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I’m in in the process of building out Dave Frary’s Pennsylvania RR plan featured in the Jan-Sept 1993 publication of Model Railroader, built out the plan in AnyRail and now ensuring I have all the wiring figured out since the original plan was DC based and my intent is to go 100% DCC. I also plan to be the only one operating the layout and will have at most 3 trains operating concurrently, probably more like no more than 2. As I’ve been reading up on wiring I’ve come across a number of folks talking about reverse loops and the implications to segmenting the plan into insulated sections. I have attached a copy of the plan which shows (in red) what I believe are the embedded “reverse loops” (wherever the train would effective get turned around) and in blue, where I understand I can contain the insulated section which will need an auto-reversing mechanism. My questions to this very experienced group are as follows:
Am I correct in my understanding and if so is the section in blue the one place that I have to address the polarity issue raised by the reverse loops?
Outside of having isolation to help detect shorts and controlling the polarity issue created by the “reverse loops”, do I need to do any other power isolation?
Any recommendations on a DCC controller and any additional boosters (not sure I even need one with a layout this size)
I’m also interested in using an IPAD to run the layout and wondering what the latest and best thinking is on that topic
I appreciate any advice that anyone has, thank you.
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