Roundhouse Ho Train

Posted in September 30, 2010 ¬ 10:05 amh.adminNo Comments »

roundhouse ho train
Model Railroad Roundhouse/turntable Q?

This is probably a really stupid but im reseting up my Ho Scale Trains and want to add a roundhuse and turtable so i dont have to keep taking them of the track to switch engines. My questions is that are the tracks on the turntabel and in the roundhouse electrified and if they are how? Or are they only if u have track on both sides?
like how would this elctrify? ------- ( / ) <======== with the dashes the siding the backslash the turntable and the equal sign the roundhouse. Hope this wasn't to confusing thanks! =)
I was going to use the Atlas manual turntable. I currently have the Power-Loc track but the connections are weak and there isnt very many expansions for it so im am probably going to switch to the Atlas 100 track through discounttrainsonline.com

Most model turntables will have their own power connection to power the track on the turntable itself (the bridge) - i.e. there will be a pair of wires from the turntable itself that you would connect to your track power (transformer), and that powers the bridge tracks.

As for powering the siding that leads to the turntable, that will usually be powered just like the rest of the track on your layout.

Some models of turntables are designed so that when the bridge is aligned to one of the roundhouse tracks, there will be an electrical connection from the turntable to the roundhouse track, so that the roundhouse track draws from the same power as the turntable bridge. This is nice because you don't have to wire the roundhouse tracks separately - plus the only time any of the roundhouse tracks have power is when the turntable bridge is lined up with it.

Other turntables don't provide the power feed to the roundhouse tracks, so you'd have to wire them separately, and presumably put a toggle switch or some other switch to turn the power on when you want to drive an engine on or off of the roundhouse track and to turn the power off when your engine is parked on the track.

I don't think you have DCC, so I don't think you would need the PM42 as mentioned in another answer or any other auto-reverser for that matter, but you may need to have a switch wired so that if you turn the turntable bridge 180 degrees around, you can change the polarity of the bridge to match the track that you're lined up to.

However, many turntables are also designed so that if you do rotate the bridge around 180 degrees, the polarity will automatically be lined up properly between the turntable bridge and the track.

If you have enough engines to justify a turntable and roundhouse, it might be worth your time to go down to your nearest train shop and talk to the people there about the turntables they sell and how they would work. The train shop might be a bit more expensive than the online train place, but you'll want to be sure about what you need to do based on the particular turntable you get.

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Roundhouse Ho Train

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