# Left/Right turnout back to back question



## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

Hello,

So first layout like this and I have Peco right/left turnouts back to back with an inner circle. I've started laying the inner circle but when I throw the switch, power to the inner circle dies. I thought since I didn't have a reversing loop I wouldn't have to worry about wiring for polarity. Is this what is happening? How do I fix it? Thank you.


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

Kieta said:


> Hello,
> 
> So first layout like this and I have Peco right/left turnouts back to back with an inner circle. I've started laying the inner circle but when I throw the switch, power to the inner circle dies. ....


What switch? Do you mean turnout? Which way are you throwing the 'switch'?

Where are the power feed to the layout/track.


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Sounds like you bought Electrofrog turnouts which are power-routing.

You also appear to have a kink in the diverging leg of the turnout on the right side.


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## Tom_C (Jan 8, 2016)

That's what I thought too, but they are insulfrog.


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## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

Dennis461 said:


> What switch? Do you mean turnout? Which way are you throwing the 'switch'?
> 
> Where are the power feed to the layout/track.


Yes, the left turnout, which is on the right in the picture. Power (NCE powercab)is feed from to the main line to the left of the turnouts out of picture. Can this be happening because I haven't finishing laying track and closed the circle?


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## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

MichaelE said:


> Sounds like you bought Electrofrog turnouts which are power-routing.
> 
> You also appear to have a kink in the diverging leg of the turnout on the right side.


Insulfrog Peco#6, kink? The solder? This was my first attempt to get back into soldering. The rest of the joiners look much better. But this is where I started laying track.


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## Tom_C (Jan 8, 2016)

I think he means this:








Break out your multi-meter (if you don't have one, get one) and check the voltage on the track before and after the turnout. The turnout may have a setting to route power (check the paperwork) and it's not configured right. It's also fine to wire a feeder into the inner circle, too. In fact, you should not trust the turnout to route the power ***

*** this only applies to this layout and situation; other layouts may need additional circuitry to connect power after turnouts.


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## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

I do have one. I've never opened it..... I'm not the best when it comes to electrical but I've seen post on how to read the voltage so should be able to figure it out. 

The back of the Turnout packaging has instructions for wiring but I'll read it again to see if they have something that may help my situation.


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## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

Guess I found my answer.....The PECO Insulfrog is a power routing turnout. The term Power Routing indicates that only the route selected by the switch rails has power. The other rails are dead.


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## Tom_C (Jan 8, 2016)

Run feeders to your inside track if you want it to be powered.

And, if a man is soldering stuff, he should also know how to use a meter.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

Kieta

You have discovered the facts: Peco Insulfrogs
ARE power routing. You should have track
to bus drops for both frog rails on each turnout.
That will keep the power on regardless of point
position.

Don


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## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

Tom_C said:


> Run feeders to your inside track if you want it to be powered.
> 
> And, if a man is soldering stuff, he should also know how to use a meter. <img src="http://www.modeltrainforum.com/images/smilies/smile.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Smile" class="inlineimg" />


Does this mean I'll have to get a power booster or can I run a separate line or split line from the NCE? Or just a feeder line from the main line over? And is 18gauge solid good for that? Sorry all kind of new to me. 

I also read I need insulated joiners at the point rails for these insulfrog so looks like I'll have to redo at least the middle.


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## Dennis461 (Jan 5, 2018)

Tom_C said:


> Run feeders to your inside track if you want it to be powered.
> 
> And, if a man is soldering stuff, he should also know how to use a meter.


or to the joint between the two turnouts if you want them to power route for you


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## Tom_C (Jan 8, 2016)

Kieta said:


> Does this mean I'll have to get a power booster or can I run a separate line or split line from the NCE? Or just a feeder line from the main line over? And is 18gauge solid good for that? Sorry all kind of new to me.
> 
> I also read I need insulated joiners at the point rails for these insulfrog so looks like I'll have to redo at least the middle.


