Power socket of rear of LGB locos

[korm kormsen]

Although I have been relying on trailing pickup vehicles for decades to get my single-motored locos over my unclean track, the cautions are well-advised. Additionally there can be unpleasant consequences if the loco derails and keeps receiving power from the trail car, not the least of which is a set of wheels sitting on the wrong rail and creating a devastating short circuit. This can happen with two-motored locos as well, which explains why I have had to repair all the circuit boards of my 2085 mallets. Since I am traditional analogue and operate at low speeds, my damage incurred is probably minimal compared to those operating on 24 volts -- not to mention decoders. A long time ago I did operate a temporary setup with automated reversing loops, and here again the trailing pickups caused problems in the form of momentary short circuits that burned up the springs in the wheel contact brushes.

I am not quite following you on the reverse loop thing. I too have a layout with a reverse loop at each end. They are controlled via the LGB reverse loop track sets. And I also run analog, and have ball bearing wheels on every trailing car. Each car is plugged into the car in front of it, then into the lighting socket. Once the train enters the section of track between the 1015K and 1015T, the polarity of the exiting section has been reversed. Where would the wheels short?

if using the LGB loop system (and your trains are not too long) there is no shorting problem.
but there are several different ways to make a reverse loop. and on some of these other setups shorting can happen.

 

[LVT]

My setup was freelance using current-sensing relays and was totally automatic. While the arrangement worked to my satisfaction and the short circuits were imperceptable, I believe they occurred while the sensing of the current in the unoccupied block took place (i.e. the changing of the relays). More care in the placing of the blocked sections could have avoided the damage which was not discovered until the temporary "spaghetti-bowl" experiment had been replaced by an orthodox tracks-on-the-ground operation. My present tram reverse loop line uses a more refined current-sensing circuitry and longer gapping blocks and can handle from one to three trams depending on my choice of diodes to bypass.