Hornby R8072 Turnout Shorting Layout.

[Smudge617]

Yesterday I had to replace an R8072 turnout, however, this new turnout causes a short on my (DCC) layout. I can see no obvious reason for it to do this. The original turnout had caused no problem on my layout apart from a few derailments caused by the small spring not holding the tiebar in place. This one is nearly new and was a spare I kept, there is nothing stuck between the rails and no damage that I can see. I will probably return this, but before I do, I wanted to ask if there was anything obvious I had missed.

[Chrissaf]

These short circuit faults on brand new Hornby points [turnouts] are very common, there are numerous posts raised on this forum about it.

The short circuit fault isn't visible because it is buried in the plastic below the frog area. The frog has two electrical rail bypass paths that cross-over each other within the plastic under the frog. There is a common manufacturing fault where the insulation between these two cross-over paths fails and is not found at the factory as part of any product testing. It cannot easily be repaired without destroying the point and the only realistic solution is complete replacement.