shiny

Serves me right for posting in a rush. Yes, I said lock the topic. I didn't explain myself though. My bad, and i apologise if it caused offence. Although, to be fair - you did the same thing yourself. I also have a life outside this forum - as do you! I do believe that I had taken the time to read fully and made an effort to offer advice. No "pet sagas" here, just responses to your Alan Sugar summary - which were as brief and concise as I could make them. And some other comments prior to that. All of which was based on information that you chose to share up until that point in time. You had some definite misunderstandings in your summary though, which would affect any future decisions about your layout - and the cost to you. Nothing wrong with getting it wrong - that's how most of us learn: crawl walk run. But if you're already at the stage where you're about to sign on the dotted line and hand over the equivalent of a small family hatchback - then it seems sensible to understand what you are - and just as importantly - not paying for. "Half the people who answered this didn't get the basics of what I said in what I thought was a short clear initial statement." Perhaps so. But you also omitted some important details in your initial clear statement. Such as you weren't building it yourself, you weren't chipping the locos yourself, and then revealing a week into the discussion that it is probably someone else's design. Those kinds of things do affect the advice you are likely to receive. I did take the time and effort to read your posts, and those of others on this thread, and I responded appropriately. Using the facts that were to hand at the time. Not really our/their fault that our responses were based on incomplete information, and a lot of "lively" discussion has sprung up based upon incomplete information. The responses are generally useful, granted - but in the context of your railway, and the shift in (perceived) requirements - some is no longer relevant. The thread is getting choked up with noise if you can't make use of any of it. "Giving them more facts and a track plan that they wont understand unless I include the two why the layout is wanted how it is shown on my sketch" might be a little harsh towards those genuinely trying to assist. Rule #1 applies here: your railway, your way - and those who don't like it will drop out. However, others will continue to provide useful input. I think I seconded the "show us your track plan" request, but if it isn't your track plan to share - then it is totally understandable why we haven't seen it. It would have helped though. Probably. Although a "fag packet" drawing would have given us a rough idea of the amount of work involved in wiring your layout for DC (which seemed a good place to start) without breaking any contractual agreements or copyright rules. Even a rough sketch of the mimic board that you expressed a desire to have would help. I think some on here are smart enough to figure out enough of the basics without demanding your life story - and smart enough to ask when they don't understand something. But for some of the things you have expressed a desire for - automation, for example - some explanation from you is essential in order to achieve it. You did start this thread - which you titled To DCC or not? - questioning advice you were given about building and conversion costs, and later revealed that the advice had probably come from one of the companies tasked to build it. You didn't come right out and say it, but the inference is most definitely there. Most builders do appreciate a customer whose project is well thought out and researched, because they know exactly where they stand. If there are gaps in the requirements presented by the customer, the builder will either make assumptions or provide suggestions based on his professional opinion. The question you raised in your OP could look like you were questioning his judgement, otherwise you would not have asked that question in the first place. None of us knew that at the time, because you did not disclose that information until page 4 or so. It illustrates one of the pitfalls you asked for, that a decision shouldn't be made without all of the facts to hand, and that you should also consider whether your question properly conveys your intent. But also try to look at it from your builder's point of view. He gives you advice based on your apparently specific brief, and then you question that advice in an internet forum. You haven't mitigated it by asking how you could make aspect xyz of the railway cheaper or do it differently, nor have you enquired into any of the quite useful suggestions on the thread that could offer you with an "out". You have simply allowed the thread to crash along on its own merry way. That builder looking at this thread and remembering the conversation with you might be wondering: "what next?" Misunderstandings lead to errors lead to blame. And if he were to learn later on that he is competing against eleven other firms for your business, he may decide that the job simply isn't worth the hassle. I am not suggesting that this is the case - but that is how it could look. I've been there - it is not a happy place for the contractor - or the customer. You have told all twelve contractors drawing up proposals that eleven of them won't get the job, right? It is clear that you do need to bolster your understanding of some aspects of the hobby, you have pointed that out that yourself. And that is not intended as a sleight towards you. Read the responses to your Alan Sugar post to see what I mean, because if the summary you created is salient to your railway - then it is important to learn