The Track System

Track System Selection

The choice of track was influenced by the starter set purchased in 2006. It contained an oval with two curved switches made with Märklin C Track. I confess that, as a newcomer to the world of Märklin, I was positively influenced by its construction, solidity, and robust connection. It was nothing like the Lima Track or even the metal Märklin M Track I had seen as a boy. With C Track, the third rail was discreetly inserted into the sleepers and was no longer obtrusively visible as it had been in the past.

The profile of the rails was very realistic, and even the ballast, although fake and plastic-like, contributed to the overall pleasing appearance. The real advantage, the edge of C Track over other solutions, was the ability to house the switch drives and decoders underneath the ballast, a solution that made it possible to create fully functional temporary layouts without any wires. Another strong point of the C track is the ingenious and robust connections at its ends. Both poles feature a double connection to increase the reliability of the electrical contact. Power can be easily connected to the ends of each track, either with dedicated faston connectors or, better yet, by soldering the wires directly onto the faston pins. Finally, two strips can be cut to separate the right and left rails. As we'll see, this last feature will prove essential for a simple way to implement the feedback required for the blocks.

Special precautions when using track C

While there are many positive aspects to using C track, there are some issues to be aware of:

• There is no flexible track.

• Sometimes the red insulating shoes are not sufficient to ensure the necessary insulation between blocks. Thermal expansion and/or movement of the rail over time can sometimes cause adjacent rails to touch each other in the insulated joint. This can cause a false block-occupied signal. The solution is to pre-chamfer the ends of the two adjacent rails at these joints with a Dremel.

• Märklin turnout mechanisms have long been problematic. The manufacturer has installed limit microswitches to protect the coil in the event of prolonged manual operation (via the push-button panel). Unfortunately, this solution, although intended to protect the coil, has created another problem. In fact, the coil has a significant inductance, and when the microswitch interrupts the current, a spark is generated that over time sulfurizes the contact surface of the microswitches, thus rendering the actuator inoperable. It seems that after several years, Märklin solved the problem by installing spark suppression capacitors. The solution I adopted before this solution was implemented was radical: I opened all the actuators and simply soldered all the microswitches in all the points on the layout. This does not pose any problems for the coils since I have no control panels and all the points are controlled solely via software with pulses of a maximum of 250 ms. Of course, be careful because this intervention voids the warranty.

• The empty area under the ballast creates a resonance chamber that amplifies the noise. I have not implemented any solution for this problem, which I discovered too late. In fact, despite having placed a 2 mm layer of cork under the tracks and not using screws but only hot glue to secure the C track to the cork, the noise is high, louder than I would have liked. It was probably necessary to provide sound-absorbing material under the ballast and a layer of cork at least 10 mm thick underneath it.

• Decoders and actuators under the ballast, so convenient for temporary layouts, become a nightmare when ballast is installed on exposed sections. In fact, if they need to be replaced, a good section of ballast must be destroyed unless a slot has been provided under the switch, which must also be easily accessible from below (which isn't always possible). I haven't had this emergency yet, but sooner or later it will occur, and then I'll figure out how to solve it.

• There are used C-tracks for sale on eBay, produced in the late 1990s/early 2000s, that have a stability problem with the plastic, which becomes incredibly fragile. They can be identified by their production date, and to be sure, you need to check that they were produced from 2004 onward.

• While it's very convenient to power the under-ballast decoders from the track itself, and it's tempting to do so, in theory it would be best not to use this option and instead separate the power supply for the switches from that for the rolling stock. In my layout, I didn't separate them to simplify the wiring and also because I knew it wasn't a real problem from years of testing on temporary layouts. Even more so, in the layout, this choice didn't cause any problems, especially since I separated the power supply into multiple zones by installing two 60175 boosters in addition to the one on the CS3.

Advantages of the Märklin system

Once you accept the presence of the third rail and the shoe under the locomotives and functional cars, the advantages of the Märklin three-rail system are significant and, in my opinion, indispensable. Many refer to the Märklin system as AC (Alternating Current) as opposed to DC (Direct Current). This distinction only made sense in the old analog world, where the German manufacturer's system had two fundamental differences compared to most other systems:

1. Alternating Current (AC) power supply.

2. Three-rail system.

With the advent of digital, all systems use a digital power supply, which is essentially a square wave with modulation superimposed. Therefore, the only remaining difference between the two systems (also considering the fact that the CS3 supports the DCC protocol) is the physical structure of the track system: two rails versus three rails.

For current collection purposes, three rails are obviously better than two, so the three-rail system offers greater reliability. Furthermore, geometrically, the three-rail system offers another undeniable advantage: symmetry. Symmetry makes it possible to create return loops naturally and without any electronic devices to avoid the inevitable short circuit that would occur with two-rail systems. Finally, having two rails used for the return of traction current makes it possible to use one of the two rails as a sensor for the presence of the train on a section of track. In fact, the AC wheels are uninsulated and act as a switch that closes the circuit when one of the two rails is isolated, for example, to define a block.