First - I should note that Steve at Ross and Dennis Z have been incredibly responsive and helpful with my upstream inquiries. That said, there remains an issue with the scheme, as illustrated below, that has baffled me for several months (and by extension, has kept the trains off the tracks nearly all of 2024) I'm seeking the collective brilliance and ingenuity of this board for any insights and recommendations (and I do, humbly, as there could be an obvious issue that I've missed along the way)
- Attached is an overall track plan, a diagram from Dennis Z, and a photograph of the particular spot in question. Elsewhere on the layout, I have a single crossover that work properly for the nonderailing operation.
- The good news: When operating the switches in question, they do switch in tandem! But...bad news: the are switching 180 degrees out of phase / the wrong way (ensuring derailment) when triggered by the approaching locomotive.
- Dennis Z's diagram is close to the current conditions, with the caveat the segment of parallel track in the middle is much shorter, and the upper two switches butt directly.
- The one difference, aside from slightly shorter segments, is that I have 'ganged' all of the related wires in a pair with a wire nut (e.g. all of the green wire drops for the top and middle switch pair are connected into a single wire nut) This is the lease elegant approach but the result of several rewirings I moved away from the terminal blocks.
- Given that the switches are flipping to the opposite - is there something I'm missing in terms of connecting the yellow and green wires on the respective switches to flip the signal etc? I've rewired this segment several times this year and am at a real head scratcher moment.
Thank you all for any insights and/or recommendations,
Scott