Somewhere SW of London. Somewhen before today

A double slip that I made nearly thirty years ago has "switches" between the rails, they're simply made with 9 thou guitar wire about half an inch long, when the point blades move the guitar wire connected to the tie bars touches a pin which is wired to the frogs causing contact.
There's two to each tie bar depending on the point direction, one is alway in contact and the other open, when the points are changed, the open one closes and the closed on opens. :)

Rick, you have two 3 sections, one between  Turnouts D & F and one to the right of H so any thing coming from  C to D will allow all section 3 to be live.  Likewise you have a lot of section 4 feeds  5 of which will also do the same.

back soon

Electrofrog slip should be isolated and controlled by its own separate section switch unless you set up some complex interconnecting depending on what turnouts are set to use it.



I have marked up your drawing deleting some insulators and feeds, added feed 6, altered RHS 4 to 7 and a 4 to 5

 it will mean some additional switching.


my drawing removed as requested. Feb 11
 

Basically, if you have locos sitting in other tracks, then to stop them moving when you don't want them too, it relies on turnouts to be set against them or isolate each track.

A bullet has been bitten.

The electrofrog double-slip which has been the cause of most of the electrical problems - either directly or indirectly - has been replaced with an insulfrog version.  

I can paint the brown plastic frogs a better colour than they are.  So far nothing stalls on them.  And - after a minor hiccup which was expected on a trial and error basis - everything works.  I fitted metal joiners to all ends but found that one arm needed IRJs to avoid shorting.  With those fitted all the problems on the main part of the layout are now resolved.  

Now to move on to the custom-built crossover which has its own wiring plan.  And which now has Peco PL-15 accessory switches to replace the double-stacked frog switches suggested by the plan.  

I can also now move on - once the disturbed ballasting has been made good - with other scenic and detailing work since all the remaining wiring (points and signals) is beneath the boards and will not require surface disturbance.

And to address Sol's comments I shall be introducing some on-off switches to isolate certain sections of track.  That is easy; a break in the power feed and the fitting of the switch is all that is required.

Model railway videos - gwiwer
Stuff moving.  Crudely filmed on the iPhone with one hand while the other managed three controllers.  But it shows that stuff moves as it should over this half of the layout at last.  I still need to fit a few switches to have it exactly as I want but it's come a long way in the last few days.  

Now to work on the other end where another double slip lurks awaiting my attention …..  

Wow there is a lot going on there with three movements and filming! I’d end up with a crash!
Looks good, I like the two class 33’s. I need to get me one of them!

That looks great Rick - as Chris said - lots going on there.

Good standard of weathering too - I wonder who did that ………………….  

I'm not too sure Petermac but the person responsible has been invited to a few exhibitions again this year to provide demonstrations.  And new for this year there might be some items I am prepared to sell if there is any interest.  As I am no longer able to run 12-coach main-line trains I have too much rolling stock now stored away and am unlikely to need all of it in the future.  

[user=1753]Gwiwer[/user] wrote: 

  As I am no longer able to run 12-coach main-line trains I have too much rolling stock now stored away and am unlikely to need all of it in the future. 

See, if you hadn't moved back to the UK, you had plenty of room Down Under on Penhayle Bay      :pedal

It's looking good, Rick. All the hard work  and trials and tribulations are coalescing to form a working and effective model.

:cheers

[user=606]Sol[/user] wrote:

[user=1753]Gwiwer[/user] wrote: 

  As I am no longer able to run 12-coach main-line trains I have too much rolling stock now stored away and am unlikely to need all of it in the future. 

See, if you hadn't moved back to the UK, you had plenty of room Down Under on Penhayle Bay      :pedal

So true.  But if I hadn't moved back to the UK I would be missing a very important person who - subject to final examination - is about to become a Doctor of Environmental History and has just scored herself a Cambridge University invitation to lecture and lead workshops later this year.  

We still own the house in Australia though have no plans to return for the foreseeable future.  And I still own enough of the buildings and structures that if ever there was to be space I could reasonably easily re-create at least a part of Penhayle Bay.

