I like it - - a lot. On my DCC powered layout, I have two 5 amp boosters, one for the 4 reversing sections and one for the rest of the layout - - 7 power districts in all. No bus wire is longer than 25 feet.
Rich
My preference to cut my rail gaps really has nothing to do with handlaying track from the good ol’ days. It’s because I’ve always thought those plastic rail joiners looked clunky. I’ll admit that they certainly are easier to use, but I don’t think cutting and filling a rail gap is hard.
But, to those of you who prefer them, you do you. I’m not here to poo-poo your layouts or your construction methods. This is my preference, which should have practically zero impact on your layout.
DFF
Out of the box they do look a bit clunky, but once the track is ballasted, you don’t really see them. I have to go look closely to find them.
Rich
The around the room nature of my track plan requires the eight throttle busses to be long. But they leave the throttle receivers/power supplies and go in opposite directions pretty equally around the room.
The load is only traveling to the one/two assigned blocks the locomotive is in at that moment, so even the ones that are 70 feet away - it is #12 wiring feeding 3-4 HO locomotives at most. The wireless receiver, which is really where the “throttle” electronics are, is designed for 10 amps and has a cooling fan. Load and voltage drop are not an issue.
Sheldon
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That’s my view, paint and ballast makes it all blend in.
Sheldon
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Didn’t know about that gadget. I’ll have to take a look and find one.
When I originally built my layout it was DC with many blocks, created by using insulated joiners. One ballasted and painted you couldn’t see them even if you wanted to. Then I converted to DCC and created even more blocks for signaling, detection, etc. so those were done with a Drexel. I don’t fill the gaps, I just cut them and forget them. Like Ronco!
Regards, Chris
But wait, there’s more!
Ron Popeil
Well, since, for some reason, AEP528 deleted his post and thus bumped this thread up into view, I guess that I’ll bring up what I do–I don’t cut gaps in the rails, but instead use the existing breaks and put in an insulated track pin there. Until fairly recently, my 3D printer was dysfunctional, so instead of buying or printing said pins I used such things as coated paper clips, short wire insulation, etc…
Now that my printer is working, I can make said pins myself.