Atlas cross over Oh boy.....

Maybe a thin strip of metal such as copper ,glued down,placed where no short could occur in the center. Not sure that buys you anything though,the strip would have to be put where the ground rail is to really elongate the roller contact.. 2 long strips might work if they are insulated from each other. A relay system activated by an outside insulted rail could prevent a short.

 

Dale H

I have the exact item on my layout.
The Polar Express needs a bit more juice and it rolls through pulling 5 passenger cars. Failing to blip the throttle is a guaranteed visit from the hand to push/pull it through.

My PS3 262e tinplate cruzes right on through even with a broken wire from the pickup roller on the tender.

I looked into some extra wiring options, however, lazy hot summer days have been an excuse to not tear up that part of the layout.

Throttling up a bit keeps me on my toes and Jr. Gets a kick out of it every so many laps.

thanks for the tips guy's.

 

Dale: Relay's won't be needed as the crossover is on the main line

       and is powered all the time. I'm going to try the metal tape idea.

       it's probably the most non destructive idea, I'll probably

       fill in the center area and use tape on the rail tops.

       I just haven't figured out how to attach the wire yet....

 

CH:   I'll be running trolleys and small engines on this line. So I really need to

       close or bridge this gap....

The Polar Express, is, I believe, a passenger set with illuminated coaches. They probably have pick-up rollers, so a wire run between the tender, the locomotive, and the first coach, or just between the tender and the locomotive, might solve the power problem.

 

Using a trolley or small locomotive is more problematical.

 

"Relay's won't be needed as the crossover is on the main line and is powered all the time."

 

Dale is (I suspect) suggesting that to avoid a hot /return conflict between power rails and traction rails within the modified central portion, that you use a relay per track alignment to switch hot power to the appropriate center rail, and open the hot power to the center rail that does not need it.

I had a similar problem with my 3rd Rail Pennsy E6B. It has a short wheelbase and a correspondingly short distance between rollers. It was too challenging to install a roller assembly in the tender to lengthen the base, so I went the passenger car roller route. I wire the two with a male and female power connector like those used for RC batteries to charger connections. They're available from radio shack. Before the mod, the engine used buck and jerk through my long-base Ross cross-overs. After the mod, it runs smooth as silk. The car I used is a yellow, MOW heavyweight passenger car that was in an MTH set that contained an excellent crane car. The problem is that this engine is forever relegated to MOW service. I've toyed with selling it, but I really like it.

 

There is prototypical precedent for this modification. There are documented instances of having engines with short wheelbases not being able to bridge dead spots in 3rd rail systems. The answer... put pickup shoes onto some flatcars and wire them into the engine thereby extending the engines power-base so it could traverse the dead spots.