I'm new to model railroading and have been planning an HO layout that is an oval shaped configuration of approximately 115 feet. I am planning on running two separate oval tracks (230 total feet) in this layout, each track with two turnouts. My ultimate plan is to be able to run four locomotives (two per track) but only one per track at a time.
My question is with regard to power. What size power pack would be optimal for each track to run the locomotives and/or should I get a large transformer that can run two tracks? I will also be power some lighting accessories as well as the turnouts. Additionally, for a track that long, are there any special wiring requirements (I've read the term feeder wires in some posts but not sure if that is applicable) not common to a typical package layout that you would find in a store bought train set?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Glen - Illinois
Welcome to the forums and to model railroading.
I'm jelous of your space.
Now for your question. Need a bit more information for a more accurate answer, but I can get you started. Are you going to be using DC or DCC power? Makes a difference on how the whole layout will be ultimately answered.
I will try to answer some of your question. Feeder wires are the smaller wires connected to the track, usually from a larger wire below. If you have one set of wires from the power pack to the track it will work. However, on a large loop, such as yours, the further you go from the connection there will be power loss and your train will slow down or otherwize not perform as well. To correct this power loss, run a heavier wire (14 ga) along under the layout and connect feeder wires at several locations along the way. Most recommendations are every 3 - 6 feet depending on your track and number of rail joiners you have. If you only wanted to run two trains, one on each loop a reasonable (larger than what comes with a set) power pack should do you well in DC. You can then divide your loop into blocks if you wish.
I would suggest getting a wiring book, as both DC and DCC have different requirements. You can wire so you can convert, but on a layout the size of yours I would think you would want to make your selection before you get started.
Some DCC folks can chime in and add some of the power blocks they deal with.
Good luck,
Richard
RIchard, thanks so much for your post. I am planning to run two trains per track, but only one at any given time so I'm thinking simple DC power should work fine. The other train on each track would be parked off of a turnout. Although my layout area is large, my compromise is that the actual layout will be on an elevated 1" x 8" that will go aroung the room so the total track space is limited. It should give me enough space to run two tracks and a third run-off track in two designated straight areas per track to park the second trains. The corners will be framed out with a 1" x 12" to allow some buildings/ accessories and in a couple of areas on the straights where there is not a third turn-out track I plan to inistall some decorative platforms. The balance of the straights will contain landscape mateials to replicate a long cross country rail.
I am planning to use 3' section Atlas Code 100 flex track for the layout so there will be roughly 35-40 pairs of rail joiners per track. Does the requirement of feeder wires become reduced or eliminated if I solder the connections? Also is there a specific voltage power pack i should be looking at and is it better to have one per track or one that will power both tracks?
Thanks again for your help.
Glen
Thanks for your post Bob. I would certainly love to do a more intricate layout, however my actual layout space is limited. Althought the track will be relatively long at 115 feet, the layout area is only 8" wide. My compromise is that the track will go aroung the entire room on an elevated 1" x 8" board so I will have very little room to do anything other than run a couple of tracks with some turn outs to park a second train for each track. I will frame the corners with 1" x 12"s where I can install some buildings/accessories and I plan to add a couple of platforms on the long straights where there are no turno outs. Other than that, I will apply some landscape material to replicate a cross-country rail journey.
I certainly welome your thoughts.
Thanks,
It isn't the length of the track, it's the number of locomotives. The power pack furnishes the same power to the locomotive whether it's close or far.
So how much power does a locomotive take? In HO, new locomotives take less than 1/2 amp and old locomotives may take 1 amp. To power a double headed train, a power supply that can furnish two amps will work fine. Any MRC power pack will have enough output to power a pair of locomotives.
For a layout that large, you cannot rely on the track by itself to carry the current. Although the rail is quite conductive, the rail joiners do not make dependable electrical contact, especially after a few years of oxidation. You have to run a pair of wires (a buss) around the layout and solder feeder wires from the buss wires to the rail every so often. Ideally you run feeders to each and every piece of track. In practice running feeders to every other piece of track is enough. Use 3 foot flex track and that comes out to a feeder every six feet.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
dstarr It isn't the length of the track, it's the number of locomotives. The power pack furnishes the same power to the locomotive whether it's close or far. So how much power does a locomotive take? In HO, new locomotives take less than 1/2 amp and old locomotives may take 1 amp. To power a double headed train, a power supply that can furnish two amps will work fine. Any MRC power pack will have enough output to power a pair of locomotives. For a layout that large, you cannot rely on the track by itself to carry the current. Although the rail is quite conductive, the rail joiners do not make dependable electrical contact, especially after a few years of oxidation. You have to run a pair of wires (a buss) around the layout and solder feeder wires from the buss wires to the rail every so often. Ideally you run feeders to each and every piece of track. In practice running feeders to every other piece of track is enough. Use 3 foot flex track and that comes out to a feeder every six feet.
