More Than I bargained For

After posting my published articles to the website I finished the painting of the engine cab roofs and placed all of the engines back on the layout.

While I had all of the engines out of the roundhouse I decided to take the roof off and clean the tracks.  (I had been having some power issues lately in the roundhouse.)  During the process of getting the roof off and cleaning the track I managed to break a few of the glue joints.  So they had to be repaired.

While I was waiting for the glue to dry I decided to work on the three way switch in Hood.  It had been giving electrical problems for the last two sessions.  While moving through the yard the engine stalled on the passenger one to passenger two switch.  Nothing I did would correct the problem.  It looked like the point rails were not making good contact and I would probably need to go to the larger diameter throw rod.  But that would be quite a job.  So I marked it and moved on to the three way.

The three way was consistent and was another case of the point rails not getting good electrical contact.  And again nothing I did seemed to matter.  I then noticed that the point rail joint was failing and needed to be replaced.  Now this was not going to be a walk in the park!  I did manage to get the old one out.  But getting the new one (which was a standard Walthers rail joint) back in took a lot of force.  (The as delivered rail joint is shorter and more open than a standard Walthers rail joint.)  Applying force without destroying the three way was also no easy task.  But I did get it back together.  However now the point rails would not move.  The new rail joiner was too tight and needed to be expanded.  After several tries I got it so the point rails would move and close in both directions.  And luckily it had good electrical contact.

Back in White Hall I looked the the problem switch there a little more and determine it was out of gauge.  The gauge was too tight and so I started bending the rail until it came into specs.  But it still took a spike inside the rail between it and the points to get everything in spec.  And now the switch seems to be working electrically also.

That is until the next session.