When I turn on my transformer the red short light comes on indicating a short.
I do not have any trains on the track.
How do you find the short on the track?
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This is why you need lots of blocks on toggles so as to isolate for problem solving,
If no blocks hopefully you are sectional and you can disconnect various portions of track.
Always check for strands of stranded wire reaching beyond the intended post for adjacent terminal shorts.
Need lots more detailed info
If the red light comes on immediately without cycling the thermal breaker on a typical postwar transformer(V,Z,VW,ZW,KW,R,RW etc.) it is usually a failed circuit breaker.
Frank: what kind of track???
If it's tubular the most common reason is that one, or more I suppose, piece has the insulating material on the center rail compromised. There's not any real easy way to determine which piece it is, at least in my experiences.
Break your trackage into sections and test each section until you find which section is the problem area. Then keep whittling it down until you find the problem piece of track.
Warning: if it is the insulating piece it can be intermittent too. Sometimes it will only happen when there's no weight on the piece of track and sometimes it will happen only when there is a train piece on it. Worse, sometimes just shifting the piece can kick it in, or off.
Good luck with this very tedious process!
- walt
Trouble shoot.
(1.) Do an extensive visual check of all track involved. A lot of times something has fallen off and is causing the short. Also look for black burn marks that may indicate unusual electrical activity.
(2.) Disconnect all wires from the transformer. Turn the transformer on and check each track circuit. That should eliminate a transformer problem.
After re-attaching track to transformer leads.
(3.) A two handle transformer check one then the other. That should eliminate 1/2 of the area to look for a problem.
(4.) Work from primary terminal strips to different track areas. Eventually you should determine the short/fault area.
(5.) Worst case you end up tearing the track apart, but do it systematically. Example: split a loop in half, then quarters, etc. testing each isolated section for the short/fault.
Best wishes
Mike CT
If you have changed or added anything electrical, that is the first place I'd look.
