I found some time to diagnose a persistent current drop that happens on the layouts swing bridge. Didn't seem to matter which locomotive I used, it would 'stall' at the west end of the bridge. (And freakishly, start up again a second or two later). Didn't matter if it was a 60 year old American Flyer or a brand new American Models locomotive, they'd just stop.
Soooo....I ripped out the old feeder wiring...and then discovered that the connectors on the other side of the terminal block were not tightly joined to the wire. I'd crimped them down, but they were still loose. Considering this was the first piece of wiring I installed, I'll chalk it up to OTJ 'learning'.
To fix it, I broke out the trusty soldering iron and soldered the wires to the connector rings and installed new feeder wires to replaced to the two I'd ripped out at the start of the exercise. Nice solid connections all the way to the track!
To test, I ran a Showcase lines SW-9 around a few times with nary a hesitation or other sign of the problem.
A celebratory "woot" is on order!
While I was at it, I banged down a rail joiner that was sitting too high and causing every wheel that struck it to bounce and clatter.
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