[CBay82]

Good evening,

New to the forum. Just purchased a train set for my daughter (age 6came from Santa). I’m pretty clueless with all this!

I’ve decided to make a set with a plywood 8x4 (6mm).

i have attached some photographs (please excuse the mess). I want to run as an Analogue system what will be the best way to run a couple of trains?

thanks
Rich

 

[CBay82]

Thank you for your comprehensive reply.
Could it be run by just using one controller? And accepting the train on the inner most track behaves with the main section (outer loops)?

 

[CBay82]

 

[CBay82]

View attachment 22741

Red being electric jumpers and green insulator sections

 

[CBay82]

The only things you need to avoid are

• Short circuits where the two outputs from the controller are directly connected.
• Overloading the controller / transformer with too many locos.

When I returned to model railways in the mid 2000s partly lured by the 'freedom' offered by DCC, I measured the current consumption of the models then available and found most were 100mA or lower. This was in contrast the 500mA plus of the models of my youth where you definitely only ran one loco per controller.

The power brick which comes with your controller will probably say 'so and so mA' at 12v DC. So anything over 250mA will probably be ok with two locos but monitor how hot it gets.

With enough power available you can run two trains at once. They will not necessarily run at the same speed as that will depend on whether the gearing of the locos is the same. There may also be some small differences due to the resistance of the motors.

David

Hi David,

thanks again for you input, I took your earlier advice I decided to make it three power lines. I managed to buy a second hand Gaugemaster Model DF twin controller (for loops 1&2) and I will use the OEM Hornby controller (for long siding).
I’ve also made a few mods to the final layout with track mods in the fiddle yard part - as per attached photos.
I need to get some wood lengths to brace the plywood as it has so nice flex action going on whilst sat on the pool table beneath.