layout questions

As a fellow member of the bar, welcome to the world of model trains.

A little more info would be helpful, but I assume that by using the Fastrack (FT) blocks, the two loops are electrically separated and each loop is powered via its own 80W transformer. 

Do your loops look like the attached pic ?

What trains are you running - conventional or command ?

Do the trains run ok now on their own separate loops ?

Can you currently cross over from loop to loop by manually switching the switches ?

I can tell you that having switches switch "automatically" is not necessarily an easy task. It can be done through various means, including relays, but it is not what I would call simple. 

If your intention is to have the trains simply switch from one loop to the other every time, you may be better off with a crossover rather than using switches.

Welcome to the forum!

The switches can be wired together to alternate routes.

You can simply use isolated track blocks that use the wheels of the train and isolated rails to complete the circuit for a different section of track.

Are any of the diagrams below similar to your goal?

Richie C-

I am running conventional, and I have not set up the track yet, but that is the set I plan on making.  Can you give me step by step?

Maybe what you should do to stay within your element, is to write up a bullet proof contract to GRJ to create the setup you are trying to model. Please take this comment in the vain of humor I am intending. Personally I am an electronics kind of guy and avoid wired logic altogether. I worked at a RR supply firm in my youth and all the older engineers fawned over relay logic. My job was to put them out of business using Computer Controlled Dispatch systems. 

Hardy,

I'm an electrical engineer with 42 years experience in designing automation.  What you'd like to do is conceptually very simple, but at the same time among the most difficult things you can ask toy trains (or scale models) to do.  This is because in order to start and stop them automatically you must automatically add or remove power to a section of track they are presently on, or are entering; or must do the equivalent with modern command control trains by sending 'go' and 'stop' commands to them.  In spite of over 120 years of evolution in model railroading an operator still has to start and stop the trains manually in almost every case.  This is because from the beginning they, and their tracks and layout components, have generally not been designed for the automated running.

Over the years there have been a number of clever ways. i.e. 'tricks', to add automation, like those that JD2035RR points out above from back in the day, or using Lionel's LCS system in the last few years.  None of them are truly simple to understand, but at least a few are easy to implement.  This is because they weren't designed into the system in an intentional way.  Instead they are add-ons and/or use odd quirks found because there are 3 rails.  Many of these characteristics were created unintentionally, but all are exploitable for automation.

It isn't because people haven't tried -- there are many fine examples of automation in the OGR forum and elsewhere.  None of them are simple.

So, we can point you to methods for running two or three trains around a loop without them colliding, using relays or not, using complex controllers or simple ones, and/or using relay logic or software programming.  None of these are easy to implement without knowing the tricks.  If you don't mind understanding precisely how they work and if you have patience and are willing to learn, by all means start with the scenarios that JD2035RR pointed to.  That's what I did.  Set one of them up and play with it.  You'll soon start to learn the features found in 3 Rail that allow the tricks to work.  Maybe not simple.  But still fun.

Someday soon perhaps a truly basic automation control scheme for 3 Rail Toy Trains may be introduced.  Until then you'll have to play and learn.

Mike

@Hardy, everything would be based off of insulated rails (your fastrack switches have this built in).

See this:

https://ogrforum.com/...lays-nor-electronics

And this:

https://ogrforum.com/...sories%20%201954.pdf

You should also be aware that Lionel makes Fastrack pieces to help with this:

Block Section 6-12060

Accessory Activator Track/Insulated Outside Rail 6-12029

And a Lionel Tutorial: https://lionelllc.wordpress.co...utside-rail-6-12029/

For the super curious:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US2201512

https://patents.google.com/patent/US1647173