Connecting the Morrison to your layout
On the back of the Morrison, there are two connections - one for the power
cord and one for the connection to the track. The Morrison will plug into a
standard household outlet with an input of 110-120V. There is an ON/OFF
switch just above the power cord connection. To connect to the track, there is
an included ‘Banana Plug’ which will plug into the back of the Morrison. You
can connect the cable going to your track to the banana plug and then plug it
into the Morrison. Or you can connect the wires directly to the Morrison by un-
screwing the red and black connectors on the back, poking the wire into the
hole and then tightening the screw down. In either case, most locomotives will
move forward if the wire connected to the red terminal is connected to the track
on the right side of the locomotive as the engineer looks out of the cab
History
The first products designed by Bridgewerks were G-scale bridges made of rivet-
ed metal and built to last for years. When Dave Sauerwald began to design
power controllers, the bridge-making portion of the business was sold off. In
2016, Dave passed control of the business to his son and daughter-in-law Mark
and Sharon. The Morrison is the first Bridgewerks product designed by Mark.
Wanting to honor the early beginnings of the company, we will be using names
of bridges in significant places to us. Morrison is a bridge in Portland Oregon
where Mark proposed to Sharon. .
Controls
Directional Switch: When the switch is in the right position, the locomotive will
move forward. When the switch is in the left, it will move backwards and in the
center is stop. Whenever the switch passes through the center position, the
locomotive will stop for a few seconds. Momentum will be active when switch-
ing from forward to reverse. If you flip the switch from Forward to Reverse, the
train will slow to a stop, then accelerate back up to the speed set by the throttle.
Momentum: The switch for momentum also has three positions – in the center
momentum is off, to the left momentum is high and the LED is bright, to the right
momentum is low and the LED is dim.
Throttle: Moving the throttle lever up will increase train speed. There is a me-
chanical speed limiter to set a maximum speed for safe operation of your trains.
Figure 1
Outdoor operation
Garden railways are often installed outdoors and Bridgewerks controllers
are built to be used with outdoor railroad layouts. However, they are not
waterproof, and as with any electronic equipment, they should not be left
outdoors when not in use. To make this easy, the connections are all
made so that they can simply be unplugged and the controller can be
carried indoors.
Fuses and protection
There are two separate ways that the Morrison power controller protects itself
and your locomotives from damage. An internal resettable fuse will trip when
the current going to the track exceeds 3A. This will automatically reset itself
once the load has been removed. When this trips, the red overload light will
come on.
There is also a conventional fuse on the power line. If this fuse should blow, it
can be replaced by removing the power cord and using a small screwdriver to
pull out the fuse drawer located just above the power cord insert (see Fig 1).
The fuse is a “5x20 Cartridge Fuse” rated at 1.5A. You can see a wire inside
the glass of the fuse. If the fuse is blown, the wire will be broken. There is a
spare fuse within the fuse drawer which you can use to replace the burnt-out
fuse (see Fig 2). Additional fuses are available either from an electronics sup-
plier or from Bridgewerks.
Figure 2
