I have the silver boxes for circuit breakers and I use 3 Postwar zw's. Two of them work with one silver house and the two outside handles wired to two separate blocks of the same train. In other words, one silver house for both circuits and they both break when a short occurs in either block. But the third one only breaks if the short is in the block that the silver house is on. They are both wired the same way, what gives?
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What's a "silver house"? Are you talking about the TMCC Direct Lockon product?
If you're talking about the TMCC Direct Lockon, you'll need to be more clear about how they're wired. I'm assuming you're running command, right?
Yes, command. And yes, they are the lockon product. I wired all three just like the instructions say. Track hot and ground to AU post in house, command wire from black box to clip in house, and lionel plug wire from house to zw with the fuse side into A and other into common. It works fine except only on the post its on and not the other three.
I'm confused as to what you expect. If you have a TMCC Direct Lockon wired to the A-U posts and going to a power district, it should react to any short on that power district. However, if you have another one wired to the D-U posts of the same transformer and powering a different power district, it should not react to a short on the power district powered by the A-U outputs.
Are you saying you want them to interact, or they're doing so and you don't want them to?
I have 3 zw's with one silver house wired to one handle of each transformer. 2 of them trip the breaker if any short appears in any of the four terminals. The one in question only kicks off for the terminal the house is in. I am not sure which is right, but if they kick off for any short on any terminal, that would mean I only need one house per transformer. If not, it would mean I would need four houses per transformer. Since 2 of the 3 transformers worked with only one house, I assumed this last one should to, but it doesn't. I am confused.
Are you saying they're tripping the breaker on the ZW? That doesn't seem right! The breaker in the TMCC Direct Lockon is much faster and more sensitive than the PW ZW breaker. It's also calibrated to trip at a lower current.
You will most certainly need a TMCC direct lockon on any power feed to the track if you're counting on the protection of the breaker in the Direct Lockon.
No, the silver house breaker blows, not the zw.
Two of the three zw's break at the silver house, regardless of which handle on the zw the silver house is connected to. Is that the way it is supposed to work, or is it per handle, or A,B,C,D output like the one other zw? That is my question.
Thank you so much for the help. I am totally confused. I have 5 zw's on my layout times 4 posts each. Obviously, I don't want to buy silver houses for all that if one house per zw works like the first two I wired. When I came to the third one, and it didn't work that way, I am confused as to where to go from here. I really appreciate your expertise in this, gunrunner, or whoever can set me straight. 
The one that has the overload should be the only one that trips. However, I've noticed that sometimes a normally working locomotive just crossing near the connection point will trip the direct lockon, but they're specific locomotives. I have two that I can think of that don't play nice with the TMCC Direct Lockon. They work fine with the MTH TIU and the fast acting breaker in the 180W PowerHouse transformer.
Masco, Let me ask a stupid question. In the track, do you have the different power districts insulated from each other with center rail insulators? It sounds to me like you do not. If there is no insulator then a short anywhere will trip all breakers.
Al
Well, if there are no power districts, I'd be very worried about feeding the track from multiple transformer outputs and with multiple lockons!
You are certainly correct Al, that would be a bad way to wire them! 
I have a plastic pin in the center rail that divides each power district. So when I run the trains, if I don't have all four transformer handles on, the train stops in the district that the handle is off.
Right, so they're isolated power districts, that was the question.
The only thing that comes to mind is the surge from the short on one power district is propagating through the ZW at times and causing the other lockons to trip their breaker. This is not a behavior you want to count on.
If you have 5 ZWs powering your layout with 20 power blocks you would need 20 "silver houses". Is your layout that big and able to run many trains at once? That seems like an awful lot of blocks.
Ron
I am sorry but electrons are just too predictiable. I have seen them do some strange things in my time but it always makes sence when the action is understood. If properly wired there is no way a short in one power district should cause the breaker to trip in another power district. Something is miswired somewhere. The fact that masco admits that he is somewhat confused makes this even more possible. Turn off all transformer handles. Then turn on only one handle. Now use a meter or lamp to see if you have power to ANY, ANY, Any other track. If you do you have a problem that needs fixing.
Al
I use the outside handles for power blocks and the inside handles for things like fixed voltage for switches, lighting, accessories, etc. There are actually 11 power blocks.
I wired the 3 silver houses onto 3 different postwar zw's, all to the right hand terminal handle. There are power blocks on the outside two terminals only. When both power blocks are on, a short in either block (accomplished by laying my pliers across the track rails) will kick the circuit breaker on the silver house immediately. This happens on 2 of the 3 zw's, but the last one doesn't trip the silver house except if the short is in the right hand terminal lead where the silver house is actually wired. If the pliers go on the rails in the power block on the left side without the silver house, it takes longer, but the zw circuit breaker kicks and the red zw light comes on. All are wired identical and EXACTLY like the instructions to the silver house says. I didn't know which way was correctly responding to the silver house since I have never used one before. Its important because one way I only need 5 silver houses and the other way I need 11. That's a lot of money. See why this is soooooo important to me to know which is correct?
Are the 3 ZW's in phase?
Jim D.
yes
The first two direct lockons you hooked up to one ZW each should not trip for both handles on the same ZW. This tells me your blocks are not isolated.
If it were me running all command I would put one set of wires from one handle of each of the ZWs to a direct lockon, from there spit the wires to what ever blocks you want on that transformer. All the handles on a PW ZWs draw power off of the same core so using two handles doesn't make any difference unless you are using different voltages for different blocks in which case you will need a direct lockon for each handle.
I wouldn't use a direct lockon for the handles you use for accessories and switches.
As was already said , make sure all the ZWs are in phase with each other.
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