What went up has stayed up so the two different layouts are now separated - The experiment has begun.

How to put an H0/H0e layout within and O gauge layout.

What..

Began as a simple O gauge arrangement - which then had a simple circle of track included so I could run and enjoy my old OO stuff, has morphed into a much more ambitious project (and expensive!).

The H0/H0e part is placed in the Austrian Alps around Innsbruck and the Zillertal -

(This all happened because I could not wait for the USA tank to arrive so I invested in a Rivarossi USTC - having done so it needed something to pull and whilst researching ÖBB epoch III stock came across the H0e gauge - and as I had already put in a small N gauge loop. The devil in me said "why not?".)

SO..

what is now beginning to appear is an Epoch III ÖBB layout of some kind - combining an H0e layout - the two interacting so that the H0 wagons can be rolled onto a H0e Roll-Wagon and taken for a ride up the "Zillertal".

What is delightful about continental railways is the sheer range of RTR options...

Having discovered that Tillig make a H0/H0e crossover I ordered one without really thinking about what might be involved

... So it duly arrived from Modelbahnshoppe-Lippe.

It is then that it dawned on me I was rapidly getting out of my depth.

For..

The Tillig Gleissystem in all its glory is code 83 and all my H0 track is code 100...

How to join it together ( never mind wire it all up so it works)?

Fortunately a well known supplier of Model rail stuff sent me a code 75 curved point (for no reason I can discern).

So in case I had a yen to change to code 75 sometime, I bought some code 75 joiners and some Peco Code 75/100 transition track as something to experiment with..

..Which I discovered, to my delight, works well enough on Code 83 (everything runs over the transitions without any noticeable hiccups).

(It is amazing what one fails to think about and then how sometimes serendipity comes to rescue... )

But does it mean If I am to continue down the Tillig route will it be bye-bye to code 100 and an investment in code 83?

Now about wiring.. Does anyone know what this means?

I have meditated long and hard over this diagram and see I need a switch -

...

Most of the switches that I have come across lack instructions...

I've honestly tried to figure it out - but when it comes to 4 pole single/double/etc., throw or whatever switches that may or may not reverse the current flow - I am a complete novice/idiot/... (I need to find someone who can explain in detail what different named switches actually do, and in a way that a human can actually grasp..)

For now I have put a brute force arrangement of on/off switches in place that can simply kill the current in whichever track section that is not being used.

(I found that switching things off using Atlas type switches is not effective. They appear to only break the circuit and not isolate anything; so in relying on these current still flows (or not) when one thought it would not - with some bizarre results (i.e. either nothing mostly when you would expect something! or a loco suddenly moving on a distant siding for no apparent reason in a direction one would not suspect was possible!))

Here is a pic of the current state of affairs for the composite layout.....

The next project ?

It is time to build a bridge..