Wiring

Nothing very exotic planned here, just some tips on how I wired things.

The track was wired with simple 16-3 outdoor extension cord. Black and white to the rails, and the green reserved if/when I erect trolley wire. A central distribution point (to be hidden under a Mail Pouch barn) is located near the center of the garden and is fed via conduit from the "Acme Power Plant in a Box." It's basically a couple of step-down transformers and ex-electronic device chargers to give me an assortment of AC and DC voltages. The wires from this terminate in 8-prong connectors which mate with connectors in a way-side junction box.

The feeds to the rails were done in several different methods. Tried drilling and tapping the rail to accommodate 4-40 machine screws and crimp-on terminals on the wire (center). Didn't work quite as I had planned, a 3-48 screw probably would have been better. Tried soldering the 16 gauge wire to the web of the rail. That's OK, except that the ties melt about 20 degrees before the solder! (left) Wound up drilling a small hole in the rail, running the wire through, crimping it tight around the base with pliers and soldering it -- after the ties have been moved aside. (right)

Some of the rail joints were also soldered, particularly those in the concrete that will eventually become Front Street. Otherwise just used the as-supplied Aristo joiners with copious amounts of conductive grease. In some cases replaced with Aristo screws with stainless 2-56 cap screws (visible in center photo.) Used Hillman rail clamps on the switches.

Wiring for buildings, signals, etc. is 22 gauge, 4 pair cable used for computer wiring. There's a loop that more or less follows the rail, and two pair of this will be used for the signals, and the other pairs for lights at passenger stops and switch stand lamps if I ever get the energy to tackle those. Other wiring feeds parallel the track-current wiring. All is in either conduit, plastic pipe, short chunks of garden hose and/or split loom. I realize not all of this is shovel or varmint-proof, but we'll see what happens.

Hopefully building lighting will be done with LEDs controlled by a couple of 556 timer chips. The buildings will probably all come in for the winter, so they'll also need to have some plug and socket work done on the wiring. (McMaster-Carr is a great source for these.)