Turnout control for a large layout

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Happy Holidays everyone,

After months and months and months of track planning, I hope to start some benchwork soon. Initially, all I was interested in was modeling. The more I have got into the hobby, the thought of operations has become more intriguing.

My layout will be fairly large in my opinion. Large enough to accommodate 6-8 people. I was originally planning on using tortoise machines and toggles located on panels located a various points on the layout to control turnouts. I am now wanting a dispatcher desk with a centralized CTC panel. Not sure if that will be a physical panel or a computer using JMRI PanelPro yet.

My mainline will be mostly single track with some passing sidings, but there will be some double tracks. In your opinion, should the CTC panel control just the mainlines? This would leave yards and siding turnouts controlled by operators at panels located on facia at varios points. I just don’t see the whole layout controlled by dispatch being a good idea.

Your thoughts?

Ed

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Yards are controlled by the yarmaster. Mainine and passing siding tracks are controlled by the dispatcher. Industrial sidings would have manual switches to allow a train to enter and leave the siding.

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Hey Ed-

My inclination is that the dispatcher should be a prince controlling everything within his little fiefdom. But that runs into reality in a hurry on a model railroad layout.

My layout is moderately large, and my original plan was to install only a very limited number of signals to give the impression that the entire layout (or at least a significant portion if it) was signalized. But once I started, it seemed easy enough to continue until all of the layout was covered.

But then the number of blocks that needed occupancy detection and required specific buss feeders and whatnot kept increasing until I decided enough was enough. I re-decided that only the mainlines would be fully signalized and the yards and sidings would be lumped into groups with limited signalization. It devolved into a scheme where signals for the yard turnouts would be two aspect dwarfs that only indicated switch position and that occupancy would be detected by visual rules.

Someone posted a comment in some other thread to the effect that he wanted to avoid the Christmas tree lights syndrome, and on a model railroad layout with a high track-to-scenery ratio (and an even higher turnout-to-run-length ratio), that syndrome can be hard to avoid.

All turnouts in the signalized territory use Tortoise machines that can be thrown or closed by the dispatcher sitting in front of the CTC panel or by momentary contact push buttons on the fascia. One other feature provided by the Digitrax system is that switches can be thrown by a hand-held throttle. That gives the possibility that the dispatcher doesn’t need an elaborate CTC panel or computer. He can monitor and route traffic using colored markers or magnetic icons on a whiteboard or something while holding his own throttle.

Lots of options. Good luck.

Robert

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isn’t is also true the industrial spurs should have panel switches allowing switch crews to control them.

another possibilty is to have push-buttons that effectively mimic controls the dispatcher has. The push-button sends a signal to the dispatcher hut laptop to control the turnout.

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My “Dream House” layout had a CTC room where a dispatcher controlled the layout.

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I tried to set it up as reallistic as possible. The dispatcher had control of passing tracks and signals.

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Local train crews controlled all other switches.

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All subsequent layouts have been built for one-man operation.

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-Kevin

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That is what seems to be prototype practice and what I have seen on a lot of operation focused railroads. Mainline is the dispatcher’s domain, but most industrial leads are switched on the ground by crew. Most shortlines that lack a CTC control system are often entirely ground switched.

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A big advantage of ground throws is that a visiting engineer/conductor on a first visit KNOWS what throw controls which turnout. No thinking involved. Says a fellow with a staging yard controlled by a diode matrix/capicator discharge setup.

Dave

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Can you run this layout by yourself, just for a bit of railfanning or switching? I would hate to have to wear track shoes to run around flipping toggles just to do some simple loop running.

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Similar to what others have said, and following typical prototype practice, I use a system that is set up like this:

Mainline turnouts at control points are switch machine controlled. They can be activated at the CTC panel (not a computer one in my case) or on local tower panels at each control point.

I use lighted push buttons in the track diagram, push a single button for a route, all the required turnouts move, the active route is indicated by the lights on both the tower panel and the CTC panel.

The dispatcher at the CTC panel can lock out tower control, but the lights will still show the route.

CTC signal indications are also shown with LED’s on the CTC panel and the tower panels, as well as the track side signals.

The detection circuits also show the location of all mainline trains on the CTC panel track diagram.

Secondary sidings on the main (industries), of which there are very few, are manually thrown just like the prototype, but they will activate the signal system just like the prototype.

My passenger station is a thru terminal on the main, so it is controlled by the dispatcher.

