Help
I am a 76 year old and I have just started my first layout, I do not know how to wire it up and put in the plastic rail joiners, I have been told that I need 1 connection on each round track and 6 plastic joiners also I have been told I need 28 !! connection and 18 plastic rail joiners (doubled). Can someone someone out there help me see attached drawing of the layout.
Please mark the drawing and send it back. Thanks
Welcome to the forum. I would like to help you, but I can't do it without first feeling good about your proposed track plan. I don't understand why it is arranged as you depict it? You have turnouts where none are needed...like you wanted a short-cut to another track, but further on is one that would serve just as well...with a bit more travel. For example, at lower left, you have a crossover....why the points just west of it? I know you can't use a crossover as a turnout, but you could eliminate the crossover and simply make the nest west turnout a double-slip. This means you also eliminate the turnout northwest of the new double-slip.
Your whole arrangement is what we have, perhaps unkindly, but honestly, begun to call a "bowl of spaghetti" track plan. It crams a lot of track into a confined space rather successfully, but it doesn't represent anything you would see in the real revenue-generating world of rails. You may be taken aback to read that I don't favour your track plan and would hope to encourage you to sit back and try to come up with something a bit more user-friendly and more operationally interesting so that you can enjoy it for some time and not get thoroughly bored with it.
About the insulating joiners...they do work, but I dislike them because they look clunky and they are weaker than the metal kind. I would encourage you to just leave a gap of 1/16" where you would want a plastic joiner. If the rails don't want to stay aligned, say on a fairly tight curve, just drive a couple of track nails down next to the base of the rail tips to keep them in position.
As for wiring it all up, I would solder a pair of thin feeder wires to every segment between any two turnouts or crossover if you retain it. One end of each of these segments should have the thin gap in the rails instead of a joiner to keep power-routing turnouts from interfering with each other polarity-wise.
-Crandell
Easy Model Railroad Wiring, Second Edition
This book is very complete. After spending a bit of time with it, you will not only know where to put gaps and feeders, but why. Best of luck.
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THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS ON MY LAYOUT , AS I STATED THIS IS MY FIRST LAYOUT, IT IS MADE UP OF BROKEN RAILS I WAS GIVEN BY A HOBBY SHOP I HAD TO CUT OUT THE BROKEN AND TWISTED SECTIONS , SOME OF THE POINTSHAVE NO SPRINGS , MY SON IN LAW BOUGHT ME 7 LENS., OF FLEXI TRACK , THE FRAMING AND TOP IS MADE UP OF 1/4" PLYWOOD , 1/2" INSULATION BOARD, 3/4" CHIPBOARD , ALL FROM A SUPERMARKET RENOVATION . IF THIS ONE WORKS I WILL SAVE UP FOR THE NEXT ONE . I WILL KEEP YOUR COMMENTS IN MIND THANKS AGAIN
THANKS FOR YOUR COMMENTS , I WILL HAVE THE BOOK NEXT WEEK THAKS AGAIN
Scotsmen -
A few thoughts if you will. First, I like your ideas. It lends it self to both a lot of switching possibilities as well as intricate roundy-rounds (continuous runs). I took the liberty of re-doing it in Atlas RTS software (it's a free download from atlas, and fairly easy to use).
The biggest concern is that it might be a little ambitious for a first attempt. In N scale, it will take at least a 4' x 8" space and more than 2x that in HO (with HO you might need an access hatch to reach everything!!). So lets assume N scale. Your idea can be done solely with Atlas snap track and #4 turnouts. There are a few 9.75" radius turns so, it can get a little tight. I've also included 19" radius turns so with proper switching, you can run full length passenger cars and have them look pretty decent. (I run mine on 11" curves without any problems.) Since this looks like a busy switching hub, I might even add a few more spurs inside the center oval (as shown), perhaps a mini-yard. Don't worry about the model railroad police telling what looks real and what you should do. it's your layout and the idea is for YOU to enjoy it. With creative scenery, you should be able to have a number of individual and continuous scenes to keep things interesting. Remember, a train can look good over OVER a turnout, whether the turnout "means: anything or not.
I didn't take a lot of time figuring out optimal blocking, as I usually won't see things until the trains are running. Each "block" will have to be electrically isolated with one plastic rail joiner at each end, except for spurs, which will only need a single insulated joiner. You don't have a reversing loop, so that simplifies the wiring. You might want to download the RTS software and play with that for a while. Just keep in mind that you can't change the laws of Physics and will have to know your space limitations. Based on the diagram, you're looking at 4 (or 5 including the optional yard) controllers.
Archer.