Lionel says Cannot be done??

Peter Cazz posted:

So, the wire from black to black or Neutral to Neutral ( U ), however you want to refer to it, seems to be needed between both transformers obtain a common ground to have the Accessory Activation track make the accessory work.

You may have missed this connection in the diagram(circled in red) which is where that junction is made.

Yes indeed you are right. Good man picking that up! That is the same as connecting the two blacks (just to say) of the transformers together right? I mean common to the track and common to the transformer that is powering that track is the same.

The other thing I'm just not getting is with today's polarized outlet, and plugs unless something is not wired correctly if they are plugged into the same outlet and power strip how can they be out of phase and how can you flip the plug??

Lionel had some bricks a few years ago which were not wired uniformly. They supplied an adapter which allowed turning the plug around to fix the situation.

cjack posted:

Lionel had some bricks a few years ago which were not wired uniformly. They supplied an adapter which allowed turning the plug around to fix the situation.

This brick as stated was purchased last week new.

If you only knew how many times the "new" was actually old but new to the owner, or just plain new-old stock (NOS) 

A separate transformer also pretty much stops any lighting pulses if a heavy draw is put on the track.

Thinking that it could possibly be old I looked. It's 2017 so the old ones that had this phase issue were from way back in I believe it had to say 2000-48 or older.

I caught that Peter; just rambling a bit; it's my nature 

On the voltage, you either have a newer version, or a good one, 16v and my postwar version is very happy, at 14v he is indecisive.

Also possibly worth mention, some early ones had a light bulb under the base, and a hole directly under the lantern when the "blue man" left the shack. The lamp was less than perfect in  catching the lantern base real well. It took fiddling and bulb swaps(same #) to adjust well.  The lamp was removed, but the hole in the base remained. I think a narrow focus l.e.d. could breath some big life into this somewhat forgotten feature   Test the lantern for light catching ability first

by the way older gateman has a metal base and current runs thru as it it is not isolated. so if you are using the older lionel track make sure the metal ties do not make contact with gateman base.