All other trackage, yards, industries, belt lines, terminal trackage, etc, is within easy reach of operators and uses manual turnouts as would be typical on the prototype.

My CTC and signaling is simplified as follows:

All signals are interlocking control point signals, or approach signals for those interlocking signals. There are no permissive, or automatic block signals. Most model railroads don’t need block signals, our runs between control points are too short.

Aspects used are simplified and represent typical two and three head east coast speed signaling.

The dispatcher operations are also simplified. For any given control point/interlocking, the dispatcher only needs to set the route (typically only one button) and assign the route to the desired train (one button).

If there is no dispatcher on duty, en

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Ed,
CTC would control all mainline switches including all passing sidings, but you need a dedicated Dispatcher to run it.

At my (large) club, all switches are thrown by Tortoise machines. We use JMRI software controlling stationary DCC decoders to throw all mainline switches for mainline trains during operation sessions. The engineers need to call dispatch to get a switch thrown if they need one, or they are told they are going into a certain siding by the dispatcher.

At all other times (as in “I have the day off from work, let’s go down to the layout and run trains all day.”), the engineers can throw their own mainline switches using their throttles.

In the yards and for all freight sidings, we use DPDT bat-handled toggles to control the Tortoise machines. These toggles are mounted locally to the turnout.

We do have a couple situtations where we use both a stationary decoder and a DPDT toggle. Because of the Tortoise machine’s constant power status, we just route the power from the stationary decoder through the toggle. It can be reversed by the throttle or by toggle. Just remember that “clear” and “throw” or up and down may or may not match actual switch position.

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My system will have dispatcher control for all mainline turnouts. Once past the main - local control for all. The yard - also local control, other than the lead coming off the main.

However, even the turnotus off the main will have local control buttons - that can be unlocked by the dispatcher. The circuit design is such that if I DON’T fire up the computer, they will all be unlocked. It’s not too complicated - the turnout control board has a lock input, pulled high. A low state indicated locked - if the controller isn’t turned on, the pullup resistor keeps the lock input high, in the unlocked state.

Why? I can’t ever forsee my layout workignt he way it seems so many of these somewhat famous operating layouts are used - once a month operating sessions. I liek runnign trains too much to basically leave it all sit for a month except for that oen day I have some friends come over to operate. One man operation is not really possible if I have to keep running back to the computer CTC screen (eventually I hope to build a physical machine and bury the computer underneath just to do the logic - but until the plan is firmly established, it’s a lot easier to make a few changes on a computer screen than mess with a physical panel - adding or removing a crossover for example, would be a huge mess if I built a physical panel from the start). By having the local buttons and indicators along the fascia, I can walk around and run trains by myself at any time. But when I have a crew with a dispatcher, I can prevent road crews from ‘cheating’ by locking out the mainline turnouts unless the road crew requests and is granted permission by the dispatcher to operate under local control.

I’m not going so far as I’ve seen some, with actual key switches on the panels to simulate the switch locks on the prototype.

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Randy, our turnout and CTC schemes are nearly identical, I just like to to group the local controls in to “tower panels”, since nearly all are located at control points that would in fact have a “tower”.

With my relay wiring, all the local panels can be build as the layout is built. Then the redundant inputs and outputs extended to the CTC panel. Remember we talked before about decentralizing the control logic.

I’m sure there will be a few tweaks to the track plan during construction, I don’t anticipate to many after it is running.

I have never really wanted the full blown CTC panel, too many operations for our selectively compressed model world. Mine will be simplified. Set the route, assign the authority.

Being DC, there is a check that requires the current block and the next block to be assigned to the same throttle before the signals will go green. All with lighted pushbuttons, no fixed position switches.

Sheldon

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It will be simplified, as I just don’t have the distance to make anything complex. Maybe 6 crossovers on the main, and 1 intermediate signal between them, so on the first deck there would be a total of 6 frames - 6 traffic direction levers, 6 turnout levers, 6 code buttons, and 6 unlock switches. No maintainer call stuff, or switch heaters, or any of that sort of thing.

–Randy

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How you set up the layout with controls depends greatly on the complexity. Since the mainline you mentioned is primarily single track, you might work with tortoise or other mechanical device.

My first mentor suggested following that principle and manual ground throws in the yard. He said the yard didn’t get updated as often as the mainline. In a confined space, it makes more sense for someone to flip switches.