Double crossover

steamhead

Active Member
Cid's observation is giving me 2nd thoughts.....I have just the right place for doing something like that....Hmmmm...
 

60103

Pooh Bah
One note on the continuous running aspect: if you have an all-rail double crossover like the one shown, you will have to switch the 2 acute angle frogs in the diamond. (unless you have DCC and use a black box). I might be inclined to go for insulated frogs if you do that sort of operation.
Does anyone have a wiring diagram for one of these beasts?
 

tetters

Rail Spiking Fool!
One note on the continuous running aspect: if you have an all-rail double crossover like the one shown, you will have to switch the 2 acute angle frogs in the diamond. (unless you have DCC and use a black box). I might be inclined to go for insulated frogs if you do that sort of operation.
Does anyone have a wiring diagram for one of these beasts?

There is/was a great discussion at the link below about this. For DC and DCC wiring.

http://www.handlaidtrack.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=379
 

winger

New Member
Now my basic insecurity is showing, so I will try to ask a specific question. Using Kato Unitrack, if I have two ovals, one running inside the other, can I take the Kato 310mm 12 3/16" double crossover turnout, and use it to join these two ovals so that the switches can be set to have continuous running between the two ovals without any switching, or set so that each can be run as an independent oval, without any problems such as short-circuits or whatever.

winger
 

Squidbait

Recovering ALCO-holic
I believe that the UniTrack crossover has all the wiring and electrical contacts inside, so that you don't need to worry about it. Just plug it in, and roll the trains.
:steamtrain:
 

tetters

Rail Spiking Fool!
For the record I've started wiring mine up...and already its a beast. I'm hoping to have it working this weekend, maybe tonight. I'll post up pics of the guts under the layout just to give the readers of the this thread an idea of the madness involved. :p
 

tetters

Rail Spiking Fool!
Holy cow...this thing is truly a beast! I posted up a message on the Fast Tracks board to see if I can get some help. I'm also wondering if some wiring gurus here can help me out. Below is the copied message I put up over there.

However, I'm still having some issues. I cannot for the life of me figure them out either. I wired up my tortoise machines as per the wiring spec posted up by littletree. I've double checked my wiring and everything three or four times. Except I cannot get this to work.

I feel like I've almost got it, its just that it feels like something is missing. Perhaps there is an element in the drawing that isn't obvious or was left out?

I can get a loco to pass through when the paths are set to straight through no problem. Works like a charm both ways.

I can switch turnouts 1 & 3 which are sync'd up and almost get the loco through except it shorts out at last frog section going right to left. Alternatively though, If both routes are switched to straight through and I try to switch points 2 & 4 the switch is dead, and does not move the points unless I throw the toggle for 1 & 3 first which puts all the routes at diverge. Which will only cause a dead short anyways when the loco tries and crosses the frog points.

I have tried moving some of the wiring around to experiment with different configurations, however that only makes the problems "worse" if you will.

I'm wondering if maybe it needs another relay as a final piece to the puzzle. I would like to get this to work in DC, as it would be consistent with the rest of my wiring, however if I have to, I guess I can pick up an accessory decoder and reversing switch to operate the crossover on DCC. From this discussion, it sounds like this would be the "easier" method to take, albeit, it will cost me more.

I'm hoping some other people are watching this thread as well and perhaps give me some help too. If anyone else has been successful at getting this sucker to work DC based on the diagram posted by littletree I'd really appreciate it.

As a suggestion, I am wondering if maybe the fine folks at Fast Tracks could do up a wiring schematic and post it online for us. That would be just awesome!

Thanks.

The wiring schematic is here. http://www.handlaidtrack.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=379&p=3091#p3091

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could take a look at this for me and perhaps give me some help. Like I said, I'm almost there I can feel it...I'm just not seeing the solution.
 

Squidbait

Recovering ALCO-holic
Tetters,

Wow... this gives me a headache trying to work it out from the diagrams! I'm much better with the stuff in front of me and a multimeter in hand!

Anyways, if you've wired it the way littletree's diagrams show, and you're getting shorted on the last frog through the diverging route, it sounds to me like it's a problem at the relay (which you're using to power the frog and inside rails of the crossover). But not having the thing in front of me to trace continuity makes it a little harder to guess ;)
 

Squidbait

Recovering ALCO-holic
Re-reading your Fastracks post, I see you're using DCC... I don't think you need an accessory decoder to drive the crossover, you'd need a reversing module (<$50 for a simple one), and since you're throwing all 4 turnouts at the same time, you'd only need one toggle switch.

More-expensive-but-functional beats cheaper-and-not-working hands down. ;)
 

Biased turkey

Active Member
Very interesting thread, good links, thanks to everyone who contributed to it.
Model railroad wiring is not obvious, even for me ( I'm a retired electronic technician ).
When designing an electronic circuit, one doesn't have to insulate a section by cutting wires and gluing some piece of styrene in the gap :)
And of course, a digital circuit doesn't have double slip nor scissors crossovers :confused:.

Jacques
 

tetters

Rail Spiking Fool!
Wow...

Man this sucks. But I'm trying to look on the bright side.

I decided to order an auto reversing unit from Tony's Trains. I've gone and pulled all the wiring and re-wired the whole set up to work with the ARU. Looking at how much simpler the wiring is I don't know why I tried the DC way. I personally don't know how guys hand laid and wired these suckers up before DCC. My hats off to those brave souls. So I've got it ready to accept the ARU card when it arrives. Just connect the track bus lines to one terminal and the two opposite "X" frogs feeds to the other and bammo...I hope.

When it arrives and I get it working...trust me you will all be the first to know.
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Tetters: I hope the whole crossover isn't in short pieces from cutting the gaps.
Are you setting it so all 4 sets of points change at once or did you isolate all the frogs?
 

tetters

Rail Spiking Fool!
Tetters: I hope the whole crossover isn't in short pieces from cutting the gaps.
Are you setting it so all 4 sets of points change at once or did you isolate all the frogs?

Huh? No. There are four frog sections. They are all isolated. Like this...

file.php


My x-over looks just like this one with respect to how it is made and where the isolation gaps are cut. With the original DC wiring schematic I was working off of there were two DPDT switches. Each switch would or should have thrown two of the four tortoise in order to get a diverging route to cross over the diamond in the center. Despite the fact that I followed the schematic, I could not get it to work. I double checked and triple checked all my connections...still nada. wall1 :curse: I think the schematic is still missing something for DC wiring, perhaps another relay to finish the job? I'm not sure. :confused:

However, this is all moot now.

Since I'm running DCC I can pick up a reversing card and wire it to the main bus. The yellow and cyan frogs are wired to two tortoise (one switch on each one) in order to switch their polarity when thrown. The blue and red frogs will be wired to the auto reversing card which will automatically switch the frogs to the correct polarity the split second the loco's wheels touch them. In order for this to work though all four tortoise must be wired in sync. All straight or all diverge. Which means one toggle to operate the whole thing. Other who have done this apparently have no issues getting their x-overs to work.

I'm working off this schematic now...

file.php


file.php


Once I get the revering card installed, believe me you folks will be the first to know it. :flush1:

Boy...I've really steered this thread way off course now haven't I? LOL!!!
 

Mountain Man

Active Member
Just a comment of historical interest: I just finished reading a Model Railroader from 1973, in which was advertised a ready-made double crossover. :cool:
 
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