Thanks everybody who answered my question about building a shelf model railroad. I did not think I would get so many answers from different people, so I can think about each one. Thanks alot everybody.
With all the track and switches - turnouts from atlas mfg I was given, there were atlas books in there. It says to use the “rail joiners” to put the pices of track together. they are little pieces of metal that go in the hollow ends of each piece of track. They keep the track together and the electricty flows through them.
And to use “terminal joiners” to connect the track to the transformer. They are like rail joiners, only they have a wire connected to them to connect to the transformer.
But every place I read here its solder solder solder!!! Do I have to solder each peice of track to the next one? 2 solders for each track connection? And do I have to solder wires right to the track instread of using the atlas terminal joiners? I know that I have to make more than one connection to the track from the transformer.
I have never used a solder before, but I have a shop teacher in school who said he would help me learn stuff like that.
My cousin said he wants to run a model locomotive with me. So my Mom is going to use her credit card and order a Zephyr digitrax system for me from the Tonys Train or someplace else if you think they are better. I don’t have any transformer with my tracks.
My shop teacher is really cool but he does not have any model railroads. But he said he can help me put the “decoder” in our locomotives. ONe is a NW2 Conrail Kato. The other is a Pennsylvania Railroad Atlas locomotive. It is bigger than the Conrail one. Everything is HO size
My uncle gave me all the stuff to make the “Hoboken Shore Railroad” whcih is in one of the atlas books. but it will 2 feet wide insead of 15 inches so we can put some buildings and stuff.
Thank you very much.
Billy01: Ah! the solder monster lurks[}:)] No, really, take your shop teacher up on the offer and learn to solder. It isn’t hard. The advatage is that your electrical connections will be sound, and reliable. Also, by not using the Atlas Terminal Joiners, you will gain realism.
Sounds like your Mom is very kind and understanding. You may want to read a bit about DCC before plumping for any particular system. You may get more bang for your buck with one of the other manufacturers. I don’t want to confuse you, and am not speaking from personal experience of any system, as I’ve yet to buy mine.
but from what I’ve read, I won’t be going the route you mentioned.
Good luck with this.
You dont NEED to solder the pieces of rail together. Although it does help. You should solder small wires (i like 22 guage) to each section of track, drill holes in your tabletop and then connect these small wires (called drops) to a big bus wire (16 guage or larger) running the full length of the layout, attach you transformer to the bus wire. This way the trains go the same speed all the way around and not dont slow down on the opposite side of the layout from the transformer[:P]. If you want to run more than 1 train at a time you need to block your layout. Even if you do get DCC the blocks really help with troubleshooting.
Blocking is done with insulated rail joiners. It can be done other ways but for a begginner i reccomend the insulating joiners. If you dont know what these are ask about them on your next visit to the hobby shop.
Regarding DCC, you should start out with your first layout on a reasonablly priced transformer. Its easy to upgrade to DCC once you learn a little about your layout and how the trains run on it. Also, DCC is much less tolerant to shorts so you should perfect your track before going that route.
On your drops use 2 different colored wires so you dont short it. Youll just end up hearing a “click” from your transformer and no trains will run. Hope this helps[:D]
I don’t recall the size of the layout but IIRC it wasn’t very large, so for a beginner using all the rail drop wires isn’t really necessary, IMO. However, I would take up your shop teacher’s offer to teach you soldering. It’s a good skill and you will use it the rest of your life, even if you leave the model railroading hobby.
The owner of my local hobby store is building a large, 30 by 60 foot layout in the basement of the store. He is using the rail joiners with the wires attached and it seems like a good, simple idea. I don’t think they’ll even be all that noticeable after ballast is applied to the track. I’ve been soldering since I was a kit, and have even been paid at one point of my life to do so many years ago when I worked at an electronics manufacturer, but I’m tempted to use the rail joiners with wires myself when I build my layout. Of course I’ll have to solder feeder wires to the rail as well since the layout will fill most of my basement, but that no biggie for me. My opinion overall here is that as a beginner, keep it simple. You don’t want to get discouraged or burn out on it all.
Finally, I really don’t know anything much on DCC, but I’ve watched my friend put decoders in some of his engines and he buys the ones already mounted on circuit boards made for specific manufacturers locomotive. Then he just takes the shell off and swaps out boards, though he has to solder a couple wires from the headlight bulbs to the the circuit board, and also replace the bulbs with higher voltage ones or LED’s so the higer voltage of DCC doesn’t burn them out. You will need your shop teacher to handle this for you, but you’ll need to learn it at some point anyway since you’re going with DCC. From what I understand there is a lot of DCC info and help available from places like Loys Toys and Tonys Trains online. Google around and good luck.
Hi,
If your shop teacher is willing to teach you and you are willing to learn, soldering is a skill that you can use your entire life. Once someone shows you the in and outs it really is very simple. For the DCC , you might want to check out Loys Toys, they only deal with Digitrax. www.loystoys.com
I have always thought that the Hoboken Shore layout would be an interesting lay out to build.