Learning about turnouts

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NY Central #1906 steaming down the mainline

I have two #6 turnouts and a double crossover in my first layout. I thought the #6 turnouts we're non-power routing based on my reading. But the first attempt layout proved that wrong. 

With a power routing turnout, the track in the direction of the turnout's setting is powered, and in the other branch, non-powered. When the turnout is toggled, power is moved to the other branch, and the previously powered branch is now non-powered.

I learned this multiple ways. First, I thought my dual loop layout could be powered by a single piece of terminal track powering the entire layout. The layout is small, so I thought that would be good enough. However, the power routing turnouts and crossover break current in the non-powered direction. So, initially only one of my loops worked.

Second, the initial layout had a second spur leading off the first. But without a power connection on that spur, it would always be dead. 

Third, attempting to run a loco over a power routing turnout when it is closed causes a short circuit. This was startling the first time it happened. My controller started beeping and announced there was a track fault. I didn't know what to do. Fortunately, it has short circuit protection, shut itself off, and no harm done.

The reconfigured layout fixes these problems. It has two terminal connections, one for each loop. The two spurs are powered off the inner loop.


While this configuration won't work well when there are multiple locos (more power connections will be needed), it's fine with a single loco. A feature that I like is that the illuminated bumpers at the end of each spur light when that spur is powered.

Here's what running a train on the current layout looks like. The current layout represents 1.4 km of track at full scale.

Running trains (full video)

One fun thing is that the uncoupler works and one can uncouple and recouple remotely, without hand of God intervention!
 
Remote recoupling (full video)

Next up is to create a DCC turnout decoder for remote control of the turnouts and crossover. Cheers.

Remote uncoupling (full video)



Hank
blogger post uploaded from email

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