Automaticaly turn Power ON/OFF Spur and Bumper Tracks

Alan C. Feb 11, 2012

  1. Alan C.

    Alan C. TrainBoard Member

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    Dead Stub Track.jpg
    Here is A way to automatically Power/un-power a Stub or Bumper track by Running the frog rail all the way out to the end of the track. When the polarity of the frog changes it flips the polarity so that the stub track when closed is + - (Frog and rail is Green) but when the turnout is lined to the main the stub track is + + (Frog and Rail is Blue)this is known a a (Floating Ground) the engine doesn't see any voltage across the circuit and there -for the stub track is unpowered as far as the engine is concerned.

    To make this happen you have to power the frog you need a Atlas 200 Snap relay or a tortoise with the DPDT on the bottom and Power wire the frog in the usual way. The only difference is that you don't put a gap in the rail after the frog, instead you extent it out to the end of the spur (Do not wire this rail to any other part of the layout) so it don't short.

    When you throw the turnout this automatically turns on/off power to the spur track and it allows you to store a DC engine on the spur on a DCC layout. The other benefit is that you can't forget to cut the power and you don't have to have a manual DPDT switch to throw or forget
    When I installed this circuit on my sons layout he was 8 years old he had a hard time remembering to line the switch and cut the power to the spur with this system if he didn't line the switch he couldn't run any trains except into the spur track

    This can also be used on a siding just figure how much track you need to park an engine at the end/beginning of the siding and ad a insulated joint, this is really great if your running a DC layout only.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 11, 2012

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