Not computers, but you folks are probably pretty smart. [View all]

We're trying to revive my husband's train for our 7 & 8 year old grandsons. We paid big bucks to have everything refurbished. Our problem was that the power would only light the lights faintly, make a faint noise, and no motion. We took it to the train store, and, of course, it worked fine on one piece of track. We brought it home, made a circle, and had the same problem. So we added pieces of track one at a time. It worked until it didn't. The piece of track that caused the failure had the 1/8 inch tip broken off of one of the pins. How could that cause the problem. Note also that when the train did not run, the wires and the terminals got quite hot when it was turned on to faint light.

So our problem is solved, but the mystery isn't. Can anyone tell me what's going on?

tia
las