Wiring Question

[marxalot]

I have an elongated oval of Gargraves track and have been running for a few days. I had two Curtis left turnouts which I placed in the oval. One at the upper right and one at the lower left. These have all center rails connected together. I then ran some Lionel rail between these turnouts forming a reversing loop. The power to the track is at the lower center of the oval. What is happening is that a train entering the Lionel track only proceeds until the last trucks of the last car clear the main line. Measuring voltage I see where we have nothing on the Lionel tracks unless there is a car or something to connect the two isolated outer rails of the Gargraves mainline together. Okay with wood ties etc. these are indeed isolated rails.... my question is: Is there a preferred way to correct this matter? I can see where a jumper or maybe another power feed to the Lionel portion of rail would solve the problem.... thanks for your time.


Jim

[lionelsoni]

I'm not familiar with Curtis switches; but my guess is that the outside straight rail is isolated from the rest of the switch. If you happened to feed the track on the Gargraves portion and connected only to that rail, then both of the Lionel outside rails would be fed from the other Gargraves outside rail, which would be connected to the transformer only when there is an axle on the Gargraves track, which would cause the symptom you described. The easiest fix would be to connect both of the Gargraves rails to the feed from the transformer.

[Anonymous]

Hi, can I run two seperate oval HO tracks from one power source..i.e. I want to run one train set in one direction on one track and connect the second track oval from the railer terminal track? I would reverse the connection from the first railer so I hope one train goes one way and the other train goes in the opposite direction. How do I connect to power source and last question...can I place resisters on the tracks to make the train speed up and slow down without adjusting the power source..

[Anonymous]

Perhaps I misunderstand and this doesn't apply to your track configuration, but power does not flow through Curtis and Ross turnouts---you need to connect power to the other side of the turnout.

[Roger Bielen]

If the Curtis switches are like Ross it may be necessary to add some jumpers on the underside tieing the rails together. I don't know the pattern off hand, but I remember "prewired" being an option when I bought my Ross's several years back.

[phillyreading]

If the Curtis switches are like GarGraves switches you lose one outside rail power at both outgoing ends of the switch and have to provide an additional source of power.
Also on large layouts you should add helper wires to give the layout proper voltage all the way around.
Lee in West Palm Beach.

[lionelsoni]

Wonderfulme, yes, you can simply swap the connections to the rails to reverse the direction on the second loop. And you can control speed with a resistor in series with the connection to the track. In fact, this is the way it was always done in the past, using a constant 12-volt DC supply and a rheostat, or variable resistor.

You will get better HO advice on the Model Railroader forum. This forum is for toy trains, like Lionel and American Flyer, mostly AC and often three-rail.

[marxalot]

Thanks. The Curtis turnouts do need that jumper for the outside rails. I can see where the center rail is jumpered through the switch but that is not the problem. We're up and reversing!

Jim