Model Railway Forum

I am starting to build a four inch by six foot point-to-point subway layout, which I believe in London is known as "The Tube." The tube will have a center cutaway providing a twenty inch view of a platform. The train will arrive from the left, stop, and continue left, reach the end, automatically reverse, stop at the platform, and off to the right end of the tube, back and forth, automatically.

Someone here kindly gave me a link to Howe's for the necessary sensors and timers. I emailed Howe's, and they replied promptly, oh yes, you will need this and this. Then somehow that email, with their reply, got deleted out of my computer. Cannot find it in the recycle bin or any other search of past emails. Completely vanished. So I wrote Howe's again, several times actually, but they don't respond. Don't know what that is about.

But if anyone has a clue what I am talking about, can you renew me upon this question, what is it that I would require for this operation? Howe's did mention something about a reed vs. an infrared sensor. Can anyone illuminate me as to which might be better from the view point of ease of installation and relative durability?

Thank you in advance.



The "baseboard."

You could look at this site then for electronics
http://www.heathcote-electronics.co.uk/

Perhaps that was my confusion: Heathcote vs. Heath's. Thank you.

So, here's what I want to do: The subway train will stop in the center, about five seconds. It should then travel to the right, reach the
end, and reverse itself back to the center, stop in the center about five seconds. It shall then proceed to the far left, stop, and reverse
back to the center. Stop five seconds. Ad infinitum.

Clive, of Heathcote, kindly told me the components I would require to achieve this simple operation. Along with about 10 pages of
schematics. I can solder. A little. After the first paragraph, it appears like this:



What I would like to do is wire the power supply (transformer) wired into the main unit, and have the unit thus distribute the power to the
rails.

1. from where the wires travel from the power supply to main unit, and from thence, where do the wires travel to the IRDOT's?

2. the red bulb on the left of the IRDOT appears to simple be an indicator power is present. Is that correct? Then there appears to be
an infrared sensor, evidenced by the two black stalks, that would penetrate the roadbed to sense the presence of the subway?

3. Where do the IRDOT's go relative to the desired motion, as stated above (Stop, start, reverse)?

Once the wiring and IRDOT is permanently placed, the entire track work will be slid into a corresponding length of PVC pipe. At the point of
center stop, a subway platform shall be constructed.

This will be a pure point-to-point fully automatic layout, consuming about five inches x 6 feet. It shall be representative of a New York City tube
station, circa 1975.

So, downloaded this image which appears to correspond to what I need to be doing. The board has few markings, but by aligning it to the image above, I can deduct which terminals are where.

Does this look correct to anyone who is good at understanding this stuff? Sorry to be such a block head, but my wiring to this point has consisted of one wire to each real. Total newbie.

Wiring went in without too much trouble. Everything lit up. Going to install sensors next.

I'm glad you found the info. I have two of the detecters but mine were made by a little local business who predated Heathcote by a good five or ten years. Mine are around the same size but they are units in themselves rather then requiring the "Mother board" so are slightly diffeeent. They can be set up to automatically control the train movement and signalling in the same unit, and are about the size of your detectors. (Mine use infta red beam wheee one paints the underside of locos silver or white to get the beams to bounce back to the detector).
I used to have a whole automated line intergrated with an autoshuttle device in addition. They could run to set of various other trains when the shuttle train reached a certain point, therefore I could have trains depatring not long after the branch train had departed etc. All automated in DC form. The eest of the layout was run by me in manual control. I could therefore similate a whole scene with just me at the controls.