I’m new to trains and want to set up a small gandy dancer on a seperate track to go back and forth between a long section of track without a reverse loop. I want this to happen automatically without my being involved. I don’t have dcc. Does anyone know of a simple way that I can do this? I don’t understand a lot of the terminolgy yet. I saw one post that may have sometthing to do with it but didn’t understand it. Any helpful advice and/or links to explanations would be appreciated.
Thanks
Steve
Well a gandy dancer is/was a railroad employee who works in track maintanence. I assume you mean like a Fairmont speeder with a couple of railroad workers on it?? You can do that but it would involve some work. You can set a track up so that when the loco or whatever reaches one end of the track, it trips an electric eye that signals a gizmo to reverse the polarity in the track. Put one on each end and it will work fine. It would take some electronics knowledge to to. Bachmann makes an On30 streetcar that comes with a track set up that is pre-wired up to do that. You could get that and see about using the streetcar chassis to kitbash a speeder or something similar.
Went to Bachmann site and couldn’t find what you referred to. Did see “gandydancer” (two men on handcar- probably the same thing you are referring to with proper railrroad terms) in HO. Still don’t know how to make it work or where to get the parts. Would not know what to ask for either.
I think this is the kind of thing you’re looking for. The top item looks like it will sense the arrival of the car at one end of the track and flip the polarity to send it back the other way.
http://www.tchtechnology.com/products/reverse/
Just FYI, I found this by googling “automatic reverser model railroad”
Steve- You didn’t mention what scale you are working in- that will affect your ability to find a pre-made “Gandy Dancer” (hand-car) but regardless the track arrangement is pretty easy to put together. There are two off-the-shelf items that will take care of this for you. The first is made by Circuitron (the company that makes the “famous” Tortise switch machine.) You can find it by Googling, “Circuitron Auto Reverse”. There are lots of places to purchase this item. Its around 30 bucks. The other way is with a product from Berkshire Junction (www.berkshirejunction.com). Their product also sells for 30 bucks. The difference between the 2 units is this: the Circuitron unit works by cutting a small gap in one of the rails at each end of the run. When the train crosses this gap it trips the circuit and the direction of travel reverses. The Berkshire Junction unit relies on either a IR or a Photo-cell (you choose when you order the unit) to tell the “brain” to reverse the direction of travel. They both work by just reversing the polarity of the current going to the track. I have used both and find the Circuitron MUCH easier to use. Light sensors (either photo-cells or IR) are much more finicky to set-up. You need to have the 2 cells perfectly alligned, etc. All you need in order to run this set-up with the Circuitron unit is a length of track, a power pack (the el-cheapo ones that come with a train set are perfect for this) and the brain unit. You can also adjust how long the engine pauses before reversing it’s direction of travel. I’m not sure if you can do this with the Berkshire Jct unit. I’m sure someone out there sells a hand-car in HO scale. See what you come up with on Google. The Bachmann unit is an entire kit, with the brain built into the power pack. It comes with snap-together track sections and a Trolly car. Micro Mark tools sells it for around 100 bucks or so. I have the Circuitron-thingy on my N-scale layout. It controls a short mine-car train along a few feet
Thanks guys I appreciate your help. I pulled out my Ho stuff from over 15 years ago recently and am looking to use it along with new stuff. We also found a gandydancer in the boxes, so I have to just set it up. I also found 3 locos and several switches and other parts. Want to build up a folding laying for quick storage.
We also found a box with a large battery operated plastic train that my 7 year old daughter played with for hours. So we bought her an n gauge train for xmas and i am going to mount it in a homemade box with doors so it can be together all the time
Did you get the e-mail I sent with the diagram & explaination?
If you go to the Bachmann site and do a search on “00401” it will come up with a train set called “Reversing Trolley Set”.
<> Like I said, a gandy dancer is a man not a machine.[:)]<> I suspect you’re talking about either a handcar (two guys pumping up and down) or a speeder which is a small powered car about the same size as a handcar.
yes thanks for the email with the drawing. I appreciate everyones help
steve