Troubles

When I used my Marklin Track Cleaner car on the track I had problems.  The car tended to derail at the point where the wires had been soldered, and occasionally at other points. I tried filing down the wire and scraping away some of the excess rope calk at other problem spots.  It seemed like maybe I had pressed the track too far down into the caulk at some points.

But I never could get the Track Cleaner car to run perfectly.  I tried my Marklin Santa Fe locomotive and had some trouble with it too.  But the Denver & Rio Grande locomotive, the Smokey Bear GP35 locomotive and the undecorated GP35 locomotive all worked fine.

So I decided to go on.

I soldered the leads from the track to the oppositely located connectors of the phone jack and screwed it into place, then placed the layout into the briefcase.

I plugged in the power and the Denver & Rio Grande locomotive wouldn't run unless I jiggled the plug.  If I lifted the plug and held it, the engine ran fine.   I seemed to be having a short.  I loosened the phone jack, inverted it, and tightened it again. This time the engine would run fine.   Perhaps a slightly larger Forstner bit would have prevented the problem.