Bus wire for a garden railway

B

Bill Bagal

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New-Zealand
Hi all

New member and poster here. Currently building a garden railway. Roadbed is in, earthworks completed, planting underway, bridges and tunnel built, and soon to install track. Layout is a folded dogbone shape with about 100m of LGB track and will be powered by an NCE DCC system.

I know that the rail joiners won't be reliable long term so I am wondering if we should install a bus wire with feeders to each track section or should we invest in rail clamps? If a bus the what gauge of wire to use? Yes, I know the bigger the better but then cost is also a factor to be considered.

Thanks in advance and kind regards.

Bill
 
I have no bus as the cross section of code 332 track doesn't give me any problems.

But I have used rail clamps which helps.

Welcome to the forum....
 
The Aristocraft / Bachmann screwed rail joiners have provided me with years of good current transmission - the line is just under 300 ft and I have a second mains feed half way round.

As Gizzy says, if you don't use the screwed fish plates (rail joiners), use rail clamps - don't rely on the LGB slide-on rail joiners .................. yeah I know you can use conductive paste but why would you want to?
 
Much like above - all my track uses railclamps which I've found extremely reliable (and worth the investment imho). However, I have a bus of sorts but I don't believe I have as many connections as I've witnesses on smaller scale. Actually, it's probably more acrruate to say I've got 3 buses. One for the Central Station, one for the Booster and one for 12V DC (lights etc).

From here, the layout is currently divided into around 8 blocks - each with their own feed from the track buses (either central or booster) and isolated from the other sections. This makes narrowing down any connection problems very easy. Also, all my accessory decoders are wired directly to the buses and not onto the track (with the exception of 1-2 which are interim)
Bus Wires.png
 
Hi and welcome to the madness..
You can use railclamps , you can run a bus around , I do both.. track feed every 20ft,or on every point /siding.
Strangely it just works ..
 
When I had track power, prior to 2011, I soldered jumpers across each and every rail joint. My railway is at ground level. I doubtmm back would tolerate doing that nowadays.....:(
 
Welcome to the forum Bill. You already have a few good suggestions, these days I am all Battery Powered dead rail but in my Track power days I split the line into a few sections. Isolated between each one and had a switched section that fed each end. All other joints were clamped and Power problems were none existent except one where I had forgotten to screw the clamps up! The benefit of this way is that if you have a short sections of the line can be switched of to find a potential fault.
 
Rail clamps are your best friend. They eliminate most electrical issues. Similar to others I also run feeders. I have 6 power districts each fed with 10-12 gauge wire with feeders from the terminals every 30-40 ft. This is for an automated DCC layout.

For straight DC feeders are probably only needed every 50-80ft.
 
Diesel2000 said:
For straight DC feeders are probably only needed every 50-80ft.
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Yep, but don't forget, I have a loop of about 300ft, so I have second mains feed half way round. Effectively, that means that each feed only has to go 75 feet in each direction before you meet the juice coming the other way from the other feed. It's been down about 7 or 8 years without major issues (and I even found a couple of joints where the fishplates didn't have screws o_Oo_O).

I use 6.5mm2 cables (in conduit) for the buried run across the garden to prevent voltage drop between the two feeds. It's a trifle OTT, but in terms of readily available domestic cable, the next size down is 2.5mm2 which would be too small, according to the electrician who did the calcs for me.
 
Thank you for replies to date. I've looked at some cable options but it seems anything above 2.5mm2 is out of budget. Anyone know what the cross section area of LGB rail is? I'm thinking about 8mm2 which from a conductivity point of view will be about the same as 2.5mm2 cable. Maybe better to use effective rail joiners (clamps) and regard the bus as a backup?

I'm coming from an HO background where I used a 2.5mm2 bus with feeder to every piece of track. Garden is a whole new world!

Bill
 
Bill Bagal said:
Thank you for replies to date. I've looked at some cable options but it seems anything above 2.5mm2 is out of budget. Anyone know what the cross section area of LGB rail is? I'm thinking about 8mm2 which from a conductivity point of view will be about the same as 2.5mm2 cable. Maybe better to use effective rail joiners (clamps) and regard the bus as a backup?

I'm coming from an HO background where I used a 2.5mm2 bus with feeder to every piece of track. Garden is a whole new world!

Bill
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Install the track with clamps (or screwed rail joiners if not using LGB) then check the voltage around the track - that'll soon tell you whether you need any back-up / reinforcement.
 
Bill Bagal said:
I know that the rail joiners won't be reliable long term ....
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Who told you that? Don't believe everything you read, or are told. My Taita Gorge Garden Railway has been down, at ground level, for 25 years, and I've only ever used rail joiners, and ordinary track power (a single two wire feed). My advice to those starting out, is don't go overboard with all the bells and whistles, keep it simple, then add stuff as required/needed/wanted. Get something down, and running, enjoy the experience. My enthusiasm has been maintained by doing 'little bits' at a time, and fully finishing them, and get running. I've seen a few too many start off with grandiose plans, and get no further than a bulldozed yard and half the concrete track formation done when they've given up/lost the urge/run out of funds........
 
Bill Bagal said:
I'm coming from an HO background where I used a 2.5mm2 bus with feeder to every piece of track.
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whoa! from my point of view that is/was the ultimate overkill.

i am at it (LGB & co) for more than 50 years. (but less than four in the garden)

the "standard" track, (332) is far thicker than any feeder i have seen, or seen recommended.
the best (and most expensive) way to connect the rails are the clamps.
the cheapest (but time and work intensive) way are jumpers (short pieces of wire, soldered in parallel to the standard joiners)
or you could do it the ugly way, like i did on occasions, just solder the joiners to the rails.

loeten01.JPG

(did i mention, that i'm not good at soldering?)

or use provisional solutions like connect rails by just sticking solder-wire between rail and ties.

loeten02.JPG

that is quick and easy. specially, when i expect visitors and the trains don't run.

but in any case it is a good idea, to clamp turnouts/switches (much easier to take out for maintenance etc.)
 
I can echo what others have posted, I have only two feeds in the station area of my outdoor track, which I estimate is around the 300 + ft. mark, and one feed to the storage tracks in the shed.
The track is fish plated with the rails drilled the tapped for the screws, after removing the LGB fish plates, and copper greased during instillation. The exception to this rule is the pointwork, which for ease of removal for maintenance are rail clamped. There are jumper connections in the station area and one of the three passing loops, and I have installed a few bridging jumper cables at differing points in the track layout. But in the main the fish plating of the rails makes them act as there own bus.
 
Welcome to the forum. Have you thought about 4mm cable? That would probably do it. Personally I wouldn't solder the fish plates, you may want to lift the track for some reason, and it won't help expansion issues.
 
Bill Bagal said:
Thank you for replies to date. I've looked at some cable options but it seems anything above 2.5mm2 is out of budget. Anyone know what the cross section area of LGB rail is? I'm thinking about 8mm2 which from a conductivity point of view will be about the same as 2.5mm2 cable. Maybe better to use effective rail joiners (clamps) and regard the bus as a backup?

I'm coming from an HO background where I used a 2.5mm2 bus with feeder to every piece of track. Garden is a whole new world!

Bill
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That will be more than adequate unless you are planning 6 or so big locomotive and 100 drag freights. If you use tgis and follow my previous advice you will be fine.
 
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