This is a staging/storage end reversing loop slated for a closet. I realize the reversing section is short. Traffic will flow clockwise around the loop and out
That will be okay as long as you don't try to run long lighted passenger trains through it. A reverse loop need be only as long as the longest locomotive or consist you have if that is the only thing that draws current from the track.
I do have a lighted passenger train - the N scale Con-Cor Burlington Zephyr. However, it's quite short and fits within the length of that reversing section.
Thanks
If you only plan to have one train in the loop at a time, then there's no reason to keep the reversing section so short. Leave the right-hand gap where it is, but get rid of the left hand one and instead put a gap in each of the 4 tracks right below the right-hand gap on your diagram, preferably right after the turnouts from the main coming in from the right. This will make the whole loop and all the sidings part of the reversing section.
The only problem with having a lot of track as part of the reversing section is the limit on the amount of current that auto-reversers can supply. My Tony's reverser puts out 2.5 amps, which should be plenty to run several engines, even with sound.
A reverse loop need be only as long as the longest locomotive or consist you have if that is the only thing that draws current from the track.
This is not a good guideline. Actually, any metal wheel can bridge a gap. Metal wheels in a metal-sideframe truck will bridge a longer gap. Make your reversing sections as long as you can.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
That option would work I suppose - run the feeders from those sections to the auto reverser output rather than the main bus. I use Peco electrofrog turnouts, so there is a required isolation gap downstream of each turnout anyhow.
I agree...go as long as you can with reversing loops. It adds flexibility to you and your train lengths as you want them from time to time, and your DCC engines sitting anywhere inside them won't care a whit what the reversing unit does while powering them. As the unit switches back and forth to make corrections at the gaps, any engines sitting in those parallel yard/staging tracks will still happily do as they were doing immediately beforehand. They won't know the difference, and neither will you. So, take advantage of all of that nice reversing loop and gap each exteme end of it. Sometime, maybe sooner than you think, you'll want to take a nice long freight drag through it where the caboose has metal wheels, and you will be glad for the decision to extend the reversing loop to the extent your design permits.
You should make it as large as possible. Both of the links below have the same information.
http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=103320
http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=104784