I am new to ADVANCED layout design. What I call advanced may not be for some. If i am not planning on running my trains in a circle, what is the method for turning it around when i have reached the end of the line. Is there any photos out there or any resources that would show me how to accompli***his, preferably without using a reversing loop.
Hi!
You can use a turntable or a wye or a conventional loop. All of these are “reversing sections” if electrified and must be wired accordingly. But it is not difficult at all.
Are you using DC or DCC?
Here’s a diagram of a DCC reversing loop using the simple MRC A/R module:
Reversing loops are neat! And easy.[:)]
The late Ben King had a magnificent but quite small point to point layout. At one end, hidden from view, was a very large turntable – big enough to turn an entire train – on his layout that was a small steam locomotive and mayibe three cars.
The British use a similar idea – the train disappears “off stage” and hidden from view an operator takes the engines and cars off and remounts them or other equipment on another track. Peco makes a “cassette” for just this purpose – check the Walthers or Peco catalogs. Model Railroad Planning has had numerous articles on this out of view staging – fiddle yards, etc
Dave Nelson
a “dogbone layout” will turn it around also, but it will be on a different track when it comes back the other way…this layout will not need any special wiring because the track doesn’t come back on itself ( + to - rail or vice versa) like a wye or a reversing loop will…if you use a wye or a reversing loop you will need a 1 or 2 DPDT switches (Depending on how you wire it) that reverses the track polarity when the train enters the turning track…Chuck[:D]
BUT, if you have a dogbone layout, and you connect the parallel tracks by a crossover, you will create a reverse loop.
Usually on a freight train, when you get to the end of the line, you deliver the cars to an industry oir interchange to another railroad. And you pick up cars that are supposed to go the other direction.
A passenger train will often use the same consist (string of cars), but they will be switched around so the engine is on head end, followed by head end cars (baggage, mail etc), then coaches, then sleepers. Requires a runaround track, ie a double-ended siding.
Often locomotive may be turned to run front end forward, and that can be accomplshed with a turntable but it is not always done. I was once riding steam mixed train on Moscow Camden and San Augustine RR. The old turntable at the Soyuthern Pacific interchange wasn’t enough for the locomotive being used. So they ran the loco backwards back to the mill with empties picked up from SP and the old combine.
http://www.railimages.com/albums/kennethanthony/abl.jpg
Turntable could also be used to turn a passenger car that needed to be turned, such as an observation car.