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Turnouts and Track Feeder Wires
Juergen models N scale and asks:
“My turnouts when thrown kill the power to tracks past that turnout and when I throw it back power on to tracks feeder wires on both sides of the turnout is strange. What is going on?”
Please add your thoughts below if you are able to help Juergen.
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I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Perhaps you could provide a rough sketch, indicating power feeds and whether the switches are isolating or non-isolating; whether it’s straight DC or DCC. These factors could make a big difference to a solution/explanation.
Atlas turnouts, at least the older (like 12 years ago, are setup to kill power through when the turnout direction would derail an oncoming train.
I have been running for 10 years and had no real issues and it has saved me more than once from a derail.
Yes, a turnout usually routes the power to the direction of the track it is switched to. This is generally fine for DC, but for DCC you can have power to all tracks at all times for running multiple locos simultaneously.