153 Block Signals!!

You’ll just have to add up the currents that the various loads draw and group things on different branch circuits so that no one is overloaded. There should be enough information on your computer components’, microwave oven’s, and coffee maker’s name plates to figure their draw. (If it’s given in watts or volt-amperes, divide the number by 120 to get amperes.) As for the trains, I’ll bet the whole affair doesn’t draw more than 5 amperes.

All of this is very interesting but a bit confusing. Is there a book that covers control tracks, insulated tracks and how they are interelated with block signals and crossing gates etc. I found two on the web site:

Wiring Your Toy Train Layout
By Peter H. Riddle

Wiring Handbook for Toy Trains
By Ray L. Plummer

Both seem to be pretty basic. Is one better than the other and cover the topics discussed here?

Thanks,

Terry

I have the first book you mentioned. But, it does not go in depth with block signals that much. I am still looking for better books on blocks and signals. Thanks.

I have studied all of these posts, but being a complete newbie at this I don’t understand all the terms you are all using. Not sure how to insulate a rail or make a control track (is there a difference). I get the connections, but not sure what you are doing to the track. are you using fiber pins, and which rails get the pins. Are you removing a rail and inserting insulating material between the rail and the tie? How does this work with a flashing signal? I have a couple places where I have two or three rails at a crossing and like the idea of not needing a bunch of contactors.

Thanks much.

A control rail is simply a piece of an outside rail that is insulated from the outside rails generally. When a train passes over it, the train’s wheels and axles connect the control rail to the other outside rails, acting as an electrical switch. The track is normally wired to the transformer so that the outside rails generally are the layout and transformer common. This way, the switch formed by the control rail has one side intrinsically connected to that common. This keeps the circuit being controlled by the control rail from interacting with the track voltage.

You can make your own control rail by cutting or leaving gaps at each end of the control rail, so that it doesn’t connect to the rest of the outside rail until a train comes by. You can put plastic pins in the gaps or just leave them open, as I do. You may also need to insulate it from the metal ties with, for example, card stock, if you are using traditional tubular rail. You can buy special track sections that are already insulated.

You can connect multiple control rails on different tracks together and use them all to operate a single accessory.

Aside from not needing to be adjusted, control rails have the advantage that you can make them as long as you want, so that a crossing gate, for example, goes down well before the train arrives.

Flashing crossing signals can be done two ways. Lionel made a special contactor, the 154C, which has two “contact plates” that sit on top of and are insulated from an intact outside rail. As the wheels roll over the plates, they alternately flash the two red lights, but in a very irregular and unrealistic way. The other way is to use a control rail (or a regular 145C or 153C contactor) to turn on a (probably electronic) flasher circuit that does flash the lights in a prototypical pattern.