Wiring required?

[Lawrence]

Guys, I have put a couple of loops of track together with 3 sets of facing points for loop switching.  Do I have to use insulated joiners on the facing points to run the loops independently and if so how do I go about wiring them for switching between loops?  All the points I have are 2nd hand so there were no instructions or packaging but they do all work.

[KenS]

Yes.  If you use "common rail" wiring, you don't need to insulate the common rail.  But if you're using simple two-wire-per-pack wiring (like the modular wires provided by Kato and Tomix) you should insulate both rails.

 

There are switches that aren't power routing, or which have built-in insulation (Kato's double crossover, for example) where more insulation isn't needed, but usually it is.

 

You don't need to do any special wiring if the loops each have their own power pack (as I assume they would from "run the loops independently").  To cross a train over just set both throttles to the same speed and make sure the rails have the same polarity (which might mean putting the direction switches opposite each other depending on how the leads connect to the track).

 

I did just this with my original Kato powerpacks and double-track Unitrack and it worked fine for several years.

 

If you want to do it with a bit more complexity, here's a description of how to wire things so that the power pack can stay with the train as it moves between loops on into sidings.  It's using two-wire wiring rather than common rail, and I think that's the right way to do it; I did the same on my old HO layout. But it does make for more wires than a common-rail approach.

 

http://www.model-railroad-resources.com/double-track-wiring-member.html

 

In this method, you set the DPDT switches (the ones with six legs and an on-off-on toggle) for the section(s) of track where the train is to that pack (call it "A") and do the same for another train on other parts of the layout with the other pack (call it "B"), and to move between loops the polarity will always be right because of the wiring, and you just need to make sure the track on both sides of the facing point switch is set to the same pack.