Gargraves 054 turnouts seem to activate in the middle of a consist causing derailments

I should add that the Gargraves turnouts are wired to enable the anti derailing feature and the turnouts function properly in this regard.

Here's what I would do.

(I assume that the rolling stock does NOT include any specialty cars with 4th and 5th rail contact shoes, or any old models with electro-couplers that use those shoes)

Take all locomotives off the track.

Place a gaggle of cars on the track, using the ones that you have found that create the problem.

Line them up just short of the switch.

Turn the track power and independent switch power (if you are using it) to a mid-point of voltage.

Take your digital voltmeter and put the leads (set to AC 0-50 Volts) across the wires that power the switch machine's diverging route coil. You may have to use alligator clips or equivalent to make the connections.)

While watching the meter, which should be indicating zero volts, slowly push the train into the switch.

If and when the coil operates, or, if and when you see the meter reading go from nothing to something (technical terms) immediately put on the brakes and take a very close look at the car that is on the switch.

Please do these steps and give us a report.

Upon further review, since the anti-derail feature relies upon isolated rails, and those rails are located away from the wheels in the above experiment, you may have a completely different test to do:

With track and switch power turned up, try mechanically moving, twisting, pressing, etc, on the switch. There may be crossed or shorted wires within the switch machine, or inside the switch itself.

I'm not familiar with how the GG switches achieve an isolated rail. Do they come with that feature already installed (gap between rail segments) or does the customer create the isolated rail technique by making gaps, or making a separate adjacent track section?

Maybe there is too little space between the isolated rail and the next piece or rail. Maybe the weight or vibration of the rolling stock makes that gap conductive.

So many possibilities...sorry.

Thanks Arthur,

Regarding your suggestion "With track and switch power turned up, try mechanically moving, twisting, pressing, etc, on the switch. There may be crossed or shorted wires within the switch machine, or inside the switch itself."  I went back down to the basement and tried this but I didn't have any luck creating the problem.

However, based on your first suggestion to get rid of the locomotives and push/pull a troubled consist thru I did start to do this and noticed that when the consist approached the turnout from the straight (output) side where one of the isolated rails is located, and the turnout was set to the curve (output), the DZ1000 motor seemed to labor a bit and not be very snappy.  In other words it flipped to straight in several small slow movements as opposed to snapping 100% into the straight position.   I got another car and put it on the approach to the curve (out) and used it to activate the anti derail to position the points into the curve.  They snapped immediately into place.  So I decided there was not as much conductivity on the front car of the consist approaching on the straight side.  I exchanged the position of the cars and used the front car from the consist on the curve and the other car on the straight approach.  This time the points set to straight in a snappy fashion and the curve position was now slow.  I aggressively cleaned the wheels closest to the couplers on both sides of the consist car.  Tried the experiment again and now both points movements were snappy.  Fast forward, I ended up checking every car in the consist to make sure they had good conductivity with the isolated rails.  Finally, I took a look at the locomotive, the first two drive wheels had traction tires on them, so I cleaned the flanges as best I could without damaging the traction tires.  Then I ran the consist for 20 minutes, no derailments, I added two more cars and ditched one of the cars which actually had plastic wheels and failed to trigger the anti derail feature.  I varied the speed, varied the route (it's a loop with two reversing loops). No more derailments.  My theory is that the locomotive did not have enough conductivity to snap the points completely in place, but since it and the dummy A unit were rather heavy, they just rode thru the partially straight points, but when the next cars with dirty wheels came along, they were not heavy enough to ride thru the partially set points nor did they provide enough conductivity to get the points to completely set.

I don't really know if this was the root cause of the problem, but after running for another half hour, I didn't get another derailment.

Regards Gargraves anti derail implementation, the user needs to build the isolated rail sections for the two output rails on the frog. then you make the connections between the isolated rails and the R / L leads connecting the remote control switch to the DZ1000 turnout motor.  Gargraves provided a wiring diagram with each turnout.  In my case, the minimum isolated rail length I used was 5", but some were 10" or greater.  I soldered the jumper wires to each isolated rail and maybe I need to go back and re-assess how well I did on the soldering since conductivity seems to be an issue.

In any case, thank you for your thought provoking ideas, I think they helped get me on the right track, (so to speak).

Good job tracking down the problem.