I was playing with some M-track inclines in analog mode lately, and came across the age old traction issues going up the ramps. My inclines are based on the Marklin gleisplanbuch, at 2% with enough space for catenaries at the highest point.

I checked the usual..
- locomotives were all recently maintained, no issue there.
- traction tires: ok, nice and tight.
- clean tracks: ok, but gave another go at cleaning with isopropyl alcohol. Removed spots of rust here and there with the finest sanding paper I have.
- connection between tracks: locomotive lights flickered going over a couple of spots: adjusted the middle contacts, cleaned and adjusted the fishplates

After all this the performance was the same... some locos went up faster than other, but this was normal, but all of then nearly ground to a halt at some point.

I decided to change the radius used from R1 to R2, thinking the tight radius might cause this, treating my 5200 track pieces as above, with the same result.

I searched the forum and the internet for a solution but couldn't find anything I hadn't tried.

In a last resort, I decided to add a feeder track to the ramp,

Problem solved! I was over 2 meter away from the nearest feeder track, so the locomotives not only struggled with the ramp, but also with getting adequate power...

I am pretty sure I could have saved myself a few hours, had I thought about this earlier in the process, however, this is never mentioned, so this might help a few other people.

From now on, one feeder track every 2m or every 10 5106 will be my rule.

Exactly what I have found as well. A good power bus with a lot of connections solves so many problems. For me it was all of the expected ones plus unexpectedly fixing the strange sound sync problems my old 2001 Big Boy had.

Everything on your layout needs adequate power and even more importantly good digital communications to work properly. Once the old school wiring is done correctly you will be amazed at how much better everything else works. The benefit is even greater with M track, which has less robust electrical connectors between track pieces.

Yes Deepak, you have this right!

In fact even denser supplies are always advisable.
But you don't have to run 50 connections from one central supply point!!
Very simply you could run two strands a bare copper wires ( e.g. 2 mm2 or bigger in section ) all along (underneath) the layout, them make local connections every 10 pieces of track
The point to understand here is that each track connection is an added (electrical) resistance between the CS and the loco.
The large section of copper will "bridge" all these added "resistances".

Have fun with your layout, you will never enjoy it better than after wiring it that way!

Cheers

Jacques

Information from an Electrical Engineer and Marklin friend of mine checks all "M" tracks for Ground, continuity, and resistance across ground and power strip.
With age some "M" tracks brake down and reduce power supply to Loco's. Extra power strips are just a patch and bad track puts extra current draw on the power supply.

I hope this is of some help.

Woody