Happy St. Patties, all. My question is which book about wiring a layout you would consider the EASIEST TO UNDERSTAND, like an idiot’s guide. Not the most complete, not the one with the sweetest schematics, and not the one that goes into the most detail about outlying scenarios that I probably won’t be pursuing… but the one you would consider most easy to grasp for someone electronically challenged but that still covers essentials for basic wiring of a DC layout.
Plus points if it also covers DCC but I want to start with electricity as God first created it.
Note: If you’re an electrical wiz, empathy will be required to answer this question properly.
Thanks in advance for any opinions offered. I’ll check back daily.
I am going to agree with RRBELL. The Atlas wiring book has all the basic information you need and should be your first choice for the basic nuts-and-bolts.
The old Kalmbach book HO Primer had some very good basic information on DC wiring.
Avoid the Kalmbach book How To Wire Your Model Railroad unless you are 100% sure you are getting the newest edition. Old editions of that book contain way more than basics and are overly complex and outdated.
The really useful thing about the Atlas wiring book is they show all the schematics for the internals of their switches. So even non electrically minded people can work out the current flow through the switches. Understanding that helps understand the rest of the wiring needed for DC operation.
The other aspect is you can just wire according to their diagrams and descriptions and it will work even if electrical stuff isn’t your thing.
Atlas includes information to allow you to understand how it’s supposed to work but also sets out how you do stuff without needing to understand how it works.
The Atlas book appears to rely on their products naturally, which may be ok depending on your needs.
Those other two books may offer useful info, but they look like they are from the 1950’s or 1960’s. Some more recent books, say written in the last 20 years may be able to discuss and take advantage of some modern things including modern connectors and hardware that wasn’t common way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
i think the problem with books like these is they often explain just one approach. today there is of course DC, cab control, DCC and possibly dead rail wiring.
another aspect of wiring is finding shorts. even wiring for DCC can benefit from blocks or power districts, both to limit shorts due to derailed equipment or shorts due to mis-wiring or gap closures due to expansion.
i think i was fortunate to get an HO Railroad that Grows in my teens. Linn Westcott just needed a chapter or two (pre-Atlas) to describe how to build a cab control system
DCC wiring is very, very simple until you get into large layouts with multiple operators. Most home layouts, even quite big ones, can be wired with just a two wire bus and lots of feeder connections to the rails.
Adding separated power districts, even if only for future use, is as simple as fitting two isolating joiners at conveniently logical places in the layout, relying on those feeders to power now isolated sections of track. That’s it. Only when you wish to “upgrade” your DCC layout to add power boosters or power district circuit breaker protection does it get a little more complex but there are pre-built components that simplify even that process.
DC multiple cab and multiple block control is where the Atlas book helps. You don’t need to use the actual Atlas products because they also very kindly include switch schematics. I suspect at the time they wrote this book Atlas actually made cost effective good quality switchgear. I suspect they have not changed that stuff in decades. Manufacturing quality seems to have declined.
If you’re not intending to run a complex DC layout just wire your layout for simple DCC operation, with a two wire bus and multiple track feeders. The only tricky parts for DCC are reversing loops and any sections of track you want an “off” switch for. Same tricky problems as for DC and with very similar solutions. In fact reversing sections are far easier to wire and automate using DCC
Survey says?..
The Atlas wiring book. Thanks fellas. I’m on it. I particularly like the idea of seeing the path of the electricity through the switches; I learn visually.
Still open to differing viewpoints, but I think I know my first move now.
Now anybody know how to edit or create a signature? I thought I had supplied one but this Trains.com world is so confusing.
UPDATE 3/18: I wrote the above yesterday, thought I’d posted it but hadn’t. Clicked send this morning and then saw several new responses, which I appreciate and will consider.
I think it really depends whether you are in DC or DCC. Not offense to the others, but the DC books contain a lot of information that is not really relevant to DCC. In fact, there are things in there that should not be done for a DCC layout… I bought the Kalmbach book “Basic DCC wiring for your Model Railroad”, and I think it does the job in terms of covering the basics. If you want to learn basics about electricity, then I would suggest you read a more generic source of information that covers the basics, like what voltage, amps, resistance, watts, alternative current, and direct current mean. There are really good sites out there that explain it.
The Atlas book (books?) is/are easy to understand and is/are very clearly illustrated BUT I do believe it is all tied to the “common rail” version of DC wiring which in turn is also the system that the Atlas components are tied to. That is a perfectly good system but it is my understanding that some have found it easier to convert the non- common rail wiring layout to DCC when the time comes. Fewer new gaps needed for power districts and that sort of thing. In any event the Atlas books pretty much ignore DC wiring which is not common rail. And if you use Atlas components, that’s fine. You don’t have to understand so much, you just connect stuff the way the drawings tell you.
The Linn Westcott book still has things of value for those wanting DC wiring but it dates from an era when guys were building their own power packs, so it goes into a lot of electrical and DC theory, and LHW was also an early adopter and promotor of technology such as progressive cab control which never really took off. The consequence is that large swaths of the book are outdated or irrelevant. Who today for example needs to know how to hook up an electric motor to the rheostat or potentiometer on their throttle so they could get momentum?
I happen to think that Andy Sperandeo’s Kalmbach book on wiring is more clear and easier to follow than Westcott’s, and being more recent is able to eliminate the most outdated stuff. Ironically the least useful parts are those that deal with DCC because it was issued very early in the DCC era. For those wiring to DC standards, and who want to know the pros and cons of Atlas’s common rail system, I’d look for Sperandeo. For the most part Sperandeo is careful to provide content for those using Atlas components and common rail rather than DPDT or rotary switches and non-common rail for example.
