How to reverse directions?

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bsegel

New Member
Apr 22, 2005
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Hi all,
a friend of mine has a train set he sets up every Christmas that runs along a shelf on two walls. So basically the layout is an "L" shape. When the car gets to the end of the track it hits a bumper and reverses direction.

I'm wondering how I go about setting up a similar arrangement. What exactly reverses the current so that the train goes the other way? Is it a function in the bumper or is it in the engine itself?

I appreciate any help you can give me, thanks.
 
If this is a Lionel set, the mechanism is in the car that reverse the wiring for the motor magnet when it hits the bumper.
If it's a Bachman set, I don't know.
There are electronic devices that can sense the car at the end of track and reverse it. A switch on the bumper could change a relay and reverse the wiring to the track.
 
We have somthing like that on our club layout that we run during the fair it has a eletric eye type thing that when it gets each end it reverses itself so we dont have to have somone running that one all the time. I will have to ask some more indepth questions on how it works if nobody else can help.
Mike
 
Circutron makes an automatic reversing switch that mounts in the track and senses when a train goes over it. As the locomotive crosses over the switch, the circutry stops the train and restarts it in the other direction. It takes 2 of the switches to provide two reversers on a linear layout. The Circutron switch also allows you to set the length of time the train stops before it starts up again and I think you can set slow down and speed up rates with it as well.
 
Thanks everyone for the advice. My friend does have a Lionel set up so he probably has the car wired to reverse the motor. What I need is something smaller for what I want to do, probably N Scale size. I'll look into the reverse switches that mount in the track and see what I can find.

Thanks again!
 
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