In the meantime I shall Waddle on.  

And so we move on.  The next issue requiring my attention is an electrofrog three-way point.  I have it wired exactly as per Peco's instructions on the packaging, it feeds three dead-end sidings so does not need additional power feeds beyond the blades and it has the rails bonded each side so as to avoid reliance on blade contact.  

Both turnouts are dead.  The straight route curiously receives very low power.  There is no short indicated nor do locos behave as though it is shorting - they simply slow down but continue.  

The multimeter shows there is 13v when the controller is at full power, and this is available through both left and right-hand rails and all the way along the sidings provided the other side is connected to a rail on the toe-side of the little plastic lug in the blades.  For the middle road the meter shows a current of 3.5v all the way through.  

Stumped?  I certainly am.

Rick. I found when using the 3 way Code 75 that depending on track selection, the other tracks are not always isolated but one was reverse polarity so any loco I placed in there before would come to life !

Yes, as Ron says, the nature of the wiring means two of the frogs are live at once, and this could cause problems if there is a locomotive on the tracks on the dead-end side. I would not rely on the point to supply power to the tracks beyond, but would go the extra mile and put insulating joiners on all but the outer rails, and separate feeds to the tracks in the sidings (with, if desired, isolating switches too for DC operation).

Gents, thank you.  I suspect the "fix" will end up being to use an insulfrog point in place of the electrofrog one.  That would not be ideal but there are issues with supplying power to the sidings.  

 In my very confined space I have built the main yard on top of a bookshelf across my office desk.  I cannot therefore drill into it to run wiring beneath although, as it is an off-scene yard, I could run surface wiring.  

I am also thinking about the number of switches I am now going to need.  Again there is a limit of space for the control area which must accommodate point levers, a few signal levers and a number of isolation switches.  The latter is all part and parcel of the electrofrog "experience" and if I was building this project from scratch as opposed to re-using previously-built and track-laid boards I might well have used insulfrogs from the outset.  

I'll have a think on the way forward.  

Rick, this is Southern Region we are talking about: surface cabling wandering all over the place would look fine if painted a dirty brown. :D

The electrical mysteries continue. 

Meanwhile I can make progress on the scenic side of things. Working more or less from the back to the front the first feature will be the creation of Waddlemarsh Halt. 

This will just (only just!!) accommodate a standard SR 4-car train although 2-car would be more common. 2-Bil and 2-EPB types will be the norm with others turning up or running through from time to time. The sidings allow for up to 6-car trains. 

Not finding anything readily available to represent SR “Exmouth Junction” concrete slab platforms I have invested in some 3mm foam-board sections. These have been coated in neat PVA brushed evenly and coated with a fine sand which was first used for the unpaved platform areas in the final version of Treheligan station on my previous layout. 

Also not having any work bench means the task was performed in the kitchen while no-one else was looking. 

One brush is used for spreading the adhesive.  A second brush is used for sweeping up the excess sand. 

Bald spots can be rectified later using spray-on PVA. The sheets can then be cut to size and slab joins scored in them. I am hoping to create the uprights by similar means. 

An update.  I removed the three-way point fora full test of the electrics as there should be no way a low-voltage current should exist.  The rails at the toe end promptly unfixed themselves from the plastic sleeper base perhaps having had enough of being fitted, removed, refitted and tested over and over again.  

What ever the cause the point is irretrievably b*****ed and will indeed be replaced with an insulfrog version.  The difference between asymmetric and symmetric, also the difference between Code 75 and Code 100, are not critical. I can drop in a code converter rail at the toe end of the new point and the sidings it feeds are already code 100 rail.  

In the interim and until the new point arrives I have dropped in a spare point which I have to hand and which serves four of the five sidings.  There are no electrical issues and it behaves exactly as I expect an electrofrog point feeding dead-end sidings would.  

Which makes me wonder if there was a bigger problem with the now-deceased three-way in the first place.  I may never know