Monk Subdivision: Wiring the Swing Gate

Wiring isn’t my cup of tea, but I must admit I had to step up my game a little bit over the last few months. At least, enough to barely understand what I’m doing.

One of the challenges on Monk is the lift gate. Not only it must be electrified, but current must be cut off on each side of it to prevent a train running over the gap accidentally. While there are many approaches to do that, I had a few DCC Concepts Legacy Connectors on hands. They are metal alignment dowels with spring load gold plated plungers that ensure electric contact when they met. They use a male-female arrangement. I thought they could be really useful because the alignment property would be desired at the open end of the gate where they can be a 1mm tolerance, enough to cause issues and derailment.

My concept is simple: Each track on both sides of the gate is insulated from the rest of the layout. I selected a minimal length of 2 feet, but on the right side, it’s about 3 feet long. That should be enough to take care of any locomotive running full speed with inertia.

Connectors on the hinge side

I run a flexible bus wire to the lift gate on the hinge side. This bus then split in three feeders. One to the hinge sides, one to the opposite side and one to the bridge track itself. Each of them is soldered to a male Legacy Connector that mates with a female connector located into the fascia or on top of it, depending on the geometry. The lift gate thus acts like a switch.

Connector on the opposite side

When closed down, both approach tracks on each side of the lift gate are alive and trains can run over the bride. If opened up, electric current never reaches these tracks and trains are safe from taking the proverbial plunge to the concrete floor. This is a fail safe and low tech strategy I like.

Connector installed on the opposite side benchwork

As you may have noticed, the bridge track always stays electrified with this design, but it isn’t an issue. Nobody will open the lift gate with a train on it… at least, I hope so!

Scenery will take care of these wires in the future

The DCC Concept Legacy Connectors aren’t probably the first choice for that kind of installation, but they are easy to install and helps with alignment. We shall see if they are able to survive constant handling.

Monk Subdivision: Lazy Signals for Dumb People

I wanted signals on the Monk Subdivision because they always appears on 1960s and 1970s pictures, but the truth is that adding the detectors to get a true railway logic according to Canadian standards is both a costly endeavour and a descent into madness. If you aren’t an electronic wiz, a programming enthusiast or haven’t that level of very specific autistic obsession with such intricate intellectual challenges, let’s just say it’s not for you.

Add to that the Monk Subdivision slice I depict is just one station, so not enough place to really implement full signalling over many blocks. It wouldn’t add that much of a layer of entertainment. Thus, I thought I should just wire the signals to be coupled with turnout positions. Simple, vaguely prototypical, and at least useful when operating trains because you get an obvious visual indication about what’s going on with the siding.

My approach to my dumb signals is to wire them all on a tortoise switch machine. They have two built-in switches, one will control the turnout frog polarity and the other one the signals. And here is the catch. I need to wire up to 4 signals to that single switch. Sounds crazy, but it is in fact relatively simple and very different to how I wired some on my stuff on the late Vince Valley layout (now demolished to provide free building materials to finish Monk.

I've read a little bit about Canadian signals and decided to replicate a few of their aspects that suits my needs the best. My objective are simple, I won't model occupation but route. It means that a diverging turnout or one aligned on the main line will change aspects. Not prototypical, but not completely nonsense either. As long as signals help you understand where you are moving, I'm fine. Anyway, Monk still used some TT & TO with their signals, and it wasn't a full CTC or ABS system. Just some hybrid thing to automate sidings a little bit.

Dumb signals schematics

Let's say a train is travelling from West to East (Staging to Armagh), if the route is aligned on the mainline, the restricted signal 2 will show green on red meaning to go full speed ahead and continue on the mainline... At the turnout, the signal will also show green on red. In the opposite direction, signal 4 will be also green on red. If occupation and direction of travel was taken into account, it wouldn't be necessary the case. Dwarf signal 5 is red since any train in that siding should wait the turnout is properly aligned to proceed.

Let's say we move in the same direction, but the turnout is set on the diverging route to take the siding. The staggered signal 2 show us red on yellow, meaning the main line is not accessible, but the siding is. Since yellow means to slow down the speed since we take the diverging route, we also get, in advance, an indication of things to come and to start reducing speed. Signal 3 is also red on yellow for the same logical reasons. Signal 4 is red on red because a train on the mainline can't move and must stop there.

If you travel from East to West, things are rather simple. Signals 4 and 5 will display green or red depending if the turnout is properly aligned with your respective track. Signal one is the less prototypical, but it serves a purpose of telling you if you are continuing on the mainline at full speed or if you are entering the staging area an must slow down. Occupancy will probably be done through optic sensors and a track diagram with LEDs... or simply a small camera in the staging room with a screen in the layout room.

I won't stress enough my system is dumb and really simple to implement. Better, it animates the signals, giving them an realistic aesthetic while providing useful information for an operator. Most derailments on model railroads are caused by misaligned turnouts. Looking at LEDs on a fascia isn't always practical, intuitive or interesting because it breaks the suspension of disbelief. Having the signals giving you that precious information is both more realistic, but also visually compelling to the point the route ahead is clear to understand at a glance. As long as the signals have a "real" purpose, they are "prototypical" in my eyes. I can understand if purists will be horrified at these shortcuts, but they make it possible to have working signals on a realistic budget and with bulletproof logic to it. It's simple and at the level I can do myself with some wire, a DPDT and my trusty soldering iron.

Also, it must be noted that with a DPDT on each specific signals, it could be possible to give them a different aspect, but that would need some little thinkering.

Some Work on Monk Subdivision

It was time that things start to move. As things stand, I had the choice to continue working on various diorama projects that clutter my space and will be dead on arrival when its time to run trains, or simply put these same exact efforts on Monk instead. I could wait for the room to be perfectly ready, but it won’t happens soon and it doesn’t means I can’t progress elsewhere.

The real river makes a sharp bend which is perfect for a layout

 Sure, the Armagh section is currently dismantled and need rebuilding after the water pipes will be moved around, but the Langlois Station and Abenakis bridge areas are perfectly suitable for building, track laying, wiring and scenery. I thought to myself, well, better put some work there and get somewhere than wait and get crushed by the need to build everything at once.

The river bed is defined with old cork salvaged from Vince Valley

Using salvaged cork and cardboard boxes, I’ve started to build the scenery by the bridge. Nothing fancy, but general shapes to give an idea about what it will look like. The river shores are defined by old piece of cork that have been in rough shape. This is perfect to replicate eroded terrain.

Cardboard is intuitive and easy to work with... and forgiving

Then I decided to work on was the bridge backdrop. It needed to be put back in place since I transformed the swing gate last year. Some cutting was required, but it’s now back in place. The backdrop is also getting repaired in the room corner. It used to be a sweeping curve made of MDF, but it took too much space, and the geometry was awkward because of the two tracks form staging. I decided to use a wooden cornice molding glued in the corner to merge two pieces of MDF. It was a trick once published in MRR a few years ago. I really like how neat it now looks. I recall James Hilton once told me about how very small coving could have a really big impact. I agree! Can’t wait to finish, prime and paint the backdrop again!

It doesn't take a lot to alright give a sense of the place

Later, I placed the bridge back in place and put a locomotive on it. I must say Mission accomplished. That’s exactly that look I was after and I know the spot has a lot of potential to become one of my favourite.

Not too shaby, but a trio of Big Alcos would be even better

I have yet to figure out a few things about DC and DCC operations, but that will be in the future. I’m seriously thinking about simplifying greatly my staging schemes and removing the crossover. Simplicity and reliability seems to be more important than a reversing capability that could lead to potential issues.