I'm a firm believer in not depending on rail joiners to provide any electrical connectivity. Frankly, in my world, they are only for track alignment. In the same manner as the Exeter Branch, I will ensure each piece of track has feeders. No matter how small.
For staging I've adjusted that just a bit. I'm using one set of feeders for every 3 sections of track. To connect the sections I solder jumpers on each side of the rail joiners. Staging has less use and I'm not as concerned about the wiring being 'pretty'. I will attach the feeders to the track bus below staging. I want to minimize my time under the lowest level of staging.
I'm pretty sure I have enough feeder and jumper wire for the railroad, but I still need to pick up stranded 12 AWG wire for all my track bus wires. That is poor planning on my part as I should have already had it on hand.
Once all the feeders are done and connected to the track bus, I will resume testing of staging.
Amen Rick! Tedious, invisible, NECESSARY! We are of like mind on feeders--every piece of rail has one. As to staging (one feeder in the middle of three pieces of flex, each), have you considered the voltage drop in nickel silver rail? Probably not a big deal in staging, especially if you are using something like (horrors!) Code 100. Smaller rail sizes introduce more resistance, though. ... just noting....
ReplyDeleteBill Decker
actually skewed bridges are fairly common. I have one on my railroad as I thought the skew was quite noticeable in the railfan view. David Parks built it for me as he is a much better modeler than I am.
ReplyDeleteI think the big heavy bridge in Ventura was a later upgrade, funded by the state in one of the 101 realignments. IIRC when we moved LA in 1961, 101 wend to city streets in downtown Oxnard, Ventura and Santa Barbara, so I think that bridge is late.