more about those things before you commit yourself to a hugely expensive or misguided course of action. I am not suggesting that you should or must do these things. It just works that way for me because it helps in my decision making and financial planning. Nor am I saying that you shouldn't be allowed to post questions because you haven't passed some sort of entry test! Heaven forbid - if I ever become that kind of modeller - please take me round back and shoot me. I did suggest that you abandon this thread, but I also failed to qualify that. And was quite rightly taken to task for it. Instead you think about opening new discussions to concentrate on stuff that you can learn more about - and deal with that. Break the task up into easier to digest chunks instead of creating a forum monster and giving yourself a headache through information overload. For example: You asked about mimic with stud-and-probe. Open a thread about that instead, find out the many different ways it can be done - and how it can be translated to your 12x8 roundy-roundy within your ability. Whittle it down to something you can work with - it is required research after all. MERG is probably out of the question due to your eyesight, but there is still DCC and Alpha mimic (and more) to explore. And you can use that without converting any trains - probably at a fraction of the cost you were quoted. But as I have already mentioned that twice previously in thread, I won't try to force my opinion upon you again. it is up to you what direction you do take. It is your train set after all. I, for one, am not asking you to join any kind of weird railway cult, nor do I have any desire to tell you how to do things. Some may be more forceful in how they express their opinions - but none of their opinions are without merit, even if you disagree vehemently. My own advice has tended to avoid suggesting xyz kit, except MERG - until I realised it was out of your zone, so rather I have modified my advice to be less technical and product specific and more along the lines of broad concepts that you might want to explore. However, if you do solicit comments and advice, then commentary and advice are what you shall receive. If you are selective about what you choose to share when soliciting advice, and the working parameters are subsequently changed - then be prepared to accept criticism that the goalposts have been moved. If the goalposts are seen to be moved, then some will quite justifiably regard their time as having been wasted. The advice of posters on here might cost you nothing, but it often comes at a cost to those taking the time to answer your queries - their time is worth something to them - even when the time and advice is given freely. "Giving them more facts and a track plan that they wont understand.. ..which I suspect few would bother to read, would be a waste of time" I disagree. The majority of us would have attempted to help as much as possible - myself included. Short of going round to your house and building the entire thing for you - which I won't do - I think the the 290-odd responses so far are testament to people's willingness to help you out. Granted that some haven't read much, but most certainly have. It certainly doesn't make it easy to keep up if the thread is allowed to roam out of control and break off on tangents related to matters that are being discussed in response to your query but outside your interest. It is your thread - take control of it. But also remember that yours is not the only thread - many posters are trying to keep on top of multiple threads - so they will rely on succinctness and adequate information in order to avoid misunderstandings. Having just found your track plans on three other threads you started on the subject. It was quite illuminating, and having read the conversations with those who did offer constructive advice - I can understand why sharing the track plan or other details is a highly contentious issue for you. If you think it is a waste of time publishing it - I am not going to argue with that. It is a real shame that the advice and assistance of some highly experienced and competent modellers turned out to be of no use whatsoever. Modellers who, from what I can see, went to some effort - including drawing partial track designs and creating track templates to help avoid running express trains on 1st radius curves, offered advice about track centres, reach distances, buffer locking and the perils of scaling up track plans verbatim - which had the stars aligned - will doubtless help others avoid those design pitfalls along the way. At the end of the day if you consider it easier to ask twelve separate firms to design a track plan than it would be to invest in a school compass set or sink a few hours learning some design software and trying to figure out how to squeeze it all in yourself - that is up to you. After all, it does take up a lot of time and paper if you let it. If design and planning is not your strong point - then that is certainly one way to get the job done. Especially if you intend to run trains to prototypical timetables and still emulate the track layout of Slough or Maidenhead or similar Western Region mainline station in OO within a 12x8 area. I can imagine it would be quite a challenge for anyone who attempts that. Definitely beyond my design abilities for sure! None of us want to see you fail in your endeavour, neither do we want to see you waste a ton of money on something you don't need or want. Nor do we want to see you get ripped off along the way. Anyway, this beer won't drink itself. Or maybe it will.. I'm only adding noise now so I'll sign off and wish you good luck with your project.

