Going Japanese!!!

[Pauljag900]

Hi Jeff,thanks mate,all works fine until I park a train in the passing siding,then when I direct the power to the other sidings the parked train in the passing siding moves aswell,does nt make sense,I ll give it another go in the morning and let you know mate,thank you for all your help mate,

Paul

[Pauljag900]

Hi Jeff,

I ve tried it again,if I set point 3 to straight and point 4 to the sidings and point 7 to straight am I right in thinking the power is now set to the sidings and the passing loop between points 3 and 4 is now isolated? All this works fine,but if I ve a train parked in the passing loop as soon as I try to move a train from one of the sidings the train in the passing loop starts to move aswell even tho the points position indicate there s no power to the passing loop,I just can t work it out mate,ha ha,

Paul

[cteno4]

ahh i see your problem here! you common rail (the rail that goes all the way thru the point on the outside of each diverging track) is powering the lower rail on the passing track and the upper rail of the passign track is getting it from the upper common rail on point 7!

 

you can get rid of this by adding an isulated joiner on the lower common rail there just as you enter the passign siding at point 3. when you are trying to just operate it as a passing setting with 3 nd 4 to turnout and 7 to turnout to just be passing siding then the insulated common rail will be pwoered thru the track from the right thru points 4 and 7. 

 

man is it hard to explain this sort of stuff with just text!

 

hope this makes sense!

 

other option is to just move the the yard down so it branches off just before the passing siding at point 4, but you will then need a Left point for 7. would give you longer sidings then though. do you have room off there to the right to do that?

 

jeff

Edited January 4, 2016 by cteno4

[cteno4]

paul

 

first graphic shows how the power is getting to the passing track even though the point 3 is straight. red lines show where power will go to the passing track with your problem setup

 

second pict shows the two points you could put an insulated joiner in to remedy this. 

 

jeff

[kvp]

And this is exactly the sort of reason Tomix makes fully power routing turnouts. If you add the isolators as Jeff drew it that will solve your problem, but it means you can only power the track if both points are set to it. If you want to avoid this, you can leave out one of the isolators to make the other side control the power alone or add you can add traction power switches mechanically connected to the turnout levers, so when you throw a turnout, you also bridge the outer rail isolator on that side. The same can be done with two bistable relays connected parallel to the two turnouts.

 

(for conventional track systems, this problem is usually solved by isolating both rails on both ends and using the turnout mech's extra contacts like on a tortoise to switch power to both rails, this is just what a Tomix turnout does off the shelf)

[katoftw]

Kato are power routing turnouts.  I don't understand why Paul is having an issue unless the screws underneath the turnouts  have been adjusted.

 

Turnout 3 = straight, turnout 4 = turn, turnout 7 = straight.  Then no power should be going to the passing siding.

Edited January 5, 2016 by katoftw

[cteno4]

Kato,

 

Look at the diagram I posted and you will see it's the common rails that get you in some odd permutations like he has here. It's when you have two like handed turnouts connected to each other where you get the outside common rail supplying power even when the power routing posisiton looks like it shouldn't!

 

This is because kato only routes one track's power not both. Tomix breaks the common rail and both tracks' power is switched by the point.

 

These are #6 points so always power routing, no screws like #4s.

 

Jeff

Edited January 5, 2016 by cteno4

[katoftw]

I don't see.  Your common rail example is incorrect.  If the outside rail is the common n a loop for example, then the opposite side of the station cannot have the common rail as the inside rail.

[cteno4]

No sorry take a look again. At all times the bottom rail of point 3 is powered,mits a common, not isolated by the point direction, so ecen when 3 is straight the bottom rail (lower red line) still gets power. With 4 set to diverging 7 is powered and the top common rail of the passing track will always get power thru 7 (upper red line). Thus in this situation the passing track does not get isolated by 7 the way it might seem. It's the flipped 7 that causes the common rail problem.

 

I've had to deal with a number of thes on previous jrm layouts so am use to looking for these, they don't seem intuitive as we tend to think power routing means full isolation, but that's only on Tomix points where the commons rail is broken and powered thru the point mechanism position.

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

Still don't understand.  How can the inner rail be the common on turnout 3 and the outer rail be the common on turnout 4?

[cteno4]

I use the term common meaning it's a piece of rail that goes thru the turnout unbroken and thus always passes power thru the turnout regardless of the way the point is thrown.

 

The outside rails in a point are like this on kato.

 

Try following the red lines in the diagram and you will see how this causes this.

 

Sorry it's not such a simple thing to put in words...

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

I'll have to take your word for it.  My understanding about anodes and cathodes is opposite to what you are suggesting.

