Gentle Model Railways

New Software for creating switch lists

2011-08-03T02:18:00.000-07:00

Having recently acquired an iPad, I have been thinking of an idea for an app that would be of use to the Model Railroad community.

Having always had trouble with creating switch lists I have started development of the following:
(Please note: this software is not currently available - the following is only the proposed app)

One dark, wet night in 1968, the Conductor of Extra 68 on the Sunset and North Eastern Railroad was putting together train in preparation for leaving Webster for the 50 mile run to Sunset and home.

Old Bill, as he was affectionately known, was standing by his 'new fangled' bay windowed caboose struggling with his clipboard in the wind. A blinding flash of light shook him. To his amazement, standing there was a vision of light and energy - his guardian angel.

This vision - known as Fred to his friends - had taken pity on poor old Bill and had made a trip into the future to try and make his life easier. 'Hey Bill', said Fred - 'Drop your old clipboard and try one of these'. He handed Bill a slim metallic pad with a glass front. 'Use this to make up your train and organise your switch list!'

From that moment on, Bill never looked back and he and his trusty iPad - for that is what it was - were inseparable and Bill's trains were the best organised and most efficiently made up on the whole railroad - maybe in the whole world!

Don't ask about Internet connections, power supplies etc. Guardian Angels have no problems overcoming such issues.

Bill's iPad worked so well that we have taken the idea and built the ideal iPad app for everyone struggling to manage their switch lists. No more DOS, Windows - printed lists - complicated forms- just an iPad app and some simple data input on the web.

How does it work?

You have heard of Cloud Computing? Yes? - No? - well anyway, Cloud Computing means storing your data safely and securely out on the Internet. Why is this good? Well, do you ever back up your computer? Same as me, then!

Storing data in the Cloud means having your data stored on fast reliable servers that have automated backup systems which include full encryption of your data so that only you can get to it.

Old Bill's Switch List works like this - Enter your data either through a web page or through the iPad app. You will need to enter the basic set up of your railroad - a car list, a loco list, each of your industry tracks and all of your freight yards. Sounds like a lot but the package carries lists of all of the popular freight cars so if you know the manufacturer code, then that's all you need. All of this is stored in the Cloud.

Once your data is in, you can either tell the app where each car is or ask it for a startup situation. From then on, the app will give you switch lists for every train you want to run. Just tell it from where to where and it will give you a list of cars to start off with - where each one needs to be dropped and what cars to pick up on the way - all in your hand as you walk around the railroad.

If you belong to a club and they don't have an internet connection, you can prepare a night's running before you go and the iPad will just cycle through the trains in order.

At the end of a session, you can ask the app for a status check - this will tell you where it thinks everything should be - so that you can check any switching errors.

As an iPad, the package will cost just $9.99. It will be available as an internet based package where the cost is just $29.99. Both options come with a lifetime license and all updates (see terms and conditions for more details).

We expect the software to be available sometime inQ4 - 2011

We have trees!

2011-06-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

I have spent ther weekend putting down some greenery. This includes trees and bushes.

The trees are Timberline and MBS and the bushes (?) are Woodland Scenics Clump Foliage.

Yet again, the hot glue gun came in really useful in fixing all of this down.

I will use the airbrush to tone the clump stuff down a bit and to give it some tonal texture.

Here is a video and some stills of the current state of play.

Double click on the photos to see larger images

Grass and Tarmac laid

2011-06-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

I spent today finishing off the basic scenery. I have put all of the grass flock down and laid the tarmac around one of the main industRial sidings. I have done a lot of airbrushing to cover some of the ragged edges and to tone the grass flock down - this was a very bright green.

I think the effect is quite good. Here are some snaps!

Almost the last of the plaster work done

2011-06-07T12:02:00.000-07:00

I got some more plaster bandage and have now virtually finished up on the plaster work.

I have covered all of the hill areas and also layed some over all of the joins and screw holes. I still need to use some wet plaster to blend the edges in but there isn't much of that to do.

I have made a retaining wall and a girder to hide the point motor and the hidden entrance.

Here is a photo of where these two are going:

The rest of the pictures are just general shots to give an idea f how the plaster has finshed up.

Don't forget - you can double click on any picture to see a larger version in anther tab.

When an idea becomes reality

2011-06-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

I have two areas at the back of my railroad where the trains are nominally in a tunnel but I don't want to cover them in as I think I will occasionally need access. So, on thinking about this, I thought that I could put up a false backscene in front of each area.

