wire

[Danboy123]

hi guys!

I am in the planning of a garden railway on I have noticed on the internet that people have to wires following the track and then they have two wires coming form that to the track.

what are they for? do I need them? and what is the wire ?

many thanks

Dan

[mick]

Hi Dan and welcome to the forum.

Danboy123 said:

...I am in the planning of a garden railway on I have noticed on the internet that people have to wires following the track and then they have two wires coming form that to the track.

what are they for? do I need them? and what is the wire ?...

A garden railway is a great idea and (hopefully) you'll not regret the decision. With regards to the 2 wires you mention, firstly it's not essential but it is a worthwhile consideration. You'll notice from reading about the various layouts featured on the forum that there are generally 2 ways of ensuring electrical continuity throughout your layout. It is of course important that the power you feed in at one end of your track is continued to all areas of the layout with as little voltage drop as possible and one way of doing this is to solder a short bonding wire across each rail joiner (fishplate) so that the joiner isn't relied upon for electrical continuity. The metal fishplates are great as a mechanical means of joining lengths of track together but they do eventually fail, or work intermittently, the more they are exposed to conditions outdoors and sooner or later they will fail to keep the circuit electrically live. By soldering a short length of wire (fusewire is the size we are talking about) from the end of one rail to the end of the adjacent rail you can ensure you maintain power at all times with less resistance than with the metal rail joiners. This method doesn't require 2 bus wires running parallel to the tracks.

If you decide to maintain power to all sections of tracks using the bus wire system then you run 2 powered wires next to the track. One wire carries the positive feed from your controller and the other the negative. From these 2 bus wires, instead of soldering individual bonds across each rail join you simply solder a short length of wire from each adjacent rail section to the respective positive/negative bus wires so that each section of track receives it's own direct feed.

Intermittent operation outdoors can be a very frustrating experience and so ensuring that each section of track remains powered by using one of the above methods is the way to avoid this.

[Danboy123]

thanks for the reply. just couple more things. which one is the best to do and should I have the railway on the ground digged in or raised above the ground ?

[mick]

If you can manage it then I would personally recommend you run 2 bus wires from your controller along the length of your layout and solder each individual section of track to those wires, ensuring that you keep the correct polarity throughout. That's just my own personal opinion having experience of using both methods outlined above. They will both give the results you are looking for so it's entirely your choice.

As for raised or ground level track then that's also a matter of either personal preference or individual circumstances. I prefer to see a layout close to the ground where it can be made a part of the landscape but I'm still relatively young enough to be able to work at that level without any great discomfort. A high level layout gives easier access but isn't as easy to disguise or make part of the garden. It might be that the location for your proposed layout will dictate the level of your layout. A sloping garden might require track both close to the ground as well as elevated in order to minimise any gradients.