The set came with two passenger cars and the engine seems to be able to pull those up a 3% grade. 

You say, "I am assuming, from your 'addendum', that you did screw the two exposed wires together to make the frog live." 

Well, the switches came in the add-on track set and they came with no instructions at all.  I am a total noob here and don't even know what a "frog" is.  If I look on the bottom of a switch, most is covered with a metal plate but at the end of the curved section, there's an uncovered bit with two red wires, each attached to a screw terminal and leading back under the base cover.  Are these the "exposed wires" I should join?

Thanks for your help here.

Thanks.  Since I live near Philly, I'm thinking of taking the turnouts to Bachmann and having them check them out.  Meanwhile, I'm designing a "paper-clip" layout with one pass-over and no turnouts.

They have a page?  I cannot find it by searching on bachmann or on trains.

I have not been able to find a Bachmann trains group on Facebook.  Later today (1/7/2013) I'll start an open group and anyone will be able to join.  OTOH if there is one, someone please point me.

Good chugging!  (And hooray for early steam.)

So I put together the recommended layout from the track pack.  At the moment I'm using the switches manually; they're unwired.

The tiny engine from the early steam blue B&O set hesitates or stalls on each switch.  I can often get through the switch by running rather fast, but then the engine or tender is likely to derail.  I did double check that the tracks are properly joined both by the "finger test" and with a magnifying glass.

Many on-line forums suggest that the switches need "tweaking" -- but I have no idea how to do this.

h e l p   please

<<addendum -- does the same thing powered>>

So, I just got the blue B&O passenger N-gauge train set.  What would be a freight set (or individual engine & cars) that would be the same period as the blue set?