Just one thing: The contacts on power routing switches are kinda small to power a track. At the club we had a bunch of Peco Electrofrogs used in the yard as on/off switches for the tracks. They wore out, pretty quickly. Use a toggle switch to cut the power on a track. To help engines, esp. little ones, to get thru the switch without stalling, that is fine. Ideally, put insulated joiners on the frog end or the switch, or a little ways up by the clearance point. If you have signals, put the insulated joints right next to the signal. Make sure the next section of track has feeders attached. That should take care of most problems.
Jeff - Vail & Southwestern RR:
“A DCC friendly turnout does not have to have a dead frog,”
Would the term “insulated frog” be more suitable? Most so called “DCC friendly” turnouts have either ‘dead’ or ‘insulated’ frogs to prevent short circuits. Yours?
‘FROG’. - The junction where two wheel bearing rails in a turnout cross.
Insulated and dead are not the same thing, though. If it is live, it has to be insulated at the frog end of it would be a short. But there is no reason you can’t power a frog in DCC. Of course, if you run through the turnout when it is against you, a short you get.
The frogs on my Kato #6 turnouts are plastic and therefore must be dead. Boy, I sure am becoming a pro at this power routing stuff real quick. I’m going non-power routing on all my turnouts except the #4’s which I can’t change. Luckily, all the #4 switches I have are in one industrial area which I will make it’s own power district. Hopefully, this will work.
Plastic is clearly dead!