Dstarr,
Thanks for your reply. Do I still solder all the rail joiners if I run feeders every six feet or perhaps every other set of joiners (6 feet increments)?
At a 115 feet, you will definitely need a bus line and feeders. I can't explain the technical reasons, but the track loses its ability to conduct electricity after so many feet, whereas the current seems to travel down the bus line with less resistance and provides better power to the rails. As an experiment, when building my current layout, I soldered my 45 ft length of track together and hooked up only two wires at one end. My DC locos began to slow down noticeably at about 25 foot mark. I decided a feeder about every 10 to 12 feet would work and I have had no problems with that spacing. If you end up going Digital you'll probably want to install more feeders since the digital stuff demands a cleaner signal, said my cable guy.
You may want to leave some sections in between the feeders unsoldered and gapped a bit, in case you do have some minor expansion of the structure.
- Douglas
Ahh yes, the solder-the-rail-joiners controversy. Some people solder all the rail joiners, others solder most joiners but leave a few unsoldered, some solder only the rail joiners on curves, and some don't solder any rail joiners. If you do a "search our community" you ought to turn up long threads on to solder or not to solder rail joiners.
In principle, if you solder all the rail joiners, the track will carry all the current. The rail is fairly sizable and nickel silver is pretty conductive, not quite as good as pure copper, but better than iron. In practice this never quite works out. For one thing turnouts rely on points touching stock rails to conduct electricity, and sometimes the points get dirty or a bit a crud gets into them and then juice stops at the turnout. Then somehow you get a cold solder joint in a rail joiner, or you forget to solder one. Murphy's law applies to model railroading.
On my layout I didn't solder any rail joiners. I have feeders every 6 to 10 feet, and I get good reliable operation.
dstarr In principle, if you solder all the rail joiners, the track will carry all the current. The rail is fairly sizable and nickel silver is pretty conductive, not quite as good as pure copper, but better than iron. In practice this never quite works out. For one thing turnouts rely on points touching stock rails to conduct electricity, and sometimes the points get dirty or a bit a crud gets into them and then juice stops at the turnout.
In principle, if you solder all the rail joiners, the track will carry all the current. The rail is fairly sizable and nickel silver is pretty conductive, not quite as good as pure copper, but better than iron. In practice this never quite works out. For one thing turnouts rely on points touching stock rails to conduct electricity, and sometimes the points get dirty or a bit a crud gets into them and then juice stops at the turnout.
David,
Not that my question here is directly important to the thread, but I've also heard that nickel silver track still has an element of brass mixed into it. Some of the newer batches of track I've purchased has more of a yellowish cast to it than I remember. I know nickel can be kind of yellowish more so than silver, but the track looks awfully darn yellow to me. More recent offerings may be worse if companies are trying to mix in a little more brass over time.
Do you know if this is true? If so, could this also be why the bus line conducts electricity better than the soldered track, in addition to the muck issues you've described?
The bus wire, being pure copper, conducts electricity better than an equal cross-section of nickel silver that happens to be shaped like a rail. That would be true even if the nickel silver was a single, un-jointed piece.
That being said, my suggestion would be to lay your loops in 18-21 foot sections, isolated by rail gaps (insulated rail joiners) but with a wire jumper soldered around every un-insulated rail joint. (I don't solder rail joints.) Each section should need only a single drop (connection to bus power,) and that drop should be connected to the bus at a terminal strip. That way, if a mystery short develops, you can temporarily disconnect a section at a time to make finding the problem easier. The sidings where trains will stand while other trains run should have switches in their drops to make sure that there is no power to the rails when movement is not desired.
While my own layout is somewhat more complex than yours (understatement of the week!) the basic principles of power distribution are the same. For bulletproof track power every millimeter of rail should be connected back to the power pack through wires that are either soldered or fastened to terminals with threaded fasteners. Each moving train should be controlled by its own dedicated power pack. Switch machines, structure lights and powered accessories should be powered by their own power supply, not through the accessory connections on the train power packs. That way, pushing a button to throw switch points will NOT cause a moving locomotive to react to the voltage spike.
