DC wiring question: Atlas Twin

[Anonymous]

Hello all! I am at the stage of my first layout where I am trying to get the wiring finished. Question about the Atlas Twin. Since it has 2 directional positions and an off position, can I mount 3 of them serially and use each switch as a directional switch/off switch for each section of my layout? For example the first Twin powers the main loop and the reversing section, the second twin powers my mountain line and its reversing loop, and the third Twin powering a yard, but all wired serially with the power pack feed wires coming into the first Twin only?

The reason I ask is because I tried to do this, but my result is that the main loop works great if the other Twins are switched off, but when the others are switched on their is a major power loss. Even when the mountain line is powered by itself (all other switches in the off position), it has very little power (and I previously had that section powered directly by my power pack and it worked fine so their is no power loss due to bad track connections)

[MisterBeasley]

You should be able to do what you're trying to do. It sounds to me like you've got a major power drain on the mountain line. Does your main work OK when the Yard is powered on, but not the Mountain Line?

I would go back a step, and temporarily re-wire the Mountain Line directly to the power pack. What you're seeing is probably not simply bad track connections, since that wouldn't load down the rest of the system.

Also, is this the first time you've run all of these areas together? It may be that you just don't have a big enough power pack for all the tracks and multiple engines that you're trying to control.

[Anonymous]

thanks for the advice, I'll give that a try and see if it works!