Hojack
The trolley wiring is ridiculously simple. A length of straight track inside the tunnel is isolated from the rest of the loop. Power for the rest of the loop is on all the time; pushing the button closes the circuit to the straight track where the trolley is resting. The visitor has to hold the button for a second or two until the trolley reaches the permanently powered track. The visitor releases the button and the trolley keeps going until it hits the isolated straight. If the visitor holds the button down, the trolley will, of course, keep looping. One of our members knows how to wire it the fancy way, but this works fine. I've thought about adding a timer circuit so it would stop in front of the station for a few seconds and then go back into the tunnel, but that's a fair amount of work and one more thing that can go wrong. The way we've got it, it's foolproof. Kids love it, as they do most anything interactive. The hidden trolley loop is one of the things about the layout that I am most proud of.
The Mystic Station and the signal tower came to us in a single donation, along with the AF crane in the factory scene, a couple of nice late-30's 0 gauge Flyer sets, and some other things. We don't run the Flyer sets; they live in one of our display cases. Most of the prewar 0 gauge trains we operate have been converted to can motors so we don't have to worry about cleaning commutators, changing brushes, etc.
Originally Posted by hojack:
SWHi, thanks for posting the photos. You have often referred to "the museum layout" on the forum, it's good to see some pictures of it.
About the trolley that... "sits inside the tunnel, and makes one pass in front of the visitors each time a visitor pushes the button..." If you don't mind my asking, how do you have that wired? How does one push of the button energize the track and leave it energized, and what shuts it off?
Thanks
I like your Flyer Mystic Station and 593 signal tower: what struck me is what a matched pair they are. I have them on opposite ends of my layout, and I never noticed how closely they match - a little like the Middletown signal tower and station we were recently talking about here on the forum.
