Gargraves switch #1114 & 1113 wiring problem

What has to happen is the turnouts need to be wired so that the center rail is powered.  What I would do (using your example) is to solder a connection under the upper turnout so that the center rail is powered for all three legs.  On the bottom turnout I would only create a connection on the through route leaving the diverging route un powered, it would receive power from the upper route.  That way you have no dead spot.

so your saying is too solder a wire between (center rail) both switches also?

Not really.  If you turn over one of the switches you can see if the center rail is linked, in some gargraves switches they are pre wired with thin jumper wires.  If that is the case you will not have an issue with a dead zone.  If the jumper wires are not present, take a small wire solder it across the straight and diverging routes.  With the second turnout only jumper the straight route only.  Now when these two are connected the crossover is powered from the turnout with the three sections jumpered.  No dead zone.  I wish I could draw a picture because I may not be describing this correctly but the first thing to do is see what flavor of turnout you have, the pre wired or not.

the turnout is NOT wired 

Then you have a bit of work to do.  Select one turnout, select one piece of 20g wire, on the underside of the turnout, solder the center rail on the through route (straight) and diverging route.  This turnout will now power the crossover.  On the other turnout, only solder the straight route.  The diverging route will receive power from the other turnout, no dead zone.  Mark these in case you ever take the route down and use them somewhere else.  When these turnouts are not pre-wired they are great for setting up places to park trains and control the power.  This is probably a 10 minute task.  Good luck.

I did the same thing you did! While the center rail is usually looked at and in this case I think "it is wrong!" Check both the center rail and outside rail power on both sides of the switch, or you may be there for days trying to see what is wrong.

In the photo when enlarged; the outside rails are the ones not having a continuos power flow as Gargraves switches when back to back(plastic rail between the two tracks at the frog area to the end of the switch, "look at the photo better!") you are losing the outside rail power, to compensate for this insert a one inch piece of straight track between the two switches and supply both outside rails with common power.

Lee Fritz

I am not sure adding a track between the two would make a difference.  If the outside rail on either loop in the picture is connected to the common ground on the side before the diverging route there should be no issue with a continuous ground.  What is typically not connected with some GG turnouts is the center rail.  I found out that the hard way in a situation similar to the OP's picture.  Since I had already mounted and added scenery I opted to add a surface mounted jumper.  The cleanest solution that I think will solve the issue is having the turnout wired from underneath.  Now a dead zone will happen if the loco is too long to make contact with the center rail but if that happens here I suspect the loco will derail given the sharp angle of the crossover.

Thank you everyone for your input.

I will be messing with it on Sunday (i hope) and will report back the findings .

With my use of Gargraves switches I have found many problems, and sometimes the most logical problem don't surface right away. 

The style of Gargraves switch in the photo that is posted has a plastic frog and when put back to back because of all rails being insulated electrically from each other in normal Gargraves style of track that compounds the issue. I was able to solve my issue with adding a one and a half inch piece of straight track between the two switches and powering both outside rails.

Lee Fritz

With 2 switches connected like that, there is no ground (outside rail) continuity.  You need to feed both ground and hot to both loops directly by wires.

I second what RJR mentioned!

Also if you have an engine with traction tires going over the Gargraves switches like that you will lose the common rail power too.

Lee Fritz

If I understand your original post fully, it appears you haven't ever wired up the DZ-2500.  If so, then I think you're jumping the gun by assuming the dead spot is a switch problem.  The non-derailing feature must first be understood before any additional wiring is performed.  Worst scenario, you could effectively destroy the very expensive switch machine or circuit board.

Bruce