eventide01

Decided to take the automation a bit further, so built a bit of a scenic framework and set it all up in iTrain. Quite fun - the loco hauled passenger service automatically swaps locos in platform 2 to the light engine in the sidings and departs round the reversing loop offscene while the DMUs shuttle away from York to Manchester all day, all with no operator involvement. Occasional through-traffic locos run around their rakes on platform 1 and scuttle off.

I agree an MP1 needs the additional wiring, but what it gains is I don't need a separate accessory bus and booster without the railcom cutout. I'm N gauge, and not as many motors as you, and I would prefer not to have one. Maybe my Cobalts are faulty or maybe I have excessive track feed noise or ringing, but its absolutely clear that the motors get readdressed while in run mode and that's not ok for me under any circumstances. The noise reduction is a welcome side benefit

No, this is me who said I presently use the cobalt frog wire (but this would lead to the two different track voltages), and so me who you think clearly doesnt understand DCC wiring. The DCC supplier didnt make any comment about where to power the frog from. The whole benefit of Cobalts is the "3 wire does everything". Having to run the accessory bus into the dcc slots and then the track bus into the spdt slots literally eliminates this benefit. For me anyway.

I talked this option over with one of the suppliers but I have ruled it out as the frog wire in the Cobalt would then be on a non-railcom feed. I'm not worried about losing railcom info for that small part of time, but I do think there will be issues where a loco bridges two track feeds, one which is railcom and one not, so there is a voltage gradient (and the two track supplies maybe out of sync with each other), particularly when packet activity is significant as the railcom cutout is per packet. Using juicers on the railcom enabled feed instead of the Cobalt frog wire would solve this but kind of defeats the object of Cobalts, let alone the fact that it is even more hardware I have come to the conclusion that Cobalts are likely incompatible with railcom on a busy DCC bus (as are other DCCConcepts products), but they probably aren't too bothered as railcom userbase is considerably smaller than non-railcom, even if it is growing, and it would cost them development expense to solve it. It certainly isnt an iTrain problem either, as Cobalts were getting readdressed simply using the DR5000's own switchboard to simulate a busy set of turnouts firing simultaneously, if railcom was enabled. The problem didnt arise with railcom off I am replacing my cobalts with MP1s and it is a proper ballache and additional wiring, but they are also a lot quieter

Thanks Iain. I’ll try the termination snub of the DCC bus, it’s fair to say that this issue has really multiplied now I’ve gone to a T shaped bus on a doubled size layout but I’ve never heard of cobalts being reassigned an address while in run mode before. It’s crazy. And another reason to not give in and lose railcom - without the cutouts in on the bus, there’s more rms track voltage so trains go faster per speed step. I’d need to speed profile all the locos yet again for iTrain

I’m rewaking this thread as I’ve a similar requirement for a railcom/iTrain/cobalt digital setup. The command station is digikeijs DR5000 and a couple of 5088RC feedback modules. I’m having a crazy issue with the cobalts. I have 4 double slips set up in a diamond formation, so 8 ipDigital motors. These are initially set to addresses 60-67, and I have verified they respond to commands from the DR5000. when I setup dr5000 without a railcom cutout, iTrain runs the point formation just fine but of course there’s no railcom feedback in iTrain. when I set up the dr5000 with a railcom cutout, with iTrain in charge, I see the following problems: 1) on startup the dr5000 tries to set the turnout motors. Often, during the set process the dr5000 will cut out. It is not a short, as I can just press the green button and we are off and running again. 2) This is the mad part: very soon one of the slips will be set wrongly. When investigated thoroughly, I establish that the one or more cobalt ipDigital has been reassigned a different address!!!!! eg motor originally on 60 will now respond on 67 or motor on 64 will respond on 61. this does not happen if railcom is off in the dr5000 but that sort of defeats the issue. I have been at this for 48 hours straight and come to the conclusion that ipdigitals are probably not compatible with digikeijs if railcom is enabled. Am I missing something here before I look for a different command station setup?

