Need help with yard wiring

[BCR 570]

Tim: honestly I don't understand the problems Chris is facing.

md

I'm pretty sure it's either a short due to incorrect gap placement, and/or a dead section due to incorrect feeder placement.   In my response above, I did not make feeder requirements very clear: they need to be on the point side of the turnout where the polarity of both rails is fixed.

Tim, the Atlas turnouts are wired differently: all rails have fixed polarity except the frog, so you use them more like "normal" track.  On the Pecos, the frog rails extend all the way out to the end of both routes, so care needs to be taken with those switched-polarity rails when joining them to adjacent track.  Not so with Atlas.  Of course, you need to supply switched power to the Atlas frog if you want it to be live.

Mark:

I just spoke with Chris and I am wondering if he may have mixed up feeder wires for the turnouts in reverse position.

Gary:

Thank you - I have a wire going from the frog directly to a frog juicer and then out to the track bus.  All six rails leaving the turnout are fed from adjacent track.  I wanted to have the turnouts removable and replaceable in the event of failure, which becomes more difficult as one solders additional wires to the turnout.  I will monitor the first four I have installed and see if I need to implement any of the precautions which others have suggested here.

Tim

[pdx1955]

Maybe I'm hyper-sensitive about this.  But of all the things that drive me mad about running my layout (besides having to make trees), stalling and cleaning track are at the top of the list.  It makes running trains so much less fun.  The lovely little train is gliding along and then... and then... stall.. and in an instant the illusion is shattered and "fun time" becomes "cleaning time".

Yep, and that's why I got into feeding every section of rail, adding jumpers from point to closure and from closure to stock rails plus powering the frog . I'm determined to stamp out the stalling issue cause it always seems to occur somewhere. It's one thing now as the layout has a away to go, but I'm not going-to want to do that as much reaching in between buildings and other completed areas.

Peter

[Ron McF]

All six rails leaving the turnout are fed from adjacent track.  I wanted to have the turnouts removable and replaceable in the event of failure, which becomes more difficult as one solders additional wires to the turnout.  I will monitor the first four I have installed and see if I need to implement any of the precautions which others have suggested here.

Tim, IMO it's not a good idea to rely solely on unsoldered metal rail joiners for electrical continuity. And the problem with the Atlas C55 turnouts is that if the inbuilt jumpers connecting the stock rails to the closure and frog rails fail then the turnout can become very unreliable.

It takes only a few minutes per turnout to solder power feeders to each turnout, such that the stock and closure rails are electrically connected. For added protection, you can also add your own jumpers to the frog rails. This is how I do it:
http://gulflines.blogspot.com.au/p/wiring-atlas-c55-turnouts.html

As Peteski mentioned previously, Max recommends a similar approach.
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=38779.msg470420#msg470420

Regards,
Ron

[BCR 570]

Ron:

Thank you for your post; I see the value of doing that.  I am not worried about the frogs as I have supplied power directly to them.

Tim

[basementcalling]

Easy way to power frogs.

[Blazeman]

Easy way to power frogs.

But there's very little light under my layout.

[cv_acr]

But there's very little light under my layout.