You shouldn't need a booster, and you don't need insulating joiners either with insulfrogs. 18 gauge should be fine unless you have a really big layout.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Kieta said:


> Does this mean I'll have to get a power booster or can I run a separate line or split line from the NCE? Or just a feeder line from the main line over? And is 18gauge solid good for that? Sorry all kind of new to me.
> 
> I also read I need insulated joiners at the point rails for these insulfrog so looks like I'll have to redo at least the middle.


You don't necessarily have to redo anything. What we're talking about is having more than one set of wires feeding power to your track. That way all the track has power, even with power-routing turnouts.

If your layout is going to be fairly small, you could just run a second set of wires back to the NCE track terminals. A better fix, though, is to use a bus wire (two, actually, one for each rail) which runs under the layout. Connect small wires from this to your track every 8-ish feet. For a smaller layout, 18 AWG will be fine, for a bigger one, you might want to step up to AWG16. Feeders from this to the track can be as small as AWG22.


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

*No and no.*



Kieta said:


> Does this mean I'll have to get a power booster or can I run a separate line or split line from the NCE? Or just a feeder line from the main line over? And is 18gauge solid good for that? Sorry all kind of new to me.
> 
> I also read I need insulated joiners at the point rails for these insulfrog so looks like I'll have to redo at least the middle.


Kieta;

No, you don't need a booster. No, you don't need insulated rail joiners for the "frog rails" (the two short rails exiting the frog) and certainly not for the actual "point rails" which are the ones that move to send the train onto one route or the other. If you add a pair of feeder wires to the track between the two turnouts, and do nothing else, then the current routing turnouts will supply power to the inner loop when the point rails are set for the inner loop. If you want power all the time on that inner loop, then do as Don and the other guys have suggested and add power feed wires to the inner loop track itself. 

If you want to learn more about turnouts, including such matters as "current routing", "DCC friendly", "Isolated frog" and much more, the attached file explains a lot.

Good luck, and Have fun!

Traction Fan :smilie_daumenpos:

View attachment All AboutTurnouts rev 5.pdf


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## mesenteria (Oct 29, 2015)

Peco turnouts are among the very best commercially made turnouts (I make many of my own, especially for customwork, and I hope you eventually get the gumption to try it yourself. It's not rocket science...).

However, and despite their best design and construction, those little copper wipers and jumpers are NOT fully reliable, definitely not for long. So, you should power both sides of them before you have a fit discovering where things have gone wrong. Solder feeders to the track lengths on either side of those turnouts.

This is a link on youtube to a decent video explaining how to use a multimeter. Remember that, if you're using DCC, you must switch the device to measure AC, not DC, when measuring voltage.


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## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

mesenteria said:


> Peco turnouts are among the very best commercially made turnouts (I make many of my own, especially for customwork, and I hope you eventually get the gumption to try it yourself. It's not rocket science...).
> 
> However, and despite their best design and construction, those little copper wipers and jumpers are NOT fully reliable, definitely not for long. So, you should power both sides of them before you have a fit discovering where things have gone wrong. Solder feeders to the track lengths on either side of those turnouts.
> 
> ...


That was very helpful, thank you. Sorry for the late reply. Once I found the dead spot (using the multimeter). I wanted to finish replacing and gluing down the outer track. Still in the process of rewiring and but the suggestion to just give power to the other loop worked. Learned a lot. Thanks again. 

Pic of layout attached. Not big. I just got a used ping pong table and laid down the Eco Cork Form from Home Depot and foam road bed. Something to do over the next few years while I decide on where I will live after that so it'll get torn down then. But should provide fun in the meantime.


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## kilowatt62 (Aug 18, 2019)

Greetings Kieta. 

Please tell more more about eco cork product you used. 

Sincerely
Scott


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## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

kilowatt62 said:


> Greetings Kieta.
> 
> Please tell more more about eco cork product you used.
> 
> ...


Hey,

The eco cork turned out to work very well on the ping pong table as a foundation. Using with the foam road bed has provided nice stable and pretty quiet run from the trains. I'm more on the side of trains make noise so I don't mind mine making noise and I think I have that covered with my re-acquaintance with soldering since high school. :laugh:. 

