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I second the idea on the feeder wires. I had HO layouts as a kid, and I have an N-Scale layout for about 10 years, all built on Atlas code 80 track. This time around, I'm doing it RIGHT, meaning all code 55 Micro Engineering. I found a chart on-line at www.dccwiring.com, that listed voltage drop for various sizes of track. For code 55 nickel silver, with a current draw of 1 amp, the drop is 0.111 volts PER FOOT. Considering that you have a wire going out and one coming back to the power supply, this means you really have .222 volts dropped per foot from the power supply. I never even thought about this. Then, I ran a train with a string of lighed passenger cars up a 4-level 36" diameter helix. The feeder is at the bottom of the helix. When the train reached the top, and hit the next feeder wire, you could really REALLY see it slow down and then radically speed up when it hit the next feeder (which was on the other side of an insulated joint). Well, 3.14 x 3 feet x 4 levels = about 36 feet of track in that helix. At .222 volts/foot, that's 7 volts of drop! It's a miracle the train was moving at all near the top. Now, of course, I'm not drawing a full amp, I'm drawing more like 0.6 even with the lighted cars. So the drop is probably more like half that. But you get the point. Even a voltage drop of 1/2 volt will be really annoying. So feeder wires every so often is a must. I use 16-guage stranded wire for mine. Cheers, Max
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