Kick in the pants received and understood. That wasn't the intent of my post - but it sure looks like it was. Apologies to all.

Agreed. OP is clearly struggling to grasp the basics - that much is obvious. He started the thread by questioning the advice given to him by a professional layout builder - because he didn't understand what he was asking the professional to do. And judging by his most recent posting - still doesn't get it. Yet. He hasn't done himself any favours either by being selective about what information he chooses to share. Heated discussion about a dozen separate technical topics at once - whilst entertaining - are not going to help OP in any way shape or form if he doesn't understand what any of us are talking about. It just adds to the perception that xyz is over priced and over complicated. Whilst educational and informative to those who understand it - it is nothing more than noise as far as OP is concerned. Anyway, chances are that said layout builder whose professional judgement was questioned - may read this and simply refuse to do business with him. If for no other reason than a customer who doesn't know what he is buying is going to be extremely unhappy with the finished product. I vote Lock. .

I modified my original answer to suggest a reason why OP wishes to include it. I really really really really hope I hate your O gauge, well engineered, painstakingly researched and built sound-equipped layout. The alternative is that I will love it - which I probably will, then I will want one - flog my OO stuff and blow my life savings on it. That worries me.. Hopefully one day I'll get to see it in the flesh. It sounds impressive. Tongue in cheek comment and no offense meant to any sound users. And I do not advocate cruelty to trains in any form.

A bunch of TTS equipped locos parked up behind me making a racket? Abso-bloody-lutely those tracks should be isolated. Preferably permanently. And put somewhere else / buried in concrete.. Seriously though, I can think of one reason. OP has already mentioned his extremely poor eyesight and anticipated difficulties lining trains up accurately. If he is going to have trouble seeing the buffer stops from his seated position in the first place, an isolated section seems to be a fairly straightforward and sensible way of stopping trains before they go hurtling through the buffer stops and onto the floor. Not much use if he drives the entire train in backwards though or if the section is too short. Or the loco has a stay alive unit. But definitely a sensible way of stopping a loco, especially if it has gone rogue - or the OP simply makes a mistake.

Sit down again, re-read the advice. and look at your design again. Some very dodgy assumptions being made there.. Start separate threads and ask more detailed questions. Avoid witholding information and avoid being vague. Questions like "item x - thoughts? comments? drawbacks?" are not good questions to ask. Try "what can I use on DCC and DC to uncouple Hornby tension locks?" etc. Better and more focussed responses will ensue.

Hi Paul, Good to see that you're not deterred! There's been a lot of debate about this and a lot of useful suggestions, but at the end of the day - you have to balance what you want with what you can afford - as well as what you can achieve within your abilities. Perhaps DC is the best way forward for you to run the trains, the majority of it should run on code 100. Take what won't run to a model railway shop and see if they can fettle it for you. For your mimic, why not use it to run a separate DCC accessory bus for your points signals and isolating switches? You can still keep your track purely DC until you are ready to make the change. Most DCC fitted locos will run quite happily on DC so you can spread conversion costs out over several years. Keep DC for your track, but split the track wiring into 3 or 4 separate operating areas - along the lines of goods sidings, loop 1, loop 2 and fiddle yard with a separate controller for each. Use DCC accessory controllers to control relays that isolate your sidings so that you can switch them from your mimic. It limits potential, but you won't be throwing excessive amounts of money at it. There will be plenty of guidance on offer if you go down this route. Go with what you're comfortable with. Good luck.

Perfect - I've been looking for a picture of exactly that sort of thing. Many thanks!

DC or DCC? I still don't know which is the best one - nobody will agree on it. Instead of waiting for everyone to decide, I've laid all of my track going downhill instead. Far cheaper.

Yes. They call it "dusting" Hope that helps.

Now you mention it.. d'oh..

@Kingzance Are you sure you're not over-thinking this? If you're using DCC, throttle forward and the train goes forwards. Take it off the track and put it back facing the other way - it will still go forwards. The polarity of the track doesn't matter in the slightest because forwards and backwards are relative to the locomotive - not the track. There isn't any need to change polarity of the track anywhere except on the reversing loop itself. As long as your point frogs are wired up properly, you won't have any problems. The plan that Harlequin has shown you won't reduce operational flexibility at all because the flexibility is inherent in the DCC system itself. There isn't anything to be gained from swapping track polarities elsewhere. The only problem I can see comes from having more than one train on each loop track. You must make sure that neither train is parked across the isolated section - otherwise it will introduce a dead short to the whole layout. The same restriction applies if you have one train entering as one is leaving - the auto reverser is only able to deal with one train at a time. It isn't a problem with the inner track because the crossing junction makes that impossible, but it is easily done on the outer track. I've added my own take if more than one train is using the loop, apologies for making a mess of your artwork! You would have to split it further if you were adding more trains, but a reversing loop is probably not the best place to store a train because of the polarity switching. You mentioned a large storage area under the station, so if you have more space available, think about doing something like this - adjusted to your own layout: Excuse the crudity of the diagram - I didn't have time to paint it or build it to scale.. You could have multiple storage roads, but as long as the reversing section (highligthed in blue) is longer than your longest train - that is sufficient for an auto reverser. You can store as many trains as you wish in the passing loops to the left, because they're just plain track. Ideally, you should only be driving trains in or out of the reverser - not parking them there. As you can see, there isn't any requirement to make the entire loop reversing, and if you have simplified your diagram to hide more track (and trains) than we thought, then perhaps you should definitely not use the auto reverser for the entire loop. As long as you don't park trains on the reverser, and the reverser is longer then the longest train you intend to run and your power supply has enough oomph - that will do