Anyways, one thing I did learn from laying the eco cork was after I laid the first section and it dried nicely and evenly, I got greedy and laid two sections the next time. Mistake on my part as it expanded during drying and created bubbles, even though I had things to hold it down in place during drying. Fortunately I was able to cut a slit in the bubbles and insert some glue and fixed most of those. (One just re-appeared yesterday when I laid foam road bed on it and held it down to dry). After that I went back to laying a section at a time and providing a space for expansion in between. Hope that helps.

As an update to my layout I ran the bus wire and feeders to provide power to the insulfrog turnouts which worked as most suggested here. I then ran into a problem with my inner loop coming back into the main loop during testing and had to move the turnouts from being back to back and put a section of track in between and extended the inner circle. Turned old inner circle into just other yard pull off I think, still working it and laying road bed. 

This has definitely been a learning process as I've only been in the hobby little over a year and used E-Z track on my first layout and "thought" I learned a enough to minimal mistakes. WRONG lol. But I've so enjoyed the trial and error testing after making changes and running trains to make sure everything works before it becomes permanent. The picture is where I am currently on the layout. Thanks again to everyone who commented.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

If you want your 'inner circle' to be isolated
from the outer oval, you might consider a
double crossover. That would enable trains to move
from inner to outer if desired, but also to operate
individually on both ovals.

don


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

*Next step?*



Kieta said:


> Hey,
> 
> The eco cork turned out to work very well on the ping pong table as a foundation. Using with the foam road bed has provided nice stable and pretty quiet run from the trains. I'm more on the side of trains make noise so I don't mind mine making noise and I think I have that covered with my re-acquaintance with soldering since high school. :laugh:.
> 
> ...


Kieta;

It looks like you're learning by doing, as all of us have. I'm not familiar with eco cork. Is it used as flooring underlay, or does it have a different original purpose. Your layout looks like a typical table top layout. That's fine if that is what you want. The trains can go around several loops. If you want to move on to making your railroad look and operate more like a real railroad, here are some suggestions. If you are happy with what you have then feel free to ignore them! :laugh:

Right now, anyone looking at the layout can see the trains going around in circles. They can see the whole train, and even the whole track configuration. They can not only see where the train is, at any given moment, but they can see exactly where it's going to go next. Now think about the times you have seen a real train in motion. Could you see the entire train in one glance? Apart from the obvious ( a train going through a grade crossing is going to go out the other side) could you easily tell where the train was going to? Did the track run in a circle? I suspect the answer to each of the preceding questions was no.
If you want to make your model railroad look and operate like a real one, we have to rearrange things. I'm assuming that the ping pong table is all the space you have now, or are likely to get, so lets see what can be done with that space. First, real railroads do not run in circles. Model railroads usually do, because we want continuous running. It wouldn't be much fun to lay down one track in more or less a straight line, and run the train back and forth on that track. That happens to be what real railroads do, but the length of their main line isn't limited to the length of a ping pong table! So, we need to disguise part of our all-too-obvious oval, and make it look more like a small part of a real railroad. Suppose we put a double-sided backdrop, or a range of hills, through the center of the length of the table. We also eliminate those alternate loops and settle for one simple oval. Now use the turnouts and track recovered from the extra loops to build a passing siding, with a turnout at each end, alongside the long straight track at either side of the oval. Turnouts could be installed in the middle of this long passing siding so that spur tracks could branch off to industries in the "towns" on either side of the backdrop. OK, lets look at what we have now. If the backdrop pr hills are high enough, we can't see all the track of the oval, but only one side. A train enters our little town (possibly from a tunnel, or from underneath a road bridge.) The train picks up loaded cars from whatever local industries have them, and drops off empty cars where customers have requested them. Once it gets itself reassembled, the train continues on out the other end of town, and on to it's next scheduled stop. (on the other side of the backdrop) It pulls into the other town, and switches cars as needed. There should be a small station at each town, and may be some basic loco servicing facilities in at least one of them. There could be a water tower for steam locos, perhaps a small coal loading conveyor, or a sand house & tower. Diesels would also need sand and fuel. Look what's been accomplished. You can't always see the entire length of the train. You can no longer see all the track. You can't, readily even seen that the track is still an oval and the train is no longer running around in those all-too-obvious circles. Of course the oval is still there, it just isn't as obvious. Now that we have some purpose to our switching we can even operate like a real railroad. Some trains won't stop at every town. The express passenger train can loop around the oval main line as much as you like, since our switching won't interfere with the main line. Same table, same size limits, same basic oval track pattern, but totally different look and operation!  All this may or may not appeal to you, so you decide if you want to try it or not. The attached files explain this idea and many other things in some detail.

