MrDobilina

I have borrowed one but not sure what I’m looking for or how best to use it I’m afraid.

Hey guys I’m pulling my hair out over an issue I have with the above point. Turning left or right out of the turnout works fine. Going straight through however any loco dies on the blades. I’ve done the standard point alterations whereby the three rails either side before the first frog are bonded together using the dropper wire. Ice tried an 0-6-0 pannier tank across it and a class 3mt and both stall in the same place. The turnout is powered from dcc track bus feed and the turnout blades are fired using two tortoise point motors. I have the two frog dropper wires going to the frogs on the right side of the track feeding into the same point motor with the other frog on the left going to the second motor. There are no shorts occurring as the cab would moan at me if there were (and the lights would dim). The locos just stall. I’m using an NCE Power cab for control and power. Any thoughts and ideas are greatly welcomed as I’m pulling out my hair trying to figure out what could be wrong!

Quick update again. Ive wired up the point motors under the three way point and macroed them on the cab so they will turn correctly. Only issue is I have a strange dead spot right in the middle when going straight. The left and right work fine but there’s no power in the middle. Must be something I’m doing wrong but I can’t see what

Hey guys. So here I have a quick example of the points working with direction lights. To explain, the lights show green when the points are set to straight and red when they are diverging. Left one is left point right one is right point. I’ve set 4 macros for straight on, both diverging and then cross one way and cross the other. Fitted my 64xx with a 6pin doc decoder and it runs beautifully! Finally, I’ve fitted 5 point motors and I need to buy 2 more. Any way just a quick update

Quick update. Might not look like much but this is a tortoise point motor switching and also changing a bi colour common anode led when switched. Common anode is attached to frog output from tortoise and normal cables are attached to track power for the point. Apologies for poor camera work was far too excited that this worked

Hear hear! Beautiful layouts like this deserve some cinematography for everyone to enjoy.

Any chance of some videos of a running session some time Gilbert? Looking great as usual!

Quick update. Might not look like much but this is a tortoise point motor switching and also changing a bi colour common anode led when switched. Common anode is attached to frog output from tortoise and normal cables are attached to track power for the point. Apologies for poor camera work was far too excited that this worked :)

How have I never thought of simply using cork as a way of modelling hard ground between rails before! Thank you for the idea and I will be following this layout with interest.

Quick photo based update guys. I feel hapy with the track layout now. The two tracks coming in from off scene allow for down and up operation or shunting on a side line. Ive been painting the sides of the rails with a woodland scenics pen and am happy with the initial look of it. Also so very happy with the track curves.

Hey guys a little update. Currently waiting on some new wire to come through, the current wires I've used for point motors seem to snap in the chock block very easily. My droppers work fine, just the point motors are having issues. Once those are through I'll rewire the one I've done and work on getting the others reliably working. Then I may even be able to move a train around the whole layout rather than on individual lines

Morning all, a hurried resposne now before the forums go down again: I have invested in a NCE Power cab. The main reason for this is that the Cobalt 8fx accessory decoder requires EACH decoder on the strip to be set to address 198 before they can be set to a more normal accessory address. Doing this however has meant that I can fire the points from the cab with ease and even set up a little macro to fire several points in a route to ensure correct way is adhered to. This is a massive step forward for me and I don't understand the whole thing yet BUT I have found that the trains has been running smoothly at very low speed so far, so I am excited to carry this project on. Another step forward is that I have wired up a tortoise point motor and successfully had it switch the polarity of a point. I am waiting on some small screws and after that I can get them all attached to the base board. Along side this is that I have fitted a dcc decoder to a couple of locos and switched their direction of travel to be correct (so forward means forward!). Oh quickly mention here that I have been fitting heat wrap to the soldered areas of the main bus to prevent shorts. Next step is to wire all the other point motors up and then work on cable management. I'll submit some pictures when I can. Finally, I have taken the decision to extend the head shunt across the road on the bottom edge of the layout and not replace the wye with a three way. I like the idea of the threeway but post purchasing the powercab I can't really justify the extra outlay and remodel. I like the look of where that is going, so I will update you all when I have more! Feed back and concerns are accepted!!!!

Looks good so far, unusal upgrade process to not complete the process on a separate server before touching the live one. But glad you guys are showing good progress. Not a simple thing to do! Well done!!!!!!

Would you mind explaining this a little more please? Sorry still new to this.