Just my , based on sixty years of layout electrical experience.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I use 8 amps and have about 300' of track. But the real deal is the total of the amps. Figure about 1/2 to one each as others have said. Keep in mind that there are starting, running and stalling amps along with the number of lights/sound on each loco. So if they're all pulling hard uphill with lots of lights and sound and possibly near stalling, then you'll pull a lot of amps quickly. Very important, even if the loco is sitting in a yard, if it's getting power, then it's pulling some amps. We run about 4 to 8 locos(some in double heads) plus a few in the yard sitting pulling amps. The rest we try to keep in the loco yard or turntable yard where we turn off power as possible--to avoid over amping. We have about 100 locos, but only keep about 20 or so on the layout at a time.
Also, passenger cars with lights or even caboosee with lights add to your amp load.
Here is how I did it and I don't have any loss of power problems on my DCC layout of about 100 feet of mainline, and most of it double mainline, so sound similar in length to your planned layout- Run your bus line under your table, I recommend the wires of one of one color and one of the other (one red and one white), in my case one red line, one black line. Next get some door bell wire from Home Depot, it is cheap, come already twisted in red and white in color and is solid core copper. I cut the wire about 6 inch sections and then grabbed ye-old trusty soldering iron and some rail joiners and soldered up a bunch joiners. Now you have a set a red and set of white wired joiners. layout your track drill holes through the top of the the table every where you will join track, feed the feeder wire through the whole, keep red on same side and the white on the same side. Connect your track, strip the bus line and connect the feeders- this is where the solid core come in great, it can wrap around the bus line and stay with a quick squeeze of crimpers or plyers. This will give you power to your layout, the track wont be forever soldered together and incase you need to change something you can easily take that section of track out and if you damage the rail joiner, it too can be replaced instead of having to redo a section of track.
[quote user="Eric97123"]
I like the idea of not having to solder the track in the event I want to change/modify my layout. One question, though. Do I use the soldered joiners at every track connection or every 6-10 ft of track connection as others have suggessted with regard to soldering the track?
Thanks!
That being said, my suggestion would be to lay your loops in 18-21 foot sections, isolated by rail gaps (insulated rail joiners) but with a wire jumper soldered around every un-insulated rail joint. (I don't solder rail joints.)
Doughless dstarr: In principle, if you solder all the rail joiners, the track will carry all the current. The rail is fairly sizable and nickel silver is pretty conductive, not quite as good as pure copper, but better than iron. In practice this never quite works out. For one thing turnouts rely on points touching stock rails to conduct electricity, and sometimes the points get dirty or a bit a crud gets into them and then juice stops at the turnout. David, Not that my question here is directly important to the thread, but I've also heard that nickel silver track still has an element of brass mixed into it. Some of the newer batches of track I've purchased has more of a yellowish cast to it than I remember. I know nickel can be kind of yellowish more so than silver, but the track looks awfully darn yellow to me. More recent offerings may be worse if companies are trying to mix in a little more brass over time. Do you know if this is true? If so, could this also be why the bus line conducts electricity better than the soldered track, in addition to the muck issues you've described?
dstarr: In principle, if you solder all the rail joiners, the track will carry all the current. The rail is fairly sizable and nickel silver is pretty conductive, not quite as good as pure copper, but better than iron. In practice this never quite works out. For one thing turnouts rely on points touching stock rails to conduct electricity, and sometimes the points get dirty or a bit a crud gets into them and then juice stops at the turnout.
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. Nickel silver is an alloy of copper and I forget what all. The electrical properties of brass and nickel silver are about the same. Nickel silver has a white luster instead of a yellow luster, and the oxides are conductive, whereas the oxides of brass are non conductive. Nickel silver makes better rail because its white luster looks more like steel than brass does, and the conductive nature of the oxides means that locomotives can pick up juice even if the track is oxidized.
The buss wires conduct better than rail because the buss wires don't have joints. The rail joiners only conduct well when they are clean and tight. Over time oxygen n the air oxidizes the rail joiners and repeated making and remaking of the rail joint loosens them. After oxidation and loosening the rail joiners fail to reliably conduct electricity from rail to rail.
As I have said before, in principle soldering all the rail joiners should make the track as conductive as the buss wire. In practice turnouts, poorly soldered or unsoldered rail joiners make the rail less reliable than a solid copper buss wire run underneath the layout.