So I’ve got a pretty good track plan drawn out and now I’m working on devising staging yards that allow trains to be turned and either return on the track it came in on or another track. What I have in mind is a 9 track yard, 180 degree turn on one end, 4 tracks for staging in each direction, 1 center track that allows for crossover from 1 direction to another, the open end of the turnback ladders out into the staging tracks, the other end of the staging tracks ladder down to the mainlines.
I’m definitely ging to need autoreversers and rail gaps to prevent shorts with DCC but I’m confused about where to put the gaps and reversers. I’m thinking I may be best off to isolate the ladders on both ends and run them off the autoreverser but I don’t think that wuld be right for the loop. Should I include the loop with the ladder on that end? What about the center track?
Would the simplest solution be to treat the loop, loop end ladder and center track as 1 unit and ignore the staging tracks on either side except their turnouts on the loop end?
Sorry nothing drawn up just yet, though I have a pretty good idea of the track layout in my mind. I’m trying to come up with something that can be moved as the layout expands over the years, allows for continuous running or loop to loop running. Basically I want it all!
The easiest way to figure the wiring and gaps for a reverse loop is to visualize it without the other sidings. The gaps should go on all four rails at the frog end of the switch that forms the reverse loop. The loop itself should be where you wire in the auto reversing unit.
As a thought, you may want to put insulating gaps on both ends of your sidings as well. Even an inactive locomotive will draw some current from your DCC power pack. Insulating and switching each of these tracks will remove inactive locomotives from the load on the power pack.
A rough sketch on paper would be easy, getting it on te site is where I run into problems. Let’s say I’m not computer literate. Any suggestions for that?
As for what I have in mind, I guess you could call the yard tracks sidings off the 2 mains except the center track which would be like a shared siding for both mains or a really long crossover. I imagine this would have to be considered part of the reverse loop since a train could come in on this track, go around the loop and leave from this track, though in practice it would more likely enter from this track and leave from another.
Cutting power to unsed trains is a good idea and easy, just need to figure out if the power is coming from the main buss or the reverser at this point.
I guess I could use multiple reversers and let them figure it out but that can get pricey.
Here is a general plan with some gaps. It may have some of what you want, but it also has block gaps for signals although it does show gaps for a wye and reverse loop. Block 11 is a reverse loop that would be connected to the output of an auto reverser.
If you are referring to gandydancer’s diagram, he posted that as an example for the OP to consider. We are still waiting for the OP, ruderunner, to post a diagram of his own layout.
A little digging and searching showed me a technique I can use to figure out where my gaps are, basically drawing out a stright line track plan then on each side of the stright line start drawing colored lines for right and left rails.
This became important as I was looking at how this staging yard will connect to the layout and realized I’ve designed something like a reverse loop inside of another reverse loop.
I don’t have a scanner but the local library might. I’ll try to draw something out and see if I can post it this weekend.
That is exactly the technique that I use to visually identify reverse polarity issues.
One rail is colored red, and one rail is colored blue. When blue meets red and red meets blue, bingo, there is a reverse polarity issue and a potential short unless some action is taken to reverse the polarity back once again to a matching polarity status.
Hope you make some progress this weekend with posting a track plan. If you still cannot figure out a way to post it, mail it to me via USPS and I will post it for you.
Thanks for the offer Rich. Does this site allow uploading line drawings or do they have to go through links like Photobucket? I see lot’s of line drawings on the site and could probably muddle my way through uploading a Paint file to here.
I had a little time yesterday to draw out the straight line plan but didn’t get to color coding yet. Then thought about using Paint since it would be easy to make corrections.
If it stops raining this weekend I can pick up my plywood for benchwork.
Nope. You gotta upload through a third party host like Photobucket or one of the others. If you have PowerPoint that is one way to do it. I suppose Paint is a possibility but that is pretty primitive.
What else do you have to computer draw a diagram on ?
You’re killing me. I keep re-reading your initial post, trying to visualize what you are trying to do. Is this drawing even close to what you have in mind?
You may need to resize the diagram, by clicking on the text below it, to see it properly.
where < and> are turnouts for the yard ladder, ) represents the loop at the end of staging and the / and\ are where the loop connects to the yard. Main lines enter from the left. Note the lower entry is a duoble track main that goes to single track on the visible portion of the layout,
Well that almost worked, forgot that text appears in red by default. Still the red turnout in the bottom of the diagram is on the visible mainline and 2 mains enter the bottom of the staging area. Trains loop around through staging and return on one of the lower mainlines before necking down to single track.
Got some work to do now but I’ll try to draw out the stright line plan in Paint and maybe email it to you Rich.
If I am picturing this right, I see the end of an oval with a double ended yard on each side. The only reversing section is then the track in the center, I think that if you drawn things in a linear fashion, that’s the section that is going to have a loop in it. If the picture in my head is right, you’ll only need to gap that section, and use on autoreverser on it. The problem I see then is that it is the shortest track, and would limit your train size. So it might actually end up better to give it fixes phase, and reverse the whole layout around it.
If you have a camera take a picture of the drawing and up load it to Photobucket and then post.
No camera, send a message to Santa. A camera is very usefull as a tool and to show your work on the forum. In fact a camera will improve your scenicking as it will spot things you never saw.
You would think that in the last 3 days I could have found a couple hours to draw this up in a computer file so it can get posted here but noooo!
I did find a half hour to start drawing a polarity diagram on paper and the results are surpisingly simple. Looks like I’ll have at most 7 reversing sections on the whole layout but can combine a few and be able to use only 4 reversers. Some of these sections are low traffic and would be unlikely to have more than 1 train at a time.
Quick question on reversers: they aren’t system specific are they? Meaning I can use say a Digitrax unit with a Lenz command station right?
