Garden Railway Forum

Hi,

I am New here, so not good at this sort of thing. have just finished building a rather large (to me anyway) G-scale (45mm) garden railway, that is mostly twin tracks, with many sidings and stations. the build was easy but now I face the problems with powering it.

My local modelling shop did not have many suggestions, but then do not specialise in railways.

The line itself is around 50 to 60 feet in length, it is not a loop line, but a line with a run-round loop either end. I plan on running around three trains on this line, but do not know how to power it. the line runs alongside the house so accessing mains power is no problem. someone I know suggested using a power inverter of some sort, and then getting a controller, but he did not really have any exact ideas.

Any advice would be appreciated. In terms of budget I am open to whatever to just get it working.

Thanks in advance.

First question is what are you running DC or DCC trains?

Am currently using DC Trains, but in the future may upgrade the trains to DCC, but no, at the moment am using DC

Have you considered converting to battery power if you are only using DC at the moment as the wiring will be different for DCC later on.

I suggest you have a good read of this site (I have met Brian, knows his stuff) as I it helped me when I first got into DCC years ago:

http://www.brian-lambert.co.uk/

G-scale controllers, etc:

http://www.dragon-gscale.co.uk

Ok, Thanks will have a look on that site.

I'm afraid I don't know But welcome to the hobby, all of my stock is live steam or battery so in my opinion makes it a lot easier to up keep the railway as I dont have to worry about wiring and connections like my 00 gauge layout . I think I would also recommend running battery stock at first (which you may be able to convert to track powered eventually) until you have decided if your going to do dc or dcc.

Its not difficult to provide track power to a garden railway. However, from your post it appears you are now searching for information that would help you to plan the railway you seem to have already built the track for.
It may be less painful to get someone who is modelling 45mm gauge G scale trains using track power,or other means of powering trains, to have a look at what you have and make some suggestions as to how you move forward.
The best I can suggest is to join the G scale society and check out the advice available. Living in Dorset I would imagine you will have someone living not too far away who could steer you in the right direction.
http://gscalesociety.com/

Good luck.

If you are not planning to invest in DCC for a while then you might find Aristocraft Train Engineer a good way of powering up and controlling. The most recent type (Revolution) is quite sophisticated (and expensive) but if you want to get started cheaply I see there is one of the older more basic version on ebay at the moment

Rik

1st thing if you are going track powered - did you use some form of graphite paste or similar to proof all of the joints between the rail connectors (fish-plates). If you have not you will be having all sorts of problems with voltage drop-outs within about 2 years as the rails and connectors tarnish (weather)/ same applies to all electrical connections to the track and powered accessories. You could go the whole hog and "bond" all the track joints but that's another story.

Next, and probably the most important, have you got in place some means of track isolation to deal with the polarity conflict that will happen with your run round loops at each end ? I believe LGB do specialized track pieces to deal with this. Without some means of controlling the polarity switching in these areas you have just one big short circuit and nothing will move.

Once you have sorted that you can look at a power transformer. I would advise a minimum of 5 amps with around 18v output range.

Now you need the speed controller. Like Rik I use the old Aristocraft Train Engineer. A, now sadly redundant, basic R/C system that is a great walk around DC speed and switch control system. Its modern replacement, the Revolution, would offer in its basic form a good speed controller with the benefit of being expandable to incorporate extra functions as future needs dictate. It's a good compromise without the complexity and cost (IMHO) of going the full DCC route. Max.

Just to point out - the controller that came with the starter set I used to build the starting point of the line came with the Aristocraft Train Engineer Revolution controller, and this is just not powerful enough to control the trains over the 60 feet of track, which most of which is twin tracked.

Jonzy96:108293 wrote:Just to point out - the controller that came with the starter set I used to build the starting point of the line came with the Aristocraft Train Engineer Revolution controller, and this is just not powerful enough to control the trains over the 60 feet of track, which most of which is twin tracked.

Do you mean the wireless signal doesn't communicate from handset to controller, or do you mean that the power is not reaching the locos along the track? Or does the transformer keep tripping-out because it's overloaded?

I'd be surprised if it was loss of radio signal - unless you have buildings between you and the receiver.

If the locos are grinding to a halt half way round it's more likely to be resistance across the rail joiners (see Max's post above).

If the transformer is tripping due to overload, then you need a more powerful transformer - eg http://www.gaugemaster.com/search_resul ... method=pns

Rik

I think you will be best served to try posting these questions on a forum that deals more with track powered garden railway layouts - such as the UK based G scale Central - where there are more members who have experience of this type of operation. I'm fairly new here, although been in the garden for 11 years, but what struck me is this forum is aimed at live steam and battery operators. Check the forum index headings.

A lot of us garden railway bods live in both worlds though - I run 50/50 DC track powered and live steam. Oh, and one battery loco.

It would help if you posted a rough track plan and what equipment you currently use to power and control it. An idea of the type of stock you currently/propose to run would also help to focus the type of information offered.

I think initially you may have to look into the basics of how your layout has been assembled before anything else. Max.

maxi-model:108302 wrote:I think you will be best served to try posting these questions on a forum that deals more with track powered garden railway layouts - such as the UK based G scale Central - where there are more members who have experience of this type of operation.

Max is right. The  G Scale Central forum (https://www.gscalecentral.net/index.php?action=forum ) has a lot more members who are running on track power and they are really good at giving advice to new members.

I used to run on track power DC and then DCC but I now run exclusively battery power (no more track cleaning and no more problems with power drop-outs around the track).

Rik