| The West Berlin Garden Railroad |
| MTH Block Signal |
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| Here is a picture that I took from RDC M-407 during the summer. The 407 is stopped at Cold Spring and we are facing the tracks leading to the Cape May Canal Bridge and Cape May City. I wanted to duplicate this view on my elevated line at "my" Cold Spring station. The only thing that I was missing was the block signal. I was going to make a "dummy" signal but then everyone would ask "Does this work?" So instead of having that happen I looked for something that I could use outdoors. What I found was nothing! But, MTH made an block signal in brass but, it was in "O" scale. When I got a chance to see one my mind was set on getting it to work at my station...and on my line. It almost looks like the one at Cold Spring. Below is how I did it. |
| First, my point to point uses the Aristo reversing unit, which changes the polarity via the timer unit.. and stops the train over a "diode track".(re-railer track) What I did was to "pig tail" the black ground wire into 2 wires and installed a 200v 1 amp diode inline (stripe facing the rail connection) on each black wire. I attached the green to one rail and, the red to the other and, a black wire to each rail on the middle section of the point to point. See below.. |
| Here is MY Cold Spring Block Signal.. I'm running this unit on DC(track power) but I think the "O" guys run on AC. I required only the red and green to light but, with this set up or with it's built in timer(?), I got a yellow/green combo and the yellow never went out......So, instead of trying to see and change the small electronics in the base of the signal, I painted the yellow bulbs black so, now I get the red on stop, THEN green....The base in the full signal picture is the bottom of an old U25B smoke unit painted silver....These signals or not made for outdoor use and I wanted to keep it as dry as possible so, when not it use, I place a 1 quart plastic bottle over it. |
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