So Crandell talked me into making a wye out of two staging leads. So I joined them with a double slip switch. Now without the DSS, each side of the wye would be wired opposite. If a loco can come from either direction, then there are all kinds of current mismatch situations.
I have an AR-1 circuit, but will it be enough. I can’t wrap my head around this.
So what’s the problem? Put in 4 insulated joints and make everything from the DSS to the ends of both staging tracks the reversing section.
Or, put 4 insulated joints in the left leg of the wye and make that the reversing section.
Or, put 4 insulated joints in the right leg of the wye and make that the reversing section.
No more problem than having a regular switch at the tail of a wye.
Dave H.
Gotcha. Thanks.
Why I don’t like puzzle switches. Just looking at them confuses you.
Chip’s my hero 'cuz he’s so big and strong…yup. [:D]
And he uses double-slips when they make sense, just like the even bigger boys.
Any wye that I have every tried to bend my mind around has only ever needed one leg isolated and reversed. The others naturally conform to each other, as a two finger trace or a colour coded polarity diagram will demonstrate.
I use a PSX-AR because that is what Tony’s was marketing at the time, and I had concluded that it’s predecessor was no longer available. No matter, it’s a gem…worth every penny, just like the built-up Walthers 90’ TT.
-Crandell
I have had that AR-1 for some time. Should work just fine.
Indeed. A friend of mine built one (hand laid, code 40, in N scale) that basically was a 2 into 3, all routes possible. After I don’t know how many work sessions spent bening confused, he finally came to the conclusion that the most it really had to do was allow the inside track of the doubel track to get to the inside or middle of the triple, and the outside double to get to the middle or outside triple. The unused positions were eliminated and finally it worked reliably - at one point we had an army of jumper wires plus two AR-1’s (all frogs are powered - the locos are scratchbuilt turn of the century and rather small even for N scale) and it mostly worked but wasn’t completely reliable. Now it works well and all polarity is controlled with the Tortoise contacts.
–Randy
Fortunately the bigger boys used double slips on very rare occaisions (mostly major passenger terminals) so in 99.999% of model railroad applications its prototypical not to use one.
For example finding one on a 1890’s mining line would be very, very, very unusual (they were very expensive to build and maintain).
Most modelers use one only because it allows them to compress the linear dimensions of the track arrangement .
True, but in the case of this wye, everything beyond the tunnel entrances are staging and this DSS is not visible.
On the other hand, I have two in Train City that are visible, but they allowed me to do what I needed to do. Besides hand-laying double slips helps you get your merit badge.
Dave, I asked before for a suggestion on how to get a longer passing siding on the Rock Ridge side of the layout but it was the last post on the page and easily missed… Any ideas?