Worth the cost to get into 9V now, with a huge investment in PF?

[JopieK]

Good to hear that Locutis, sometimes after all one finds out that things are less troublesome than they looked initially ;)

[Phoxtane]

I ran my PF train on my LUG's layout when I displayed my Maersk last year. I think the advantage to PF in that case was being able to control my train separately from the 9V controller... which came in handy when the guy running the tracks let his young son drive the trains for a bit :P Thankfully it was a small train designed for such an occasion, but it went over the edge multiple times. I was also able to run my train at the same time a 9V train was on the same track, although I did have to juggle two speed settings to keep the trains from connecting up.

[zephyr1934]

I have been contacted by members and co-ordinators of the LUG, and apparently I misunderstood. PF is welcome in the layout, just that 9V track is still required for the LUG layout loop.

Locutis

Good to hear that your PF trains are welcome on the loop (that saves me 1 paragraph of typing)

It also seems reasonable that the main loops are 9v friendly, so it sounds like a small misunderstanding there.

That said, I don't think it is worth the investment to lay 16 ft of 9v track unless that is a direction you would already want to go. If you want to be an over the top good citizen, I'd suggest looking into the conductive tape on top of plastic track solution for the main line. It should probably be sufficient for weekend shows, but you might want to also put power jumpers across your section if you have a large layout.

Alternatively, you could do multiple loops. Our club will frequently do a layout with two small loops end to end (like this: "OO") inside one large loop (so it looks like an 8 inside a O). It is double track everywhere except where the two small loops turn. If you do that, and you have enough pf trains, you could make one of the small loops pf, and take the 9v track saved from other parts of that small loop to bridge the outer loop across your section.

Or you could move the pf track out of the mainline entirely, either in one track from the main, connected by switches, or put your stuff outside of the mainline (it is always interesting to have the mainline back from the edge for part of the layout). You could even dress it up to look like your stub track was a continuation of the mainline (even though most of the running trains turn before taking said section of mainline that happens to run off the edge of the table)