If you’ve added more track to your model railway set you’ll reach a point where just one power-clip isn’t enough. But how do you get more power to your track and trains?
The power to your trains runs from the controller, through the power clips, around the rails and eventually to your trains. As the electrical current travels around your track, particularly over rail joiners, it gets weaker. As you add more track the weaker the signal can become and your trains will slow down or even stop as they get further away from the power clip.
Alternatively, if you have points the power will only flow in one direction. If you want to run trains on the main line and the branch line at the same time you’ll need to connect power to both the main line and the secondary line.
But how? The standard controllers supplied with Horny and the like model railway sets only have one set of wires coming from them.
The answer is to use track link wires.
These use the standard track power clips you already use to carry power from one section of track to another. The video below shows them how they work.
Alternatively, if you’re handy with electical wiring you could splice wired rail joiners into the leads to the power clips and then connect these to other rails just as you would with normal rail joiners. This is more involved and should only be attempted if you’re confident with soldering and electrics but is more flexible in the longer term.
This is one of my Q&A articles to making model railways and part of my beginners guide series to model railway series.