I got some plastic card and rigged it to be the right length - airbrushed the blue with both me and my wife saying that the colour was wrong. I then airbrushed some clouds but made them more distinct than I did on the actual backscene. Fitting shouldn't be a problem using a hot glue gun.

So I finish and up I go to the railroad room.

This it what it looks like - Complete and utter rubbish. I am posting this in the interests of honesty - on my modelling blog I always show my failures as well as my successes - well this one is a 100% failure!

Needless to say, these will not last the day. Mind you I am not sure quite what to do as these two areas still need hiding. Thoughts anyone?

I have continued with putting the plaster down and have now put the main scenery in with a first coat of colouring. This is what the last area looks like:

The gap between the existing and new has a surface mount point motor in it. To cover this I have made a retaining wall. This is work in progress as it has only had one coat of paint so far.

Don'y forget - double click on any photo for a larger image in a new tab.

Some of the scenery is coloured

2011-05-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

I have done a first pass at colouring the base coat. I used a mix of plaster and some 'dipping inks' that are used in plastic models to highlight panel lines etc.

As with all of these jobs, you only see what you have missed when you take a picture, so there is some touching up to do.

This is just an initial pass so I still have to smooth out a lot of the joins plus filling in things like screw heads etc. However, I find that you don't see these until you put start the finishing process - then it all looks rotten so you do a huge amount of touch up - and then go again.

All the fun of the fair, as they say!

Anyway, here is what it looks like at the moment.

As ever, just double click on any photo to see a larger version in a new Tab on your browser.

Down goes some scenery

2011-05-29T04:53:00.000-07:00

I have spent this morning laying some Modroc (plaster impregnated bandage) over the now-dry dampened newspaper. I did find out that 2 metres of Modroc doesn't cover 2 metres of ground so I ran out before I could do the whole lot that I needed. I have managed to blend in both of the tunnel mouths nicely. Anyway, you can see from the photos how it looks.

Don't forget that you can double click on any photo to see a larger image on a new tab.

The next view is a video

Hobbies merging

2011-05-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a station and two caboose.

For the full details check out my modelling blog

The first scenery goes down

2011-05-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

I have started laying the scenery down. I use dampened newspaper as the base. When that dries, it is quite hard. On top of that, I will lay some plaster impregnated bandage over that and make the final shapes. I have to cut about the tunnel mouths. I hope to do the rest of this work over this weekend.

I finally make a consist

2011-05-16T05:54:00.000-07:00

In DCC terms a consist is when you link two locos together - each having different addresses - so that they operate as one. The grades on my layout are quite steep and each of the two GP-15s can manage abut 5 cars without struggling. I put together a train with 13 cars with on GP-15 at the head and one in the middle to see what happened. I did it really because I have never been able to run such a train before on any layout I have built over the years.

Making the consist was easy with my ZTC controller. I then took a video of it all. This was put into iMovie for editing. I found a public domain sound track of a freight train and had an interesting (!) time adding that to the video.

This is the result.

Don't you just love DCC!!

2011-05-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

So, I buy two GP-15s and 1 Budd RDC. The Budd, I know, will have to be converted using the long route but the two GP-15s are labelled as DCC Ready. Now this normally means that they have a socket. Do these - OH NO! - what they have is all the electrics on a single circuit board which can be swapped out. Leaving the Budd, let us concentrate on the GP-15s as they will be easy - or not.

I speak to Digitrains and ask advice because there are three replacement boards available - NCE (cheapest), TCS and Digitrax. The advice I am given is - you get what you pay for, so I buy the Digitrax boards - £52 in total. When they arrive, it seems that the instructions miss out some important facts. The descriptions on the Internet talk about some tape and also mention that, for some reason, Digitrax have made their boards thinner than the Atlas ones so the contacts need beefing up with solder to make contact - a good start. It also appears that the two motor contacts should go through some slots to make full contact but I can't see how to do this as they are underneath the board and I am not that good a threader. Eventually, after using some masking tape to ensure that the motor contacts don't touch the chassis halves, I put one together - put it on the track - and I get a nice puff of smoke out of the loco. Now I wish I had bought the TCS one as they have a no-quibble return policy that includes events like this - £26 up in smoke as they say.

I then take the two Gaugemaster mini-decoders that I bought 'in case'. I cut some plastic card to the same shape as the circuit board and use that as a spacer. I