I was not that impressed with Larry Puckett’s book on wiring, which
Paul Mallery’s Electrical Handbook vol 1 & 2, enough theory so you can advance, without boring you silly. Covers the basics, and starts you on the advanced path if you are interested.
Mallery had his own ideas, some never tried, about possible advanced versions of DC. Some of which I did use and perfect in my Advanced Cab Control system.
Ed Ravenscroft was also a forward thinker, just reading his MZL Control series in MR is full of DC ideas that can be applied separately without using his whole system.
His system, some of Mallery’s ideas, and my experiences at the Severna Park Model Railroad Club set the basis for my Advanced Cab Control - DC without block toggles… but without the limitations of Wescott’s progressive cab control.
If you’re building a new layout then common rail isn’t needed any longer. It’s still handy for multiple block multiple cab DC only layouts. There’s no magic or complication involved in common rail, it’s the simpler way to wire for DC. Common rail is also fully compatible with a single booster DCC system.
For a simple single booster DCC common rail is fine because you’ll be wiring a two wire bus. A common rail IS a single wire bus. Basic DCC is just two individual “common rails”, one “left” and one “right”
If you have a DC layout already wired for one common rail it is very simple to convert to DCC. You connect one power wire to the common rail track power points and the other power wire to the main feed to all the blocks. Then select one side of all the blocks to be powered at the same time.
If you want to convert common rail DC with block control to DCC you simply locate every isolated rail joint on your layout and then add a second isolation joiner at the same spot in the other rail. If you also have lots of feeders then that’s it. If you happen to have not put two power feeders to both rails in any one block then you’ll need to add that second power feeder you ought to have installed in the first place. Then that’s it for converting to DCC.
Our DC three cab 24 block layout consists of double isolated blocks with the one side powered as a common rail by wiring all that side connections together underneath the tabletop. If you fit two-side rail feeders where you ought to have then even a common rail DC layout is easily converted for a two wire bus DCC system.
Even with DC there are lots of good reasons not to use common rail or common return wiring.
I have 10 DC wireless throttles, each with its own 4 amp power supply. When they are connected to a section of track, they are completely isolated from the other power supplies.
This provides a long list of benefits including being the basis of my free Automatc Train Control. If you run a red signal, you train just stops, it does not get picked by some other throttle in the next block, it does not create a short, it just stops.
But then again I don’t have any block toggles or rotary switches either, that is done another way…
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Somewhere in my online forum reading (all a confusion in my head now) I think I made a ‘note to self’ not to use common rail, whatever it was. I think I remember learning that if I just ran bus wires under the basic track plan with feeders at key points I could then use a DPDT to switch between DC and DCC, running the layout one way or the other.
I foresee my normal DC operations being running a longer passenger or freight on my loop while doing some switching on isolated spurs, so maybe two locos at a time, max, because it’ll just be me. I don’t have modeler friends (present virtual comp’ny excepted) and don’t foresee operating sessions happening in my dank garage. So I don’t think I need many blocks or many throttles/cabs.
Even when I run DCC, which I want to do sooner than later, it will still only be one or two engines – one on the continuous loop and one in the yard or spotting cars outside of town.
Also, I’m avoiding reverse loops. I have enough room for a tight dogbone.
So I think I might get several of the books mentioned. It doesn’t surprise me that the writers of yore were better at communicating. But I also hear your cautions that much of their stuff is obsolete, and I would have expected that.
Finally, from the comments here I can see I need to settle my track plan. I thought I had it down but then started lying awake at night, playing with the idea of two separate, not-connected plans within one layout, DC on an outside ovalish loop with a small yard outside the loop, and DCC starting on the inside and rising out of (and crossing over) the DC loop into more creative switching scenarios. That way I would have zero chance of frying any engines, and I could wire each set of tracks in the way that was best for each. Not sure, though. I don’t like any of the designs I came up with for getting up and out of the interior without it looking like a ramp.
I have been fleshing out the details of my next layout in my head for about seven years when I decided that the spare bedroom layout was not my final layout.
If you build a dogbone layout, and have any crossovers int he narrow part where the two tracks are close together, you have reverse loops. The easiest way to wire a dogbone is to make the two end loops reversing sections, then you can have any number of crossovers without creating a reverse loop situation.
The difference in wiring for common rail or for two wire bus is whether you fit isolators to both rails or just one rail. It is advantageous to fit isolators to both rails as you build the layout whether you build for DC or DCC and whether you decide to run common rail or not. Common rail only becomes an issue if you add a second powerpack to your layout. That would be the “common” part. It is the connecting of one side of two or more powerpacks to each other that creates the common rail. Using just the one DC powerpack or one DCC power booster means each of the rails is always a “common” rail regardless of how you wire the layout.
No need to avoid reversing loops, they are not as troublesome as they at first might appear. If you fit one just crossover into your dogbone you create a reversing section, two actually. Better to fit those isolators into the two connecting diverging routes as you build. Worry about wiring in the necessary polarity reversing switch later. Remember to deliberately select the length and position of any reversing section to accommodate your longest expected train and then just wire it properly. It’s not difficult to do.
Wiring for double isolated track blocks each with its own sets of feeder wires from the two bus wires to the track rails is the most useful and flexible way to lay out your track whether you fit DC or DCC and intend to use just one power pack or booster or more than one.
Creating a series of well organized and logical electrically isolated sections of track is well worth doing no matter how big your initial layout is. It may well be made bigger or more dense or likely both at some point. Electrically, well organized track is really valuable for many reasons and need not be complicated to wire initially. Even a simple two wire bus DCC single booster layout benefits from having seperate double isolated blocks of track.