Have fun;

Traction Fan :smilie_daumenpos: 


View attachment WHERE DO I START rev 4.pdf


View attachment 1 How to build a better first layout.pdf


View attachment 2 How to build a better first layout.pdf


View attachment 3 & 4 How to build a better first layout.pdf


View attachment 5 How to build a better first layout.pdf


View attachment 6 How to build a better first layout.pdf


View attachment All AboutTurnouts rev 5.pdf


View attachment A lot about couplers.pdf


View attachment MODEL RAILROADING ON A BUDGET.pdf


View attachment Model Railroad Terminology 3.pdf


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## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

DonR said:


> If you want your 'inner circle' to be isolated
> from the outer oval, you might consider a
> double crossover. That would enable trains to move
> from inner to outer if desired, but also to operate
> ...


Thanks for that idea and that does look enticing but I think I'm done with pulling up anymore track unless I need to lol.


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## Kieta (Nov 6, 2018)

traction fan said:


> Kieta;
> 
> It looks like you're learning by doing, as all of us have. I'm not familiar with eco cork. Is it used as flooring underlay, or does it have a different original purpose. Your layout looks like a typical table top layout. That's fine if that is what you want. The trains can go around several loops. If you want to move on to making your railroad look and operate more like a real railroad, here are some suggestions. If you are happy with what you have then feel free to ignore them! :laugh:
> 
> ...


Thank you for the suggestions and I always appreciate the way if either I or others ask for help and you can provide it, you do. Just reading this forum has been so helpful and have learned a lot by your response to questions as well as others. But yeah I love the layout going in circles operating switches as is. My love for trains goes way back even though I just recently got into the hobby. Even have the blessings of riding one 5 days a week to commute to work. So I understand and appreciate how real trains operate. 

I am more on the have fun with the layout with some realism. I picked out a pigeon clay color to paint the base inside the main after I'm done ballasting to replicate the dirt in some areas of Colorado. And have a farm house with cattle coral for the area on the left, so that will all be farm land. But this is where it may stop for realism because I'm thinking about incorporating some of 16th st mall on the right and highlight some of Denver buildings or landmarks with passenger train access there. lol 

My original layout was a sort of replica of Detroit's People Mover passenger train which does in fact run in a circle over a portion of the downtown city. :laugh: What do you know...it failed! It's still there and people use it but it never was the be all access to downtown areas it was sold to be. 

But anyways I figure once I'm done with the scenery and landscaping a lot of track will be hidden by objects and I can't wait to operate 3-4 trains and switches at the same time.


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

*Enjoy*



Kieta said:


> Thank you for the suggestions and I always appreciate the way if either I or others ask for help and you can provide it, you do. Just reading this forum has been so helpful and have learned a lot by your response to questions as well as others. But yeah I love the layout going in circles operating switches as is. My love for trains goes way back even though I just recently got into the hobby. Even have the blessings of riding one 5 days a week to commute to work. So I understand and appreciate how real trains operate.
> 
> I am more on the have fun with the layout with some realism. I picked out a pigeon clay color to paint the base inside the main after I'm done ballasting to replicate the dirt in some areas of Colorado. And have a farm house with cattle coral for the area on the left, so that will all be farm land. But this is where it may stop for realism because I'm thinking about incorporating some of 16th st mall on the right and highlight some of Denver buildings or landmarks with passenger train access there. lol
> 
> ...


Kieta;

That's fine! It's your railroad to build and run anyway you want. If your happy, then I'm happy for you.

Keep having fun!

Traction Fan :smilie_daumenpos:


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