Those are great.  But a kid might want a 300 mile an hour slot car.🫨😱🫣😂

The OP has hit the truth button.  EZ track is basically toy train track that a kid can put together and is stable enough when connected to work under a Christmas tree, neither of which apply to standard Model Railroad sectional track or flex track. 

Repeating what Jeffrey ward said, this is not a DIY hobby, he said it very well about quality vs expense. Model railroads have hundreds of pieces of parts and any one of them can be a problem.

There are hobbies that have no intrinsic maintenance issues and those are good for people that don't want to handle them.

Combining slot cars with Model Railroads was a fad back in the mid 60s that didn't last very long.  I'm not sure why it didn't last but as far as serious model railroads go there wasn't anything very realistic about it. 

There was, however, tremendous play value for kids. I think the biggest bugaboo was grade crossings which had to be a special section, combining both the road and the railroad allowing for the slot and for two entirely separate electrical systems crossing each other.  If you could even find this piece, merging it into an EZ track system is going to present challenges for certain.

I don't remember who made all that stuff, but I believe that Atlas had made some of the pieces you need.  They are still in business, but I really doubt if they have anything around after all this time.  It's been so long ago that you probably won't find much of anything on the Internet about this, and it may be hard to find the items related to this on online auctions. Good luck.

Len's video was one of the best I've seen on YouTube. The guy is competent, he doesn't ramble, and gets to the point..... unlike a lot of swell headed self-appointed windbag experts that appear too often.

Then a weak point spring appears to be the issue.  I have had that problem on one particular number 5 Bachmann switch on my layout.  The only problem is that my switch is completely buried in ballast and scenery so I can't flip it over to work underneath.  With a finished situation like mine, I need to install some kind of external switch stand to hold the points of the switch in place. The only problem is that there's no good place on the Bachmann throw bar to secure it.  As a result, when I'm switching this particular spur, I have to very carefully check the point to make sure it's secure against the stock rail.  It's kind of an aggravation but it's a lot better than ripping the whole thing out to service below.

That looks like a very nice complete starter package . 

Historically freight cars had 33 inch wheels and passenger cars had 36 inch wheels.  Modern freight cars added more variables as per the post further back.

Let's get a report after all track and all wheelsets are checked with an NMRA gauge.  Let's also hear if any cars have truck mounted couplers and/or plastic wheels.  The type of car doesn't matter, the wheels and couplers do.  If one car is making it and others aren't, the problem is probably mostly with the cars.  It could be the weight of the cars, they may be too light.  Google NMRA recommended car weight.

This discussion is getting circular. We're saying the same things over and over again.  We need some harder information to solve the problem.

If you have any cars with truck mounted couplers, they will be contributing to your problem. If you have any cars with oversize flanges on the wheel (as per a NMRA gauge), they will be contributing to the problem.  If you have any coupler trip pins hanging too low, they will be contributing to the problem.  If you have wheel sets that are gauged too wide or too narrow, they can be contributing to the problem as well, especially if they enter a stretch of track whose gauge is also in error such that when combined, the summation of the two problems allow derailment.

Plastic wheels pick up track imperfections a lot more easily than metal wheels. If the offending car has plastic wheels, replace with metal.

Now, to the track switch.  The very beginning of the point rail where it meets the stock rail may be too sharp and pointed and picking at wheels and needs to be filed slightly. Look for the video that shows you how to do this. The same thing with the frog, if that's where the problem is happening, the point of the frog may be misshapen.  You need to check the gauge of the track itself through the entire track switch.  Sometimes the point rails aren't bent 100% correctly and will be out of gauge.  This has happened to me more than it should have, making wheels either jump the rail if it's too narrow or drop down if it's too wide.   For you to be having a such a global problem with derailments, I would suspect that everything I've mentioned above is causing one thing or another to fail.

If you don't know what of these railroad terms mean, you need to look them up so you know what they mean so we can have a sensible, accurate, and efficient discussion about this.

I am certain that I have not possibly picked up on every potential issue that could be lurking in your Railroad. If others find that I've missed something, please post.

