My Lionel J1a has difficulty going over Lionel 072 switches. Will either pause when going over one, or always derails when going over another one. It is the front driver that derails, the front truck makes it over OK. Any thoughts on what causes this. My other locomotives do not seem to have any problems with these same switches.
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JDA: Your engine has a very long rigid wheel-base which will highlight any track "issues". The newer Lionel 0-72 turnouts are not the same quality piece that the original Lionel Corporation built back in the 40's & 50's. The newer production units from the 80's onward are "clunky" at best; some of the rails are higher than others. Sometimes the center rail forward of the frog is higher than it should be.
The only way to figure out what is happening and thus fix the issue is to run the engine very slowly into the offending part of the turnout and watch carefully what is actually starting the derailment sequence. Once you figure out what piece is the culprit, you may be able to take steps to rectify the issue.
Another possibility may be the actual gauge of the front flanged driver set; it could be too narrow or too wide which is a whole different can of worms. If you can get us some pictures close-up, various people on this site may be able to help you investigate. Good luck chasing this down.
JD, I have eight Lionel modern 072 switches on my layout, all on Lionel trestle bents. I have had to modify them all in one way or another so that all my engines navigate them without problem.
Carefully observe where, when and how this is happening (easy using TMCC) and then bend, file, shim, dremel until the fault is corrected. Take it slow. It does work.
The modern switches are cheap (not costwise) copies of the vastly superior prewar 072 switches. Too much slop and too cheap materials resulted in a less than steller piece that had to be pretty exact to work consistently and properly. Not Lionel's finest hour.
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