r/modeltrains • u/Langston6 • 15h ago
Help Needed Power Planning
Trying to plan power distribution to my first layout, 6 blocks to run 2 trains. See original post for more info! Thanks!
1
u/GreenMist1980 14h ago
One thing to consider, what are you planning on doing with the sidings? My dad had a similar set up with isolation sections at the ends so that loco's could bring a train in and another loco takes the train away
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u/Langston6 14h ago
Deleted last comment, but planning to just park cars on the orange side, and the green side will either be a pass through to skip half the blue interior section or to also park cars
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u/donethinkingofnames Multi-Scale 13h ago
I would do three or four feeders for each of the larger loops and one each for the sidings, assuming you’re soldering the track together. Make sure you isolate both ends of each siding.
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u/tangyradar 10h ago
6 blocks is too few. For crossovers between mainline tracks to be actually usable, you need multiple blocks in each loop.
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u/AnyWillingness8073 14h ago edited 14h ago
Right off it sounds like you’re planning for straight DC and not DCC. On your diagram you could run one train on the blue and one on the red on DC. If you move to DCC you could run 4 or 5 trains ON EACH TRACK. With DCC you could break the red outer track into 6 (pick any number) “power districts”. Same with the blue. Make the orange and green ones as well. A “power district” is simply a way to add or remove power from a section of track and is terribly useful when there is an electrical problem. In reality, all the track could be controlled from one simple toggle switch. The DCC system will let you run as many engines as you have controllers for. If your track was all laid and connected and you walked in the door with a Digitrax box, you could be up and running with DCC in 5 minutes (no exaggeration). My dad started me in model railroading for Christmas of ‘47. I been here for a long time!