All of this is part of your Model Railroad education.  It is not a turnkey pastime.  These little trains are demanding and fussy in multiple dimensions that make themselves known as you learn things.  I've been doing this almost 60 years and I still get at least an aggravation or two a day.

YouTube has multiple videos about servicing tracks that suffer derailments.  As you would guess, there are multiple issues that can occur and multiple places with the tracking with the cars.  I would do a little research with those videos first

This forum is dedicated to the discussion of Bachmann products so it wouldn't be proper to mention systems by other vendors. Bachmann does offer a more advanced DCC system, but since I don't use it, I can't recall its name, maybe someone else can posted here.  You can go online and find discussions that compare different DCC systems to each other.

It could be the cars, it could be the switchpoints, it could be the switch frogs.  The question is way too generalized to answer well.

You need to do some detective work to analyze the problem and try to identify where these derailments are consistently happening. Is it the same car every time? It might be the car, with any of a multitude of issues associated.  If it's not consistent with the same cars it might be the track.  But where on the switch is the problem happening. Is it where the swiveling point rail touches the stock rail? Or is it where the two rails cross each other at an assembly called a frog?  You need to watch it analytically and narrow things down before we can help you much. I will say that I'm pretty sure there are a few hundred videos on YouTube about this so you might peruse and see what comes up.

If you have an EZ command, your locomotive is DCC equipped, meaning that there is a decoder in either your locomotive or the tender that is controlling everything.  Since some of the functions work, we know you have track power.

I'd be pretty sure that the problem is stemming from either of two possibilities.  1.  A broken wire somewhere supplying power to the motor. Or, 2. DCC motor control values incorrectly set.

DCC operates by a number of parameters within the decoder that are called control values , or CV's. There are probably a couple hundred in this engine. The fact that a number of functions in your engine are working means that at least some of them are set correctly. If I'm not mistaken, there are four CVs directly affect motor control and they could have been inadvertently improperly set to an incorrect value.

With an advanced DCC system, these values are easily checked in corrected, but the EZ command is not an advanced system, it is a DCC version of the old train set transformer, just basically makes the train go and stop, with a few sounds added.  To check these values you'll need to find a Model Railroad somewhere that operates with Advanced DCC and have the those values checked on the programming track, which of course you don't have.

You might need to send the locomotive back the Bachmann Service department if you have no other alternatives. You can call them, they are friendly and accommodating, and have served me well over the years.

I agree when you decide to go DCC/sound you should buy a locomotive already equipped, instead of struggling with all the unknowns involved with decoder and the speaker installation when you're just starting out in the hobby ..... stuff that gives fits to even more advanced modelers. You can then run your train, and work on the other engine at your leisure. 

The first thing is that it's 99% certain that, unless any of those trains are very large scale toys from the 1930s or so, they are worth very little.  The myth persists that old toy trains are worth their weight in  gold and it is generally false.  Very few of the truly collectible toys from the 1930s are in circulation anymore, they've mostly entered collections.

Bachmann is only one of many vendors that sold Model trains over the years and the odds are that your stuff is spread out over many, many vendors, with numbers of them certainly out of business today.  Even photographs might prove not very useful in identification. 

One thing that is certain is that the rubber band drive engines are by Athearn.  The rubber band drive was a failed experiment in train set economy in the early 1960s.  The rubber bands did not last long and once they broke, most of those engines ended up in the trash.  They are hardly worth anything at all today.  Even when operable, they were not suited to serious model railroading, they were made to go very fast to entertain children.

I don't know how much stuff you have, but your best bet is to personally be in touch with some veteran Model Railroader who can help you identify everything and see if there's any value to any of it.  Maybe you can go to a train show somewhere and inquire around.  Train shows are always full of individuals selling assorted old low value stuff just like you have, the only difference is that they know what it's worth, which isn't very much so the prices are low, sometimes $2 to $5 a car at best.

I'm truly sorry having to be the bearer of negativity, but I believe this is what you're looking at.

Quote from: BobZ on December 09, 2024, 08:30:03 AMI just did a search on ebay and found them. HO Scale Oil Bunkers for Model Train Railroad by Century Foundry (2101). 4 in a pack for $11. Check them out.

If I'm not mistaken, those look more like 5 gallon oil cans rather than a tender oil bunker.