Turnouts, DCC and confusion

[NZRMac]

Mayby it's because I'm still new to all this MR stuff, can someone show me pictures of turnouts, the frog, the points, why you talk about powered or unpowered, short circuits etc. My turnouts, both moving rails are powered, are these potential problems[?] should they be seperately switched[?]

Please explain!![:I]

[cacole]

I think Model Railroader magazine had a feature article about turnouts earlier this year that explained all of the terminology and names of the parts. Check through the archives by searching on the word "turnouts" and see what crops up.

[NZRMac]

Cacole

Thanks for that, I seached thru and found what I needed.

For anybody else who's interested I saved the pic


Cheers Ken

[rexhea]

Hi Ken,
I always hate to answer someone's question by referring them to a book, but if I may suggest, try to purchase the Digitrax "Big Book of DCC" http://www.digitrax.com/menu_bigbook.php It has very good explanations of all aspects of DCC and gives comparisons of it to DC. There is a technical section that gets even deeper into DCC if you so desire.

As far as turnouts go, I recommend staying with those that are considered DCC friendly (all rails have power, insulated frog). Walthers, Atlas, and now Peco makes these.

REX

[NZRMac]

HI

I completely understand now!! After studying this picture and my own turnouts I now see how it all works. My turnouts are all live, so no worries!!



Thanks Chaps. Ken