Hi, Chuck...

In my experience you have three choices...

1. Use the transition pieces for Lionel Tubular to FasTrack and then another transition piece to whatever brand of track you like.
2. Make your own transition track between the FasTrack bumper track and your brand.
3. Carefully remove the lighted bumper from the FasTrack and affix it to an end piece of your track.

Personally, I think #3 will give you the best results.  I don't like how the transition looks between FasTrack and other types/brands.  I use FasTrack on my layouts.

Hello back to you Eric,

Thanks for your response, I understand the first choice, but never thought of third choice which in my mind would be much better. but I'm not electrican and might screw it up. There is way I am now.

Note that the Fastrack lighted bumpers are a pretty flaky product, and transplanting just the bumper part to anything will almost surely result in a non-working bumper.  I posted a thread some time back on these being the lousiest Fastrack accessory ever, they are really a poor design!

1. Carefully remove the lighted bumper from the FasTrack and affix it to an end piece of your track. 

Personally, I think #3 will give you the best results.  I don't like how the transition looks between FasTrack and other types/brands.

Why botherwith all that work? Just purchase the MPC scale lighted bumpers and sell off the fastrack bumpers!

Sounds right to me, I wouldn't try to modify the Fastrack ones.  All four of mine required modification just to light!

John is usually right about these things.  I never had a problem with my bumpers but then I never tried the modification I suggested either.

As I recall though, they aren't all that expensive and an experiment might be worthwhile - especially if you like how they look.

Here's the previous thread and why I make the statements I do.

My vote for the worst design of a Lionel Fastrack Item

Well, look at it this way.  They're not on your layout working now.  If you do screw them up, they're still not on your layout working. You're not out anything:  They were free.  Just my two cents.

That is pretty much where I was coming from.  Unless money is really tight, it might be a good learning opportunity to take them apart.

John...

Thanks for posting that link.  I had forgotten that thread but now I remember.

The design of the connection to the LED and track is so tenuous that I wonder if taking that off and trying to transplant it wouldn't totally break it.  Mine all have #32 wire-wrap wire running under the framework to light the LED.  While I was modifying it, I added a diode to protect the LED from reverse voltage since the peak of 20+ volts reverse voltage with 18V track voltage far exceeds the LED max reverse voltage spec.

Hi ya,

Well, here's what I'll do then, 'put em back' in their box and either sell em cheap or sit on my shelve in the train room. I'm not goin to waste precious energy on stuff that either costs or not to have work on my layout that is aways stuff to do to enhance designs.  However, thanks for these ideas. 

I have several of these and so far they are still working. If the light does fail I can still use them as bumpers. For me that is their main purpose anyway.

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your response, yes that was originally what I was planning to do, only I'm up in the air of making a hill into a mountain type of task, so I'm planning now to hang it up and put these four bumpers on the shelve for now.  Again, thanks for your input.  Chuckg

I use them on sidings, and I like to be able to see if the siding is powered, so that's my "pilot light".

Besides, if I buy a lighted bumper, I expect the stupid thing to light!

I have some and love them. The only problem I found with them is if you use them on a carpet layout, the connection to the next track gets loose and they'll fail to light, but I have that problem with all FasTrack that has multiple cycles of connect/disconnect.  When I made a simple under bed layout, I used them again, but modified them to be lit with the accessory port of my CW-80 along with the uncouplers and lighted buildings.  I'm no good with electrical stuff, but modifying them was straight forward enough and have never had a problem with them since.

My problems with them always stems from the low class way they connected the actual LED's to the struts that carry the power up, that's just a very poor design.