Pointless Shunting
Gauge: 009 (Peco 009 track)
Power Control: DC only - Can be configured for 2 controllers each controlling it's own half
Status: Working - Exhibited
There are three sidings with a turntable at each end. No points are used, hence the play-on-words in the title.
The game starts with all the box vans parked on the inner siding inside the buildings. Open wagons are parked on the outer siding. The turntables hold one wagon and a loco.
Rolling a dice decides which type of wagon should be collected. The loco collects the wagon, and via the East turntable, parks it on the middle siding. This is how the game continues until all wagons have been assembled in the middle.
Then a loco takes each wagon in turn and returns them via the West turntable to the inner or outer siding depending on their type.
The turntables are directly connected to stepper motors, which in turn are connected via driver chips to a microprocessor. A keypad allows the position of the turntables to be selected. The turntables contain reed-switches, which connect the power to the siding that the turntable points to, so there are up to 12 zones on the layout (the main sidings are insulated in the middle). This allows several locos to be available from one DC controller.
Pointless Shunting Photos
Click on an image to open the image gallery
.jpg "Pointless(4).jpg")
.jpg "Pointless(5).jpg")
.jpg "Pointless(1).jpg")
.jpg "Pointless(6).jpg")
.jpg "Pointless(7).jpg")
.jpg "Pointless(0).jpg")
.jpg "Pointless(2).jpg")
.jpg "Pointless(3).jpg")
.jpg "Pointless(8).jpg")
Please note: the rights to any photos displayed remain with the owner of the photo, and if not my own, then they are used purely as examples and I take no credit for them.