Last night I was happily running trains, lots of them. On track one, I had two Lionel TMCC locomotives being controlled off one Cab-1. Each freight train had a lighted caboose, one also had an MTH dummy unit, with lights on. Smoke units were not on on either diesel. There was a Powermaster in the circuit as well. Transformer a post-war ZW. Both trains had made numerous loops, at a slow speed, when they suddenly stopped. No derailments found. Fuse OK in Powermaster cord. ZW circuit breaker had not tripped (not that I would expect it to with the 8 amp in-line fuse). Tracing the wires, I found the lockon had melted around the strip to the middle rail. See photos. It was an older Marx lockon. I wondered if perhaps a strand of wire had shorted across, but thought I would post to see if others have ideas. I replaced the lockon, again with a Marx one, and operations resumed without difficulty. You can see the post-lockon replacement operations over on "Weekend at the Movies" in the main 0-27, O, tinplate section.
Thanks for any thoughts and comments.