[miyakoji]

I'm going to review this when I'm awake, although I'm pretty sure it's put me off buying any switches :(

Edited January 5, 2016 by miyakoji

[cteno4]

kato,

 

sorry i think the use of the term common may have confused you with the use of common rail where you have a ground rail in common all over the layout.

 

i meant by common the rail that goes thru each turnout and connects to either end w/o being broken and thus will always carry power thru the point regardless the way its set. these, lets call them thru rails are the outside ones on kato points. they are continuous regardless the direction the point is switched. see diagram C

 

 

so regardless of how the points are thrown the red and blue rails in diagram A will always have power on them if supplied by power from both left and right ends

 

 

in the configuration of paul trying to set the points to isolate the passing track and go into the yard is in diagram C. you can see that due to the thru rails the passing track gets the red rail fed from the thru rails on the right and the blue gets fed by the thru rails from the left.

 

 

its the reversed pont 7 that introduces the thru rail that when it gets powered from point 4 ends up feeding power along the red rail into the passing siding regardless the direction 7 is switched.

 

you need to just follow the rails to see where the current will flow and which bits run into a point switch and which dont.

 

jeff

[Pauljag900]

As I ve said before I m a relative novice at all this and I ve never used points before and I just could nt understand it,I had the points set,as Katoftw suggested,to route the power to the sidings but the train on the loop was still moving,I thought maybe the point was faulty so I swapped it with one of the others but it was the same.So,as Jeff sugested,after explaining why it was happening,I removed the metal joiner/fishplate at the points where he sugested I should fit isolators and everything worked ok.So although it makes no sense to me,or did nt at the time,it sorted the problem for me.The train on the loop does nt move until I switch point 7 to route the power to the loop.However,to keep it simple I m not going to use this method,instead I ve fitted an extra point in the through line and joined to point 4 which will go to the sidings and point 4 will go to the passing loop,this way it keeps them seperate but I still have all the lines I wanted,just with a slightly shorter loop but still long enough to take my trains

[kvp]

They are called stock or outside rail. Fully power routing means a break in both the frog rails and the outside rails. Kato only routes power to the frog (inside) rails, very much like Peco and Lego turnouts. Maerklin has gone the opposite direction and routes power everywhere, mandating isolating sections everywhere. Full power routing is the only safe way that allows power routed sidings with frogs connected to different rails.

 

In this case, adding a single isolator on the right side would be the most simple way (the left turnout alone would handle power routing) and the two power routing switches thrown together with the turnouts the most elegant (and would replicate the operation of Tomix turnouts).

[Pauljag900]

Thanks kvp,what a pain electrics are!so complicated when you do nt know,yet simple when you do,ha ha.as described above I m taking the easy way out! Ha ha,

[Pauljag900]

So I took the simpler option and fitted a LH point in the through line,no diference except a slightly shorter passing loop,still have four platforms and four sidings,four through lines and two passing loops.

[Pauljag900]

I finally managed to get the last bits of track,points and platforms for the station area and the tram line so all track work is now complete apart from a couple of crossovers which I ll fit in the next few weeks.Still a bit of work to do to platforms,lights stickers,people etc.

Does anyone have any ideas for filling up the space at the front where there s no tracks,I thought about the Kato yard buildings but they do nt look modern enough.Green max do a set of two crew rooms which I thought may do the job along with a couple of tomix sub stations,any ideas or suggestions would be gratefully recieved.

As for the tram line,I ve used tomix tram and Kato track with one compact point.I can either run it in a loop around what will be the town area or switch the point and run it around under the viaduct and along the road plates in front of the station.The other idea is to run two trams,one around the loop and one in a back and forth motion using a control from eBay sugested by Jeff.

[Pauljag900]

Sorry gent but I ve no idea why the pics have loaded upside down! Lol

[cteno4]

You are having too much fun Paul! Looking good!

[Pauljag900]

Any ideas for that big space Jeff?

[cteno4]

Paul,

 

You could do a reverse yard ladder there and get 3 or even 4 more storage tracks back there. You would need to make a power drop to that ladder that you could switch on and off as it would not get power from the other ladder when you are switched to the second ladder.

 

Also could do an 2 track maintenance shed back there with the Tomix or kato sheds.

 

Jeff

[Eurostar25]

Hi Paul, I was thinking the same as Jeff, maybe put another switch in there and make it an engine storage yard or shinkansen maintenance yard and pop a Kato engine shed there. Maybe even isolate the whole yard off the main passing loops and provide a separate power pack for it and use it as a shunting yard.

[Pauljag900]

Cheers gents,I did consider the maintenance/ shunting but not sure there was enough track length,but now you ve both mentioned it I ll take another look at it I think.The main problem now is going to be how to route it from the other lines.