Recently purchased the MTH 30-6240 So. Crescent passenger cars. The coupler knuckles open when passing over the Lonel Fasttrack operating track section (6-12054) without either control buttons activated. Any solutions or advice?
Thanks
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Piece of black electrical tape on the bottom of the couplers ?
Sounds like the magnet is energized, but not fully because it would be melted by now. You could confirm that with a small piece of metal.
You might want to check your operating track before you melt it. Many people have damaged them from controllers that get stuck on.
Those MTH cars are not special and do not have operating shoes. They are normal magnetic style couplers indicating your magnet may be stuck on.
I had the same issue with mth cabooses. I believe the issue is the roller pick up is not beveled on the edges and wide enough so that it can contact middle rail and accessory rail at the same time on the track section. The accessory rails and the other rails appear to all be at the same height on fast track (different than a tubular track accessory section). The wiring on the fast track accessory section includes the accessory rail in series with the magnet and when the middle rail is shorted to one of the accessory rails it becomes active. The only solution I could come up was to attempt to bevel the roller edges , but I have not attempted it yet. I would love to hear a better solution from others.
Mike, this makes sense for two reasons: 1) there are 8 Lionel operating tracks on my layout, the MTH cars behave the same on all of them; 2) 95% of my rolling stock is Lionel, no problems running over the operating track sections. FWIW: this is the first batch of MTH rolling stock added to my collection, had not bumped into this issue before now. I too would like to hear from others that might have solved this riddle.
Al
