Real Point Motor Cable Question

[Tom@Crewe]

Pictured is a Point Motor/Actuator from the left end are two cables, I assume one control and one for power.

My question is what diameter are the cables?

I plan to use solder to represent the cable (easy to run out but keeps its shape) I can find 0.5mm which scales up to 38mm (OO).

Second question what do others use and what diameter?

[b308]

They aren't that thick, probably less than an inch. However rather than waste solder for the job why not just get some fuse wire (you can get packs which have more than one diameter), it holds it's shape and is a lot thinner.

[Bigmet]

Pictured is a Point Motor/Actuator...

You might think that a working model version for 4mm must now be practical - might require an 'excavation' in the board to accomodate the mechanism - so not quite a surface mount job, but it would look right on a contemporary layout which is the main thing.

[Tom@Crewe]

Any ideas on the size of cable (diameter)?

Also I see cables in Orange tube under track, I am not going for the orange tube under track as my layout is 1959 - 1964, would I be correct that the orang pipe was a later addition??

[Flashbang]

It depends on the number of cores inside the cable.. BR Railway signalling uses cables from single core to 37 core or greater. On a HW point machine as shown in the image, a 50/0.2mm per core cable would usually be used. How many cores will depend on A) The circuit design as specified by the design (drawing) office for the region. B) What cables are available core wise. So its possible for an example to have a single 12 core cable or two 6 core cables etc. Those shown will have a very roughly outside diameter of around 35mm - 40mm.

Orange anti Tamper pipe were introduced on my former region in around 1983/4 Prior to this all cross track cables were clipped to the top or side of the sleepers or laid in cross track concrete toughing route. Ideally where many signalling cables had to pass across tracks an underground multi pipe route would be installed, but these cost far more, so were only used on major cross track cable routes.