Making Turnout Hot On Demand

[Nightwing]

I vaguely remember many years ago that there was a way to turn off the juice to a turnout just by operating the points. Lets say you have a spur that you want to power a locomotive and short train in and park, so another loco could use the layout. As I recall, the spur was hot when set to turn out, but deadened when the points were set to straight. Has anyone done this?

Another trick was if you had two switches in line, like for a small siding, the switch motor, manual or power, could be removed on the second switch so the points would float. That way, it was only necessary to operate one switch, regardless if the train was going straight or turning out. Of course, this ONLY works if the points on the second switch are downwind to the direction of travel. Do not run the train against the point ends or you will have a wreck.

This method can reduce the number of powered switches needed and avoids the mistake of throwing the second switch too late. In my present layout, I have this incorporated and it works flawlessly. The only drawback is once you set up this way, the direction of the train can never be changed.

 

[D&J RailRoad]

If you're using a Tortoise Machine to throw the turnout, its just a matter of applying constant power to one rail and the other rail, the one that leads to the frog is switched power. When the turnout is thrown for the siding, the frog side rail is powered and vice verse.

 

[NP2626]

What your referring to is called power routing. I accomplished this with an Atlas Snap Relay. The relay has contacts on it, you can control the polarity of the frog and can also turn on/off track power on you spur. What you describe in your third paragraph is o.k. if your siding will only be used going in one direction. However, as talked about above with the Snap Relay you can wire a second turnout with the first and a relay if you want the siding to go dead when the turnouts are set so as to bypass the siding track. If your going to run small steam locos, it is likely you will want to power the turnout frogs.

There are as many ways to skin this cat, as there are cats to skin!

 

[trailrider]

Depending on the type of turnout used, power routing can be done very simply by feeding power from the point end of the turnout. This only works if the closure rails are not bridged to the outside (stock) rails and the rails beyond the closure rails are wired to the respective closure rail. Peco and Shinohara will work this way. The only drawback is that good contact must be made between the points and the stock (outside) rails. Atlas turnouts must utilize the Snap Relay with the diverging rails insulated beyond the frog and fed power through the relay.

 

[Iron Horseman]

I vaguely remember many years ago that there was a way to turn off the juice to a turnout just by operating the points. Lets say you have a spur that you want to power a locomotive and short train in and park, so another loco could use the layout. As I recall, the spur was hot when set to turn out, but deadened when the points were set to straight. Has anyone done this?

Yes, this is the normal condition of most turnouts with hot frogs. Technically the spur has both rails with the same polarity when the turnout is against it.

To do this with turnouts that have electrically insulated frogs would require modifying the turnout to remove the built in electrical jumpers, and replacing them (on the frog rail) with feeders from the point rails.

 

[Nightwing]

I am using Bachmann manual turnouts, one Atlas Hybrid powered turnout converted to EZ Track roadbed, (my latest project) and one Bachmann turnout gelded of the switch motor and apparatus, allowing it to float as mentioned in my original post. Another way would be to use an insulated rail joiner and have a make/break switch connected to a jumper wire bridging the insulated joiner. (I think)