The tortoise "dead" zone is supposed to be there. It is to prevent the switch from energising both sides at once and creating a dead short on the frog as the motor travels - or welding your switch and point blades in place. The type of switch is called "Break before make". You would need two relays for each motor, one one each switch of the tortoise - and not a simply use a single with more poles, otherwise the relay will (de-)energize too soon and you re-introduce the risk of short circuits if the point blades haven't yet caught up with the switch. It would also be a good idea to wire a snubber across the relay coils, when the current is removed from the relay - back EMF from the collapsing magnetic field may cause sparking and pitting inside the original switch - and further shorten its life expectancy. Stalling is pretty inevitable if relying on switches alone to swap polarity, it is a trade-off between stalling one train or shorting out the entire section - one or the other. I would prefer the auto-reverse solution that Harlequin has described - it is a text-book example of how to do it right. Even more so if switch wear is as much of an issue with those point motors as you have described. The train is powered by the auto-reverser during most of its journey around the loop, so when the points are changed there will be no current passing through the switch at all - and electrical wear is no longer an issue. The only time the switch has to carry a current is when the train is on the short isolated section between the auto-reverser and the point blade. The relays sound like a good idea elsewhere though.

Ravenser, This might be slightly more useful: https://learn.adafruit.com/multimeters/overview

It sounds like a difficult position to be in. From the kind of trouble you are talking about, am I right in guessing that those points driven by servos? Some servos seem to be sensitive to interference, and a badly suppressed loco passing by will play havoc with the electronics inside it. Do the points will still change or chatter as the loco passes if you disconnect the servo signal wire but leave the power connected? I seem to recall a post somewhere that a user experiencing similar problems fixed it by putting a resistor between the signal wire and the servo ground connection, which was enough to stop the wire from acting as an aerial. If the layout is DC only, would fitting suppressors to the track in each section help? Electrical interference from locomotives can be caused by a number of issues including sticking / worn out brushes and weak springs or even dirt and carbon build up in the motor, especially considering the age of the locomotive - and the (usually) higher current demands of older mechanisms only exacerbates the problem. Suppression capacitors can and do fail with age as well. Likewise, dodgy pickups and dirty wheels is another cause. If the motor in the loco is arcing badly enough to consistently interfere with nearby electronics, it would appear that the suppressors are not doing the job they were intended for quite likely because they have failed. I would be concerned that it would eventually stuff up the electronics in the controllers. From my own experience, changing failed suppressors, for me at least, isn't a modification but an essential maintenance task in exactly the same way that changing the brushes would be. Converting to DCC has largely removed the need for suppressors, but i am well aware that failure to maintain the motor will eventually kill any decoder fitted to it. The advice from MERG regarding suppression would naturally be on the assumption that the loco had been checked and serviced to begin with, but if the requirements relating to member's stock are more relaxed, then I suppose it is not really practical to make sure this happens. A few years ago a neighbour knocked on my door complaining about interference on his telly, and it turned out that one of my locos was the culprit. When I checked using the hifi tuner - the amount of interference it was putting out was shocking. I cleaned the motor, changed the brushes and tightened the fishplates - and the problem did go away. It was a simple roundy-roundy without droppers, which I am sure only made it worse. This happened a long time ago, but I am still mindful of it whenever I run a train. On the layout I'm building EMI suppression is a requirement, simply as good wiring practice - not an afterthought. On a personal level I don't wan't to be a bad neighbour - or be prevented from playing trains when Corrie is on. A little locomotive with a suitable aerial, say a few metres or so of N/S track - can be a surprisingly effective wideband radio transmitter. Marconi's first Transatlantic radio transmission was made in 1901 using a spark generator along pretty much the same principles. If the operation of certain locomotives on your railway is sufficient to affect nearby electronics, consider whether it could be creating a nuisance with your neighbours' electronics as well. I do remember a few of my neighbours being raided and having their (illegal) CB equipment seized back in the 80s because of the RFI they were putting out, although I'm fairly sure the law has changed since then. If you see one of these parked outside and a bloke with a clipboard asking if he can speak to Graham Farish - you'll know why..