New to forum so if I posted this in the wrong place, apologies in advance. I ordered a new O36 switch and hooked it up to the train set and the switch worked great for about 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, the switch no longer switches between straight and alternate routes. The remote and switch lights up but but only red and when I pull the lever in either direction it no longer swiches the track or changes the light color to green (though the bulbs do work). Before I return this, is there something simple I may be missing like a reset, a short, etc.? I don't see anything in the manual that addresses this issue. As a side note, I don't have any track connected to the switch for the alternate route yet but I didn't have any when it was working either. Thoughts?
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Its likely a "limit switch" in need of adjustment or possibly a jammed mechanism. In either case it involves removing the bottom cover and doing a bit of tinkering.
Depending on what your comfortable with it may be easier to exchange it since its new.
Can you switch it back manually by turning the lantern?
Also, did you try manually moving the switch points from curved to straight or vise-versa to see if that resets it? Sometimes, if the points get stopped from making their full travel, they can get caught in an in-between dead mode.
With the newer Lionel switches don't turn the lantern unless you want to break the switch motor, there should be a small lever somewhere on the motor housing, look in the directions. At least that's the case with the 6-23010 series switches in O gauge.
Lee Fritz
Do you have a train car sitting near the switch? It could be that the car is causing the ant-derail to engauge and stay.
With the newer Lionel switches don't turn the lantern unless you want to break the switch motor, there should be a small lever somewhere on the motor housing, look in the directions. At least that's the case with the 6-23010 series switches in O gauge.
Lee Fritz
There is no lever on Fastrack switches and turning the lantern is the correct way to manually switch them.