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Points failure on crossovers outside station.

2597 Views 16 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  LondonSouthEastern
Hello all,
I have been working on my 00 gauge (4mm) end to end layout with a Penzance station style terminus but with a twist.

However, I have been testing out all of my trains over the crossovers as seen in the image below to ensure it works. There is no fault with Hornby R8072 on the crossovers but for unknown reasons (and the reason why I thought I'd ask for advice on how to solve the problem), the Hornby R8073 right hand points on the crossovers (as noted by Faults) seem to fail each time you drive a train from one side of the track to the other.
I am able to work the left hand R8072 points on the crossovers itself but the R8073 ones seem to fail, especially as the layout is worked left hand running which means no train can access the southern platforms at all without pushing the loco across the points or turning the other controller on without causing an overload safety cutout.

Is there any solutions to this problem? I would like to get the crossovers in shape, albeit either by a scissors crossover (involving the same points but with curves and a right hand Hornby R615 diamond crossover) or another solution if possible.

I also bought some new sets of Hornby points to rectify the points failure but these have not worked either so am considering whether power supply is the main issue.

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Are Peco Code 100 points wired differently to Hornby? I have tried the crossovers on one controller to see if it works across the crossovers and it seems to work. But when you put two controllers in, it fails. Could this be a controller fault or a point fault? ...
It is neither the points, nor the controllers at fault, which are performing as designed: but the limitations of the set track system, which is intended for children to run a train with a controller per track circuit.

The moment you put a crossover across two independently powered track circuits without modifying the points and paying attention to track power wiring, problems of the kind you describe emerge. There's no short cut, you have to understand what to do based on the 'why' of it, and a major help is a good book such as this:

There are now much better options readily available, flexible track systems from the likes of Peco of superior design to deal with connecting track circuits, and DCC control whereby you can drive all the traction from a single controller. Happy New Year!
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Not sure that set track is the issue if it has insulfrogs which the quoted points have. If the controllers disconnect track supply when neutral then all should be fine when transferring between tracks but accepting that both tracks will be live to the controller in play.
If happy with that workaround to overcome a limitation inherent to set track design, that's fine. But there are much better very well proven alternatives.
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