as I might, I couldn't get the powered trucks to derail there, even when I pushed them to the side to see if they'd pick that point and derail.

I'm thinking wheel gauge, it looks like it's normal to have a small bump over that piece.  FWIW, the switch I tested was in steady use for years, and I never had a derailing complaint with it with any diesel, either two axle or three axle.

Thanks all, will be heading to the depot of homes tomorrow to pickup a digital caliper and do some flange measurements. Will report back once I get some readings

I'm not sure if this is your problem, but I recently resolved a similar issue with some Railking passenger cars.

They had a nasty hop through fastrack switches. Just before I reached the point of total frustration I realized the center pickup roller is a bit narrower than other passenger cars and was dropping down between the center rail and snagging on the diverging rail.

I was going to post a thread in the near future demonstrating the issue, as well as the solution.

As a "temp" fix a merely trimmed a piece of double sided foam I had leftover from another project and stuck it to the end of the center rail to close the gap. Worked like a charm. Cars roll across the turnouts smooth as can be. Eventually I may replace the foam with a piece of styrene for a permanent fix.

@SirCaptain posted:

Thanks all, will be heading to the depot of homes tomorrow to pickup a digital caliper and do some flange measurements. Will report back once I get some readings

Well, to be right honest with you, a ruler or tape measure and a good set of eyeballs would probably be close enough for O-gauge.

Unless you're looking for a good excuse to buy a good digital caliper anyway.

Check to see where the location of the pickup roller is, when the wheels "lift up".  It does not look like it is the wheel flanges, as it does not happen for all the wheels, just some of them.

The problem I had was due to the pickup roller wheel not going completely into the "cavity" under the truck, thus lifting the engine off the tracks. This can happen on switches or uncoupler tracks. The solution was to remove the plastic insulating piece, and making my own with a thinner base, which allowed the pickup roller to completely retract, thus no longer lifting the engine truck off the track.

I suspect those three axle trucks have the floating rear wheels, they don't really have any function other than appearance.  Most of the time they're plastic with large elongated axle holes.  The wouldn't lift the wheels as they also have no flanges!

I am fairly new to the hobby and still learning how things work mostly trial and error [mostly error]. I had an issue with an inexpensive Lioncheif engine that would derail on my fastrack switches. I thought it had something to do with the pickup roller and even tried modifying the taper of the roller sides. The engine would just crawl up on top of the tracks and derail even at very slow speeds. In the end I was able to stop the derailing by adding weight to the engine. The engine has other issues but it no longer derails on the switches.

You know, I had that same problem with a tubular O22 switch. I realize they're not the same animal, but all I had to do was press down on the Frog. Gave it a pretty good push downward and that took care of the problem.  It seems the Frog was up higher than the surrounding rails and when I pushed it down it leveled everything out. Only caution and I would use if trying that would be there is a lot of electronics in a fastrack switch. I wouldn't push too hard, you never know what's underneath..

In this case, there is an obvious chunk of metal at the base of the rail that is causing the push upward, no amount of B.F.F.I. is going to change that.  However, all Fastrack switches have that, and given the vast quantity of them in use with seemingly good results, I'm guessing there is something else at work here as well.

Tomorrow turned into 5 months later, have a project Dash-9 on the bench right now so measurements will occur after that. Just wanted to clarify - where is the best position to measure the distance between wheels? Months back when I got it I did a quick measurement but wasn't sure if I was measuring correctly.

It's my understanding that wheel gauge is measured at the widest part of the flanges where they meet the flat part of the wheel that rides on the rails.  If I'm mistaken, I hope someone will step in and correct me.