lionel 3-conductor wire

[Anonymous]

Help, Help, Help:

I have checked just about every lionel train site looking for the 3-conductor wire than is used between the controllers & the remote switches. I am just getting back into model railroading, (kids are all gone - I'm sure you have heard that already!), and have realized that all my wires have dry-rotted.

I noticed that the wires are 7 strand; which equates to 22 gauge wire. I checked at my local Home Depot & they have 22 gauge-4 conductor wire used for home intercom systems. This comes in a gray, round jacket.

My question is: can I used this as a replacement ?

Thanks,
Tom

[Jim Duda]

Check out www.ttender.com and write Jeff Kane at [e-mail] if you absolutely gotta have "original looking" switch wire; otherwise, it seems to me that wire is wire and you could use the Home Depot 4 conductor stuff - just peel of the 4th wire or just snip it off short.

Jim Duda

[Dr.Fu-Manchu]

Dr.Fu-Manchu, The Train Guy Chipping in: The wire you are looking for is being offered
by most parts dealers. Olsen's toy train parts is one dealer, others have ads in CTT.
Just take a look in the issues. Or find a Lionel dealer that does repairs and see if they
will sell you some.
Best of luck!

[lionelsoni]

It seems to me that you aren't interested in restoring the switches, but just making them work. In that case, almost any kind of wire will do, although I wouldn't go smaller than about AWG24.

Some other considerations:

For a permanent installation, the flexibility of stranded wire is no advantage; and solid wire is easier to keep secure on the binding posts. My favorite is thermostat cable, which you can get with up to 10 conductors. You can use it as a cable where appropriate, or strip off the jacket to get individual wires in a variety of colors.

One of the wires is a common and actually connected to the running rails; so, if you are setting up a layout, it might be simpler to make that connection directly between the transformer and the controllers, with only 2 wires to each switch.

There are often situations on a layout where a pair of switches will always be thrown in unison, like a crossover or a double-ended siding. You can simply wire such a pair in parallel to a single controller and save wiring and operating effort.

[Boxcar Bill]

check out Train-o-rama, their email address [e-mail]