I am wondering what company makes the most realistic, modern day grade crossings? One thing I notice with some of them is that both red lights flash at the same time! [V] Not realistic, right?[;)]
Thanks,
Aric
What is “best” is a matter of personal opinion. Oregon Rail Supply makes brass signals and crossing gates that are very good, but the electronics and wiring to make the lights flash, and a Tortoise slow motioin switch machine motor to operate the gates, are from different manufacturers. Several companies make the electronics circuits, and I have seen some do-it-yourself circuits. On the Cochise & Western Model Railroad Club’s HO-scale layout, I have installed two different systems – one commercial and one designed in England by a digital electronics engineer. Both work with Oregon Rail Supply products and infrared across-the-track detectors. Your best bet would be to search through the electronics section of a Walthers catalog or use a Google search under model railroad electronics to find what you’re looking for, and then determine how much you’re willing to spend. These items are NOT cheap!
Thank you cacole.
I guess this is the reason real railroads only install them on busy-intersections instead of on smaller streets.
cacole I priced around for what your talking about as I already have the signal flashers from Oregon Rail. To complete each crossing would cost between 45-75 per crossing. I have 12 crossings and no way will I spend that much per crossing. You would think the cost would be a little cheaper but its not. So my crossing signals just sit blank waiting. Will be a long wait…
you know im working on a crossing and im trying out somthing that i thought of to make the lights flash. im using 2 flasers units from the automovie store (they make your blinker blink in your car) and have it some when one flaser is activated it will shut down the other flaser and mabe i can figure out a pattern to get the flasing of a crossing. so far i have only spent like 5 dollars on the flasers, some extra wire and soder that i had so if can make somthing hapen ill let you guys know ~ChriSS
ChriSStopher: If you check around, you might be able to find an automotive turn signal flasher that flashes two lights alternately. I have seen this effect on some of the newer cars where, when the turn signal if off, a light on the side of the car flashes on, and these two alternate. The biggest expense to grade crossings is the detector circuit to turn the flasher on and off, and the crossbucks.
My car does that. '98 Pontiac Sunfire.
Ramm Track makes a crossing circuit and sells it as a kit with Lifelike cross bucks. He usually runs a special price at shows but they are still somewhat expensive. He also has extra detectors for double track installations. I have 2 sets and plan to put them at prominent grade crossings. The rest will get ‘dark’ signals or just crossbucks.
you can build an occilating circuit very cheaply from electronic parts outlets such as digi-key, mouser, jameco, radio shack ect…here is a web site for the wiring schematics… http://www.mrollins.com/circuit.html …chuck[:D]
Has anyone purchased from Signalogic Systems? It looks like they are very nice crossing gates.
They do look very nice. But at $249.99 for a Gate Crossing Kit, I think I’ll stay with my cheapo non-flashing, non-automated crossings and use my imagination!
[:)]
Ah, but thats $249 Canadian. That means they’re yours for the bargain price of only $209 US (assuming that’s where you are, which I probably shouldn’t)!
They do look very nice, but I’d take a shot at building my own with the circuits in the link provided by cwclark first if I wanted automation.
“If you check around, you might be able to find an automotive turn signal flasher that flashes two lights alternately. I have seen this effect on some of the newer cars where, when the turn signal if off, a light on the side of the car flashes on, and these two alternate.”
Actually, this effect is generally done by a bit of electrical trickery - the output of a automotive flasher, when it is not activating the bulb, is generally connected to ground. This is used to fla***he second bulb. The sidelight on the Sunfire (or a VW, that I’m more familiar with) is wired between the plus side of the battery and the output of the flasher. Thus it is on when the flasher is off, and vice versa. If you’re using and automotive flasher for your crossing signals, this trick should work just as well for those as it does for a car. Just wire one bulb of the crossbuck between the output of the flasher and the negative of your power supply, and the other bulb between the output of the flasher and the positive of your power supply, and you’ll have alternating flashing bulbs. However, be warned this works with mechanical flashers, and with electronic automotive flashers that are designed to emulate mechanical flashers. It won’t work with most of the electronic flashers sold in the model railway world.
Buying or building a flasher circuit is the easy part. There are schematics galore on how to use 555 timers to make LED flashers. The tricky part is detecting the approach of a train, holding the flashers on while the train is blocking the road crossing, and then turning the signals off after the train has cleared the crossing. This requires all manner of timers, detectors, J-K flip-flops, and logic circuits. Some type of detector needs to be placed a good distance from the road crossing to activate the signals as a train approaches from either direction. Another set of detectors need to be a short distance on each side of the road crossing to tell the circuit when the train has cleared the crossing, and to turn off the signals. Additional logic circuits are needed to turn the signals off if the train stops and backs up before it even reaches the crossing.
I am thinking [banghead] (dangerous I know) but that if you have two detector sets (send and receive) on the track approach and depart to the crossing along with one detector set wired in reverse (IR beam gets broken, switch opens circuit), wouldn’t that work? [?]
Check out the Logic Rail Technologies Grade Crossing Pro.
Supports all those odd operating moments like when the train starts to enter the crossing and then stops, or backs up. Very nifty unit. I don;t have one - YET. It was reviewed in MR back in the Spring sometime. And it doesn’t cost a lot.
–Randy
I have two of the Logic Rail Technologies Grade Crossing Pro systems installed on the Cochise & Western Model Railroad Club’s HO scale layout at a double-track road crossing with signals and gates. Yes, this system is one of the cheapest on the market that has all of the required logic and timers burned into its EPROM. The main complaint I have with it is the timing. The designer tried to time everything according to a prototype crossing gate system, but in the model world these times are too slow. This system would be much better if the gates didn’t wait 3 seconds after activation before they start to come down, and a shorter than 3 second delay needs to be used for turning the signals off after a train clears the crossing.