Need clever electrical trick

I assume (hate that) the train is outdoors and large enough to carry passengers?????? Or at least is a smaller outdoor installation. If the battery solves your problem I would look to solar so it charges if the train is running or not. I doubt you would have enough live track sections to maintain the battery.

Nah Bah, it's a typical model train

Yeah Bah but the trouble is, it won't charge when still connected to the loco. What's needed is some means for automticvally disconnecting it when power is off

Precisely so; but thanks for your efforts on our behalf

You are doing all that battery running to keep the rail from corroding? Considered stainless steel rail?

http://www.elmassian.com/trains/track-aamp-switches/track-aamp-rail-material

The cab would carry a battery to keep the train going over the bad stretches but yes, Oss, previously I had been running the thing (using train transformer) 20 minutes a day just to keep the track conductive



Thank your that suggestion. I will fwd this to my No. 1 Son, whose kids might like to see it running once more

I have a slight background and some mild interest in outdoor model trains - I've somewhat designed two of them. One was for a hobbyist in Los Angeles, and he knew everything already, only wanted to know how the hell to put it on his slope in the Hollywood hills, a matter I could handle. He and wife were interesting people and I had fun with the project.

Another time, our two person design firm reworked a whole property, long story, and the last part was to get to the guy's heart's desire, a raised model rail track. That was in a very moist part of the country. I did no specifying re the trains, et al, more the structural stuff.

At some point I actually bought some model train magazine; I don't remember if it was about only outdoor model trains, but I think it was. It's not my interest, but I enjoyed working on those projects at the time.


Re your son, that link might be a start to other places to read.

Thank you Oss for that rundown, it must have been fun . Haven't heard from No. 1 Son yet, maybe won't. Still need an idea that would automatically disconnect the batt when the transformer goes off but would reconnect it when power comes back on. The difficulty lies in strong probability that the loco will have stopped on a dead stretch; so it wouldn't know it was supposed to reconnect the batt