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Organising point levers


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Hello,

I have finally decided to make use of the excellent Cobalt point levers by DCC concepts, up to 24 of them required, I'll also be having a mimic panel to show point settings.

This poses a conundrum.

When looking at my trackplan, attached,  I will be standing in the middle and facing downwards, looking towards the station, engine yard and goods yard. So my left appears to the right on the diagram.

I plan to site the levers on the edge of the board near the station.

The levers for the fiddleyard, behind me, will also need to be mounted in front, since that's where the encoder boards will be located.

 

Is there a convention for how the levers should be arranged?   i.e. should they be positioned left to right in the same order that the points appear? 

Should the mainline point levers be in a separate group from the engine yard levers, or should they all be in one long line?

 

At some point, I hope that there will be working semaphore signals and I'm pondering the MegaPoints Controller system for that, but that will be after I have paid off the second mortgage on this project.

Any thoughts on this much appreciated.

Thanks,  Alan

Trackplan_V10point8_a3.pdf

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Hi AyJay,

Yes, there is a convention (and a lot of details) but the exact layout will depend on the region and period of your layout - the experts will need to know that.

You'd probably get an answer if you moved this post to Permanent Way, Signalling and Infrastructure because that's where all the signalling experts dwell.

If you want to do that, just use the ... menu to Report the first post and ask Andy to move it.

 

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Short answer to a long subject: 

 

Points and signals on running lines (lines under the direct control of the signalman so main lines, loops, crossovers, bays and connections to yards etc) will be controlled from the signalbox so can be grouped together. Generally the levers to the left of the frame control those points and signals used by trains coming from the left (of the frame), those on the right trains from the right. Everything else goes in the middle, the exact order depends on the requirements of the witchcraft that is mechanical locking.

 

Points in yards will usually be hand points operated by the shunter so it's entirely up to you how you group these. Mine are in a separate frame to one side of the 'signalbox' frame, lettered A to E and reading left to right along the yard as I look at it from the operating position.

 

Fiddle yards - well there are none on the real thing so entirely up to you. Yours are loops similar to mine so it could be as simple as 10 push buttons, 1 for each through route, controlled by diode matrices (more witchcraft). I prefer levers so mine (when I finish that bit) will be arranged as a separate group of levers for each end of the yard. Operating levers 1 at each end sets the road for loop 1, operating 1 and 2 selects loop 2 and so on. It won't quite work out like that because the ends aren't a pure ladder but that's the principle. 

Edited by Wheatley
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Here's mine. The megaloops are on the new layout currently under construction in the garage. 

20201024_141328.jpg.707f9e3dac1cb117c8252796f3d61dc0.jpg

Slightly confusingly the signalbox is to the right of points 3a but with the frame facing the operator, so 'my' lever frame is correct for the box but the wrong way round for the operator. 

Edited by Wheatley
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Thank you all for your helpful input, I had another think about what I wanted.  Wheatley, as I read your reply, I could almost hear you saying "and you can't go far wrong...."

Rather than ask this thread be moved, I think it best that I start again with a freshly worded text.

 

Admin,  will you please close this thread and point towards Permanent Way, Signalling and Infrastructure, where I will shortly re-post.  Thank you.

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