The best place to start looking at electronics is taking a look at conventional train control or DC train control. This is how your first train set was controlled and probably most of the models you have today are ready for DC or Conventional train control.
I have included a diagram below which shows a simple layout with a passing siding and a main loop. Attached to the loop is a trusty power pack to control the train.
Conventional Power
The diagram has three basic items I want you to look at;
- Wall Outlet
- Power Pack
- Train
Basically you start at the wall outlet. This provides the power we need to run the trains. The only problem is that there is way too much power in a typical outlet for our model trains to use.
Power Pack - To reduce and control the power to our models we connect the wall outlet to a power pack. The power pack takes the power from the wall outlet and transforms it into manageable track power. The power pack also has a dial to control the speed of the model train. The power pack has a transformer and train control in one box.
We will now take wire and connect the power pack to the track. We will have two wires coming from the power pack; one wire for each rail. The power goes in one rail, powers the train, and then back out the other wire. This setup is similar to a light with a dimmer switch. When you turn the dial on the powerpack the train goes faster, as you trun a knob on a dimmer switch the light gets brighter.
With the setup above we can now run a single model train on our layout. This is pretty simple however we can only run one train at a time. We can add toggle switches and track insulators to our sample layout to allow for more than one train to operate.
Digital Command Control can also allow more than one train to run at a time without the toggle switches or track insulators. Click the link below to learn more about Digital Command Control (DCC).
I hope this brief introduction clarified the use of conventional or DC power to run model trains.
Mark N. Goedert
