First of all, Happy Christmas to everybody.
I hope you all have power and all your chimney pots and so on. I'm visiting my English home in Leicestershire and been very lucky in this storm. (All too soon I'll be back to Libya where it'll be sand blowing around.)
The railway I'm planning should have a big turning loop at the end of a fiddle yard and I'd like to have a point automatically route trains one way around and let them just push through that point on the way back. Is this what this thread...
http://www.009society.com/forum/index.php?topic=275.msg852#msg852 (http://www.009society.com/forum/index.php?topic=275.msg852#msg852)
... was on about?
I don't think I'll need a motor but I wonder if I have to modify or remove the spring? I'll be running locos pulling normal weight coaches or wagons, which I wasn't going to weight unless necessary.
Can I do what I want to do with Peco points?
Happy New Year,
Tom
Tom - the short answer is it will not work reliably with sprung blades as 009 stock usually is too light. Loco bogies and trucks will also derail easily. With Peco points it will not work at all due to the centre-over springs, and you'll need to switch the polarity of the frogs.
I would set up the fiddle yard as a one-way yard and use a return track from the loop running parallel to the yard. This should join the yard throat at the layout end. It takes some switching to install, but I have experience of this and it works very well. You only operate the yard entry points and the point where the return track joins the main line into the rest of the layout. The yard exit points can be N gauge points where the springs have been taken out.
In my layout I have a three-track return loop array that holds six trains, but effectively it is the same set-up. If you like an explanation of how to switch it, drop me a line.
Well the 1960
Thanks, Ted and Brian.
I should have mentioned I will be using DCC, and have already learned about the polarity stuff.
This will be in a fiddle yard area so I don't care what the points look like - any N gauge points would be fine if I can make them operate the way I want. A train coming from what I think is called the facing point should always go one particular direction and a trailing point movement should always work without derailment.
What if I took the centre-over spring out of a Peco point and rigged up a simple coil spring between the tie bar and a nail so it gently pulls to the one proper side? Again, looks won't matter.
Tom
Yes I think it may be possible with DCC.
Usually in a DCC return loop set up contacts on the point will switch the frog polarity, however as you are using trailing points this will not be possible. So