Good morning RR fans. I am putting a reverse loop on my new layout, and need some help. I have very little info. on the subject, but would like to know how to do the wiring, and how to opperate it. For now I am running DC, but am building the layout for DCC. I learned lastnight that DCC is
ac powered, so I would think I shouldn’t need insulator gaps, am I right?
Thank you, Mike
Nope, wrong. The AC would be out of phase when the rails are reversed on to itself. The rails still need to be gapped.
Mike: if you follow the outside rail around the reverse loop, you’ll see that it ties both rails togther. You will need two pairs of gaps, one set at each end of the reverse loop.
For operating, you need two reverseing switches (DPDT). One controls the direction on the reverse loop, the other does the main line (rest of layout). If you have a second reverse loop, you may need another reversing switch for it.
Atlas makes a little switch set in their electrical series that will do the job.
Operating: set the direction switch on your power pack to forward. Set the main line direction switch to go into the reverse loop and the reverse loop direction switch for the way you want to go around it (CW or CCW). When the train is in the loop, change the main line direction to go away from the loop and change the turnout.
Gary, thanks for that link. Oddly enough, tonight I decided I’ll have a wye on my layout when I add on. Now I know how to wire it[swg].
The Atlas and Kalmbach wiring book have good descriptions of what is needed for a reverse loop in DC wiring, and of course Atlas makes a component to wire it fairly easily. Hundreds of thousands of DC layouts have done it so jump right in!
For DCC there are automatic sensors and reversing switches which make it relatively painless other than the initial installation
Dave Nelson