Garden Railway Forum

Hi. First question from a newbie. I want to radio control my locos using the excellent stuff from Brian Jones, my question is;If I want to build a tunnel on my layout what is the maximum length it could be before losing the signal ( there will be no live track to take over)

Mike

ooooh, thats a good point! Will you have a access point for derailments etc?

Wasn't planning one. Will just have to lie down and haul it out!
I would like to have a short tunnel basically for the effect but i wondered whether there was a restriction for the signal

Mike

well, if it is short, it should be ok... but I wont have a long tunnel on mine...

Yes I can see problems with a long tunnel. My track will be an elongated 'dogbone' with the straight at a two platform station and the two 'circles' at each end will give it some character. I thought perhaps putting in a short tunnel under some conifers but maybe i should rethink that?

Mike

http://www.freewebs.com/north-downs-light-railway/
look at this guys tunnel, you could just make a longer version... double it...

Nice one but I would like it a bit longer. A short one like that would have been a cutting!

Mike

hi mike.

at my club we have a tunnel that spands the width of this track

http://gmes.org.uk/photos/2007-05%20Pub ... _3388.html

you can see the little cut away on top on both sides. is that long enough or to short.

that lenth seems to work fine

hey, merry chrismas!!! (12.00)

Merry Christmas to All.

That tunnel length is ideal; long enough to be believable but short enough to recover anything. No prob with R/C?

Mike

merry christmas

theres no problem with rc, most of the locos at my club are rc .

Ive never had problems with RC and tunnels, i think the only problem is derailments

Ideally if you're planning a tunnel it shouldn't be more than two arms' length (so you can reach any derailment from either end.). I have a tunnel here on the MNGR which is about 3 foot long, with approximately 3 inches of earth on top and have not had any problem with signal loss on R/C loco's, I think a lot of it probably hangs on the strength of signal emitted by transmitter, and how much of it is picked up by the receiver. a good "aerial" on the loco' makes all the difference.
Of course the other thing with a tunnel is to make sure you have plenty of clearance around the train, it's guaranteed that on your first open day someone will want to run something big through the tunnel. In my case it was a chap with a Garratt, it made it through the tunnel (just) and cleared all the cobwebs out that the other loco's couldn't reach. Much to everyone's amusement.
Hope this helps.

Paul.S

Thankyou Paul your reply clarifies everything!

mike

Hi paul im not sure if Ive welcomed you to the forum so welcome.
would love to see some pictures of your garden railway

try this ACLR: http://www.maesffordd-railway.co.uk/ has everything on...

ACLR wrote:Hi paul im not sure if Ive welcomed you to the forum so welcome.
would love to see some pictures of your garden railway

I think you did, quite a while ago. Pictures??? you've already seen the video, what more do you want? LOL

Paul.

and a very good video too!

ahhh well getting dotty in my old age lol

ACLR wrote:ahhh well getting dotty in my old age lol

It get's worse as you get older, I promise! LOL.