Working out the kinks

Over the winter, I could run two trains...kind of. The outer mainline could only run counterclockwise while the inside main could only run clockwise. If I changed directions, there were 3 or 4 spots - on each track! - where I would inevitably derail. So I spent some time working on the trouble spots over the weekend, focusing on them one at a time until eventually I was able to get the trains to run continuously, either direction, with only intermittent issues. Still seems like I might be getting some voltage drops along the line but I will wait on that issue.
Last night, while the trains were making their rounds, I spent some time reorganizing the car cards. Every time I had derail, I would first swap out cars to see if it was the track or the car. Over time, this lead to the matching car card to be in any box BUT the one representing the track where the car actually sat. I ended up needed to create some new cards too since I had built a half dozen freight cars over the Christmas break but forgot to create the cards.
While the train on the outer loop ran, I decided to try a switching job using the inner train which was facing Eastbound. The first issue is the switch leading into Herminie, another case where there is a slight gap in the point which can derail cars, The second issue appeared when I pulled the hoppers out of mine siding and the engine derailed - apparently the distance between the rails on the curve out of Herminie is just too much for the engine to handle, and this was my big RS-3 not the SW-1!
On a more positive note, switching LAS Fabrics in Greensburg went off with no problems but hand a couple derails going back to the Irwin Yard because this was the first time I had run several of these cars on the mainline.
Car Maintenance team is going to be extra busy this week!