Model Railroading > Protecting Your Model Railroad From Lightning or Power Surges?

What do you all recommend or use on your layout for this issue? My understanding is that a direct lightning strike can circumvent some conventional fail safes. Has anyone here had an unfortunate experience with this or know a model railroader who has? I have also heard that multiple outlet surge protectors aren't always what they are cracked up to be.

Victor Baird

I haven't tried it, but my electrical utility offers whole house protection for a fee.

Does anyone have experience with such a arrangement?

After a series of issues with the local electric grid which killed our stove and caused some other problems, we had this whole home surge protector installed.  It just gets put into the breaker box, taking up two slots.  We had a local electrician do it, and it cost under $200.  I think that was about three years ago, and we haven't had any issues since.

Dan

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I have a Duke Energy surge protector on my meter.  When I had my breaker panel replaced a while back, I had the electrician add a surge protector to the panel.  I needed this as I have a whole-home  Generac system that automatically cuts in when Duke Energy stops.  Next I have an APC 1500 watt system that powers my layout (Digitrax DCC) and the system for powering signals and Tortoise switch machines.  As my APC systems die, I am replacing them with Trip-Lite sine wave systems (about $350 each).

John.  

I just unplug my system when I am not using it.

Unplug the railroad except when using it, and don't run it during electrical storms. Easiest solution.

Art House

Victor:

I had the same concerns you are asking about when I got to the writing of my layout.

We live within a couple of blocks of a power sub station and we get some brown outs in the summer and voltage drops off and on year round.

My solution was to buy SKE UPS's. I my case 1 supply's power for my DCC System and the layout lighting and a second one protects everything else.

The nice thing about the SKE's is that they seem to keep the voltage within a acceptable range both high and low.

Plus if the power goes out completely they give you more than enough time to do an orderly shut down.

The ones I have purchased are about $85 on Amazon and are their SKE 600va/360w model.

Take care.

Northridge Switcher

aehouse Wrote:
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> Unplug the railroad except when using it, and
> don't run it during electrical storms. Easiest
> solution.
>
> Arrt House

The problem is that there instances of power surges that are not related to weather. These are minor enough that there are no noticeable impacts on traditional electrical appliances. However now days appliances often have electronic elements that are much more sensitive. I had a whole house protector installed this year for about $350.00. My electrician said  that our building codes now mandate them on new houses.

1019X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> aehouse Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Unplug the railroad except when using it, and
> > don't run it during electrical storms. Easiest
> > solution.
> >
> > Arrt House
>
> The problem is that there instances of power
> surges that are not related to weather. These are
> minor enough that there are no noticeable impacts
> on traditional electrical appliances. However now
> days appliances often have electronic elements
> that are much more sensitive. I had a whole house
> protector installed this year for about $350.00.
> My electrician said  that our building codes now
> mandate them on new houses.


We frequently get lightning storms here in the mountains in Northeast corner of CA.

Two years ago, we had 3
bolts of lightning strike within 300 feet of our large medical clinic at the exact same time. The lightning damaged some computers that were using cheap Amazon surge protectors. Interestingly the electricity also found its way into our internet/ethernet system and blew out every single internet card on everything electronic that was hooked up via cable to the internet/ethernet system. Our IT team, contractors, and sub contractors are perplexed on how it happened.

In another storm, lightning struck the neighbors tree which caused my son's Xbox to turn on through a Dollar General (I think) surge protector.

My point is, in lightning storms you think you might be protected until you find our your not. Unplugging is the best way

The expensive battery back-ups for our computers/servers survived, but those are few hundred dollars each and I dont know the specs for the ones that worked. I could find out if your interested?

Posted from Android



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/26 17:01 by FishinJeeper.

Solar panels and a Tesla Power Wall battery back up?

There is a lot of electromagnetic energy associated with a lightning strike, and so there will be risk of surges on any cabling that's within that electromagnetic field/pulse.  It is not uncommon for lightning strikes to fry network devices, even when everything is properly grounded. 

JUTower Wrote:
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> There is a lot of electromagnetic energy
> associated with a lightning strike, and so there
> will be risk of surges on any cabling that's
> within that electromagnetic field/pulse.  It is
> not uncommon for lightning strikes to fry network
> devices, even when everything is properly
> grounded. 


Thats a good point. Would unplugging it help prevent damage in a lightning situation?

Posted from Android

Every once in awhile one of the circuit boards in my signal system would go bad and I could never figure out why. Speaking to the manufacturer we figured it may be a lightning issue. After all Florida is the lightning capital of the US.
CR

Posted from iPhone

WM1977 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Every once in awhile one of the circuit boards in
> my signal system would go bad and I could never
> figure out why. Speaking to the manufacturer we
> figured it may be a lightning issue. After all
> Florida is the lightning capital of the US.
> CR
>
> Posted from iPhone


Did the manufacturer suggest anything that may help? Such as removing the locomotives off the rails and storing them in boxes? Now that this topic has come up, I could imagine the rails picking up additional static electricity that could lead up to the circuitry/decoder. My only thought for a safeguard would be to remove the locomotives off the rails prior to a storm.

Posted from Android



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/26 14:26 by FishinJeeper.

Let me give you a real-life example.  My model RR is in my 2-car garage.  My Digitrax DCS100 is about 10 ft from my breaker panel.  My propane-fired  tankless hot-water heater is also in the gatage (mounnted on back wall).  Before I had new breaker box installed with inside surge protrector, I had water-heater (needs a small amount of 120 v house power for the control circuit) hooked to an APC 1500w device and that was plugged into nearby outlet.  During a t-storm, Duke Power went down and my Generac started up.  There was a nearby lightning strike, about same time as Generac kicked in, and my APC literally went up in flames.

I have about a dozen or so DCC sound locomotives and RDC's on my layout.  Yes, I keep my layout unplugged when not using it.  I live in Volusia County, FL, and lighning is frequest.  Why risk your layour for not spending about the cost of one DCC sound locomotive?  Last UPC I purchased was 1500 W Triplite pure sine wave output.  It was less than the cost of last DCC Sound ALCO RS-3s i purchased..

John

Unplugging everything reduces the risk, but on a larger layout does not eliminate it entirely.