I haven't posted in 10 years. But like others, with Covid, I've gotten back into the hobby. My previous posts resulted in amazingly kind and helpful responses so I am very hopeful. I must say that I am fairly ignorant about electricity etc.
Anyway, I have a layout of about 35 feet of m-track (mostly very old), with a few feet of C-track mixed in.

Trains work great at the analog level. For digital, I disconnect from my analog transformer the wires from my feeder buss and ground (the buss feeds track at about 7 different points) and connect them to my mobile station. I get nothing... but when I connect those wires to my analog transformer, the analog trains run like a top.

So I pulled the Mobile station off the main layout, and attached it to a length of c-track. Digital locos run great! So I assume it is not equipment failure. Is there a short in my layout that doesn't bother analog, but defeats digital? Do my tracks need further cleaning? just getting my feet wet with digital, so all signals and switches are still analog.

I've searched various threads on the forum and haven't been able to find the answers. If it is a short, how can I find it? Do I have to break out the layout into blocks that correspond with my feeder tracks? Any insight you can provide would be immensely appreciated. Don't know anyone else that has marlkin trains here in Connecticut!

With many thanks...

Yes, I did exactly the same and thought I had a short, but as stated above it was capacitors in some of the feeder tracks. I've removed them and my trains run fine with my Mobile Station 2 on my m track layout. I'm sure it will fix your problem. The difficulty was for me digging the feeder tracks out of scenery to check whether or not they had a capacitor.
Here is the link to my discussion on this Forum:
Link to my layout
Good luck!

My money's with Steveknz's suggestion. Some M track feeder pieces have little capacitors between the studs and the rails. They are there as they helped with suppressing radio interference back in the old days.
They will effectively short out the digital signals and must not be there.
Assuming you are using proper track feeder sections then with seven feeds it's quite likely that at least one of them will have a suppression capacitor fitted.
I guess you'll have to unclip each feeder section and have a look underneath it.

If you have a multimeter that can measure capacitance then I suppose you could use it between ground and each power feed wire having disconnected the feed wires from the power buss. Any that show a value will likely have a capacitor underneath.
At least then you'll know which ones have to be lifted. This would probably be just as much hassle as lifting each feeder track though.

Found one feeder track with a capacitor.
Clipped the capacitor out... do I need to change the feeder track?
Looked like clipping the capacitor would do it.

Anyway, still no connection between my MS2 and the locomotives.
And analog running fine.
Will set to cleaning the track next. Checked the joints. All look good.
Any other ideas? Thanks for all your help.

Much appreciated.

Cheers,
Makistrain

will do.
thanks.

Sounds like a short but one that isn't triggering a shutdown on the MS. If you remove all items from the track that have a pick up shoe (locos and lit cars) and then disconnect the power supply an ohm meter test between the middle and outer rails the should show no continuity. Of there is continuity there is a short.

Regards,
Roger

I am thrilled to report that this will probably be my last post on this particular problem.. Everyone who chimed in was hugely helpful. After many deductive steps informed by fellow members of this forum, I finally resolved to connect directly to one feeder track, and not use the buss that was hosting 7 such feeds. That direct correction on an isolated section of track worked great, but when fully connected to the layout it did not work, but there was a buzz in a M track turnout that required attention. Things seemed to be working now.

So now I am going to do an entirely new buss. I can't see what is wrong with my current buss, but I just know there is something wrong and
I think a total replacement is a good place to go. I will connect feeders, one by one, to make sure it works with one feed, then another feed, etc. etc.


So things are looking up. Am installing a knife switch, to easily go from analog to digital. Hoping it will work out as I do like to operate now in both modes... (not at the same time of course).

Many many thanks to the people who weighed in. Hope I can someday be as helpful to others on this forum as they have been to me.
Bottomline, it took my off and on attention for over 10 years to sort this out, but I'm glad I stuck with it.
And am grateful for this forum.


Thanks Guys!








It worked.