Hey guys, just had a basic look at signalling. I'm pretty sure this isn't right but it's a start. A is a starter signal for the main platform - may be a double one for both platforms B is a ground signal to the right of the point blade for the left turn point for leaving the yard area C is a ground signal to the right of the wye point blades for moving back onto the mainline from the run around loop D is a ground signal to the right of the cross over for access to the run around loop

So more like this? The one under the curved point down the bottom could only go there really or I won't be able to detach any wagons into either of those sidings surely?

Discussion I was wondering about this to be honest. I would like to have some signals in - maybe not functional ones but at least have them in there for scenes but I have no idea where they would go or what types. I've only been in the hobby around a year or so and I am yet to learn everything to do with operations and how things are meant to work. Would there be ground signals in the sidings and arm based ones for the main platform perhaps? my intention is to have a station pilot around - my 3f Jinty or my early class 08 - and have the wagons brought in and run around by larger trains like my 3MT - yes I realise this is a little mix of eras potentially but it's a bit of a this is what we had available at the time type of station I feel Is there a good book or website you might recommend? Layout Progress report I have made a minor change - not to the track but to the cork. I was wandering around B and Q the other day and spotted some reduced price cork - 5mm thick. This plus the existing cork gives 7mm in height from the board - or one kadee magnet depth. This means I don't have to drill and cut a lot of holes in my board to allow the magnets to be fitted - and will allow me to have some drop off in terrain giving some better variety to the layout. I'm going to raise the track this evening and drill holes for the point motors at the same time. I've test a small bit of track with my Hornby select dcc controller and my 3mt moves around correctly so that's some good news too. The controller is connected by way of one of those terminal blocks that have prongs - I can't remember the name for them - so that it can be disconnected and swapped to the programming track if I want to or to just pack things down nicely. There is a good amount of cable so that I can hold the controller and move around a bit before I tug on the connection. Track power is provided by way of a somewhat thick bus with feeders running off of that into normal terminal blocks and then from the terminal block into the track through the board. All feeders have been soldered underneath the rails between sleepers so they are hard to see. The points are the only places where wires can be seen as the link between outer rail and the blade that is nearest the outer rail always are linked and the frog which is separate will be controlled by the point motor.

First off I love this response and thank you very much for it! Kadee couplers don’t relock when off the magnet as the knuckle is closed differently to when they’re coupled. Meaning you can push back and move forward without the wagons recouping if you start to move backcwhislt still over the magnet. I agree, if you push back past the magnet then draw forward and push back again they will recouple but pulling forward and then pushing back over the magnet opens the knuckle. Sorry it’s hard to explain! Here is an example of the kadee knuckle coupling: https://youtu.be/fWr6WOlnVGk I’ll reply fully in a bit - I’m just wondering if you didn’t realise the above was possible that there might be whyim confused or maybe this still won’t work and I’m just looking st it all wrong still!

Good tips! I was thinking though that I would uncouple and push back. Train enters from the left onto the middle platform with the engine at the front, pulls over the point, pushes the stock back in front of the platform then pulls forward and around. Train enters from the left onto the run around and decouples 2 out of 4 wagons using the cross over magnet by pulling into the end loading area. Then pushes back into the top left sidingleaving 2 wagons, it can then pull forward with the remaining wagons and uncouple again in the cross over magnet. then push back and leave them in between the wye and the crossover. then run around through the main platform and push back into end loading platform. Would that not work? Then engine release points one I had thought I’d need to leave wagons in the end loading bay top right.

Just to make sure anyone following this is aware, the build topic for this layout is here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/138926-end-of-steam-shunting-and-goods-small

Just a little update on the plan - rough of course and when the track is laid will likely be a guideline only - not experienced in getting the track perfect! The blue rectangles are the magnet locations - might need moving as I'm not sure if they are in good locations.

Just a quick update, last night I drilled holes for the dropper wires and the point motors. Need to make holes for the kadee magnets near some points. I've bought a Cobalt AD8fx DCC Decoder which should allow me to connect my Hornby select to the points to switch them by address rather than having to build a control panel. Need to get some track pins to secure the track too. Once all that's done the track should nearly be finished I think the boundary wall on the far right side will be the way to go forward for now which will be on the right hand backscene.

Thanks! I've stuck with the wye point in the top left as I already had it from the previous failed layout. Couldn't really justify the cost right now. My worry currently is the scenic break on the right hand side. platform buildings seem the most logical idea for now - I may expand the layout to the right once I have a new house sorted and a more permanent setting for the layout.

I don't suppose it would be possible to see this in colour at some stage please? Lovely shot!