Ok well I’ve gone and wired the throat. 4 slips and 8 cobalts in a tight spot. Runs ok bar occasional diverging shorts on the double slips, nail varnish to eliminate.

Just for fun, Bradford Interchange with nice long platforms all the way to Mill Lane junction in N scale in under 2.4m. The only compromise is down Halifax trains not having access to the topmost platforms. This shrinkage is possible due to two single and three double slips, though the code 55 geometry leaves a small (12mm) gap to fill I'm not sure I'd want to wire this one up but it does look like cobalts would fit between the baseboard cell webbing....

Its all automated with iTrain so no buttons. I genuinely dont own a handheld cab not do I want to. Yes servos are smaller than eg Cobalts but need a separate decoder but maybe thats a separate discussion. Moving the discussion/request for help/crticism along, are there any facing/trailing point improvements I can make? Departures look pretty ok to me, arrivals have to deal with facing points naturally. But speeds should be low, so I'm not sure if its that big an issue....any contributors with practical experience - real world or modelled - want to shoot the track plan down?

Yes that’s the plan and though it’s a lot of point motor locating in a small space I hope it works without any serious reverse curves - the 3D representations look ok to me. Using a pair of single slips we permit a simultaneous departure from 3/4 with an arrival at 1/2, although an arrival at 3/4 or a departure from 1/2 suspends opposite traffic. And to your other post, I won’t be sawing points, I mentioned in the original post that the 900 and 700 are convenience sizes and will be permanently joined as a 1600mm or just over 5’ plank. But your point is well taken should I ever want or have to separate them it will be better to have them the other way round which I will do

Yes I think that's pretty much all there in terms of connections, thank you. I drew the whole thing up to mill lane jct off ony 1977-1985 imagery (there was a sleek rebuild in 2008 which cleaned out the steam era crossovers) and that's what forced me to start applying artistic licence. I know I've made a lot of concessions to get my money shot which is the simultaneous arrival/departure in my last image above The 1980 era layout I rustled up is below which closely resembles your map. Blue box is a 5m plank, so say 3.5m in N to get it done authentically, which is a lot.

So here we are, yet another terminus on a plank to run DMUs and loco hauled passenger services. I have room for a 1600mm scenic plank and the fiddle yard will be a separate project if more space opens up. For now, the plank runs straight into a balloon style reversing loop, not shown. Obviously its N gauge at that size. I started with a basic minories effort but after a few iterations its morphed closer to a terminus I know well, Bradford Interchange, or Bradford Exchange as it was known before late 1983 Bradford's actual throat is incredibly long and narrow so there's been some judicious shortening of the approach work so I'd say "inspired by" rather than "based on". Particularly as I have also omitted the top carriage siding where the 03 pilot resides in almost every photo of the era. I've designed it so services can arrive at either P1 or P2 as services leave from P3 or P4 for some dual running interest Diesel hauled services can be runaround on P1 or loco swapped on P2/3/4 There's enough room on P2 for a 2+5 HST formation, which will also fit in the warhead of the reversing loop P3/4 mainly for 101/108 2-4 car sets Some parcels traffic and the occasional scrap steel rake being run around per prototype 100% automation is the objective, including runarounds and loco swap. The two boards making up the 1600mm will be permanently joined so ignore the wierd concept of points over the join. Theres space for some additional sidings/refuelling or whatever top right, but I'm not to worried about that presently. Similarly platform shape is rough for now and although I haven't included the catch/traps theyll be there on he runaround and siding So after probably 12 iterations, I thought it would be interesting to open up the layout on here for some sharp criticism, have at it. What have I got wrong, missed, failed to see an improvement etc? First post on here, no need to be gentle. Finally I'm aware there's another current BDI layout asking for critique but I've created a separate thread as I have a lot more pointwork planned for the approaches. If thats inappropriate I'm happy for a mod to move the post into the other one as a variant.