Steve’s been in touch with his model railroad signal wiring:

“Hi Al,

After seeing a recent post, it prompted me to send this description of how I wired my point signals.

I use this circuit to control my point signals. Its as simple as it gets, using the rails to control LED’s. It will work with DC and DCC.

This is because LED’s are actually diodes and rectify the DCC signal (square pulses of AC).

This circuit could also be used as a display to indicate position of points.

Please note that some points are labelled as “INSULFROG”. This means that there is NO electrical connection from the movable rail and the distant rail.

As this idea relies on such a connection, it will NOT work with INSULFROG points. If you have Insulfrog points, you can always wire a connection.

In the first diagram, the points are normal, and there is a distant rail that is connected to SOUTH at ‘X’.

In the second diagram, the points are thrown, and the distant rail at ‘X’ , will have NO connection to SOUTH.

I use these conditions to control LED’s.

As LED’s work well with 20mA, they need to be protected from 12v with a resistor. A value of 560 ohms will do this job.

Here is the basic circuit.

If point X is connected to SOUTH ( 0v ), LED 1 is ON via POS and 560 ohm resistor to X at 0v. LED 2 is OFF because the diode shunts the 0v from X, onto LED 2 anode.

If point X has no potential, LED 1 is OFF. LED 2 is ON via POS and 560 ohm resistor and, 270 ohm resistor, to a permanent South rail.

POS is from the controller output (+12V). Do NOT use a North rail connection in lieu because the controller may be set at a low speed, meaning no LED’s.

Do not use the controller NEGATIVE in lieu of a south rail. This is because there may be a difference in potential, which could cause problems.

This circuit can be used for any points configuration.

I used a common resistive Positive to serve all model railroad signal wiring circuits, like this:

The ANODE (long lead) from the LED will be connected to a positive.

The CATHODE (short lead) from the LED will be connected to a negative.

Here are some examples of how to use the circuit:

ENTRY POINTS, SIGNAL at A

ENTRY POINTS, SIGNAL at B

MULTIPLE ENTRY, SIGNAL at A

FEATHERED POINTS, SIGNAL at A

Hopefully I have explained this idea well enough.

Enjoy your trains!

Steve (Sydney)”

A big thanks to Steve for sharing his model railroad signal wiring.

There’s been quite a few of you posting on signal wiring:

HO scale scale signals

HO scale railroad signals

Model train signal lights

Model railway signals

Now on to Dangerous Dave, has been been back in touch.

Unfortunatley he’s being living up to his name and he had a fall – but he’s on the mend now, and has managed to get back up into his loft to see run some trains:

“Hi Al…

well Im back in the loft again after my falls, its been shocking weather so thought it was time to get back with my Railway and get them running again.

I put to gather a video and uploaded it, hope it can give a few ideas to others for there layouts.

Regards

Dave”

A big thanks to Hall of Fame member Dave.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you decide to start laying track and join in the fun, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.