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Jason Spears wrote:
>
> In lugnet.space, Cary Clark writes:
> > I have to hop about my home layout quite a bit whenever visiting kids insist
> > that I run two monorail trains at a time. I can't imagine the gymnastics I'd
> > require to run four at once.
>
> As many a Michlugger can attest to, running 3 monorails at one time is a
> surefire accident in the works. We frequently run 2 or 3 at our shows, and
> eventually 1 or 2 will end up off the track and on the layout. We try to look
> out for it, and sometimes will grab the slower one and put it behind the faster
> one, but we don't always catch it in time. It's expected now.
On the Moon Base Layout, we had 4 basically independent monorail runs.
One did run right on the edge of the table and was only run when the
crowd was small. Two of the runs connected via a turnout, but a station
track prevented one train from entering the turnout from the curved path
and the other train ran straight through the straight path. We only had
a few mishaps. We didn't have any collisions (we did have a couple
mishaps during setup and take down though).
In the NCLTC shows I was involved in, we always had a single loop of
track, but set up with station tracks such that two trains would
ping-pong on separate halves of the loop (i.e. if the stations are
labeled A, B, C, and D around the loop, one train ping-ponged between A
and B and the other between C and D, with the BC and DA pairs having
enough separation to prevent a collision if both trains arrived at the
same time). Again, we had only a few mishaps, some caused by trains
being wired to the reverse polarity, and thus reversing the directional
meanings of the station tracks, resulting in the train cruising through
a station instead of reversing. If you take care to always put the
battery in correctly, and always have the wire leading off the back of
the battery box (and never to the side) and entering the top of the
motor (and never to the side), then the motors always run the same
direction (this is one advantage train motors have, you can't mix up
their wiring so all motors, placed facing either direction will run the
same direction for a given controller setting (assuming you don't change
polarity between runs by turning the connection wires).
On the moon base, we could have split the large loop to run two trains
ping-ponging, and we could have added one, and perhaps two, more runs
without crowding things too badly.
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Monorail roll call
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| In lugnet.space, Frank Filz writes: ... (...) Wow! I can't believe I've never noticed this! Thanks, Frank, for such a clear description of a crucial multi-train monorail operational detail. Cary (22 years ago, 8-Oct-02, to lugnet.space, lugnet.trains)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Monorail roll call
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| (...) As many a Michlugger can attest to, running 3 monorails at one time is a surefire accident in the works. We frequently run 2 or 3 at our shows, and eventually 1 or 2 will end up off the track and on the layout. We try to look out for it, and (...) (22 years ago, 8-Oct-02, to lugnet.space, lugnet.trains)
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