Wiring Blocks

[Anonymous]

I am brand new to HO scale Railroading and I would appreciate someone explaining what it means to block a section of track to prevent looping. Also, why would this not cause a reverse in polarity and result in the engine reversing?

[nfmisso]

You are going to have to invest in a book on HO wiring, Kalmbach and Atlas offer good books on this subject, and there are others. Based on the wording of your question, you need to do some basic self education so that you can understand the answers.

Have fun.

[Anonymous]

I've bought the Atlas wiring book and it explains things great, I'm sure the Kalmach book on wiring is great also, mostly as it probably doesn't explain wiring only considering a particular brand of components as Atlas does (can't really blame them though).

Also, after reading a bit around, as you should also do for any part of your layout's construction, better be informed and ready than be in the middle of something and get stuck, you might eventually decide to go with DCC instead oc DC, depending of how big of a layout you will have. DCC is easier to install, and cheaper in the long run for bigger layouts.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and since you are new, I would also suggest a book on benchwork building (Kalmbach has a great one, that I bought, I definitely recommend it) and also a book on layout planning, for that I would recomment Track Planning for Realistic Operation by John Armstrong, also from Kalmbach publishings.

Check the link here to all these books

[cacole]

A good reference that is free for the downloading is "DCC For Beginners" available on the Tony's Train Exchange Web site (http://www.tonystrains.com)

[cwclark]

besides the dcc which has become real popular ...there are two types of wiring for blocks...conventional and common rail..basically you are dividing sections of your track into "blocks" or individual sections of track with their own individual power supply....then you can use "cab control" to power these "blocks"...(cab control allows you to use more than one power pack to power trains within the "block")...basically you are installing insulators at each end of a section of track within the many sections of track in your layout (as many as you want) and sending electrical power to that section of track using 1, 2 or as many power packs as you want without affecting the power sent to all the other blocks within your layout....and yes...forward and reverse power is not affected withing a block that is wired as such...think of your house wiring...there is a main power supply at the breaker box (the power pack) and each light in your house has an on/off switch (in this case cab A or Cab B = power pack A and Power pack B)).....you turn on or off the power (the light switch) to individual sections of track (the lights) within your layout (the house) with the only exception that except for the on / off switch, it's power pack A or power pack B that has control of the block (the individual light)Chuck[:D]

[Anonymous]

In block control you might have multiple controllers so you can control a reversing loop and a turn table. If you do this with Atlas controllers you need to know that the all the cab reversing switches (the red ones) except the last one which is attached to the first selector need to be in neutral. The last controller is used for controling train direction not the reversing switch on the power pack. The green one selects the cab for which the controller is attached and the grey swich controls direction. This little bit of info is difficult to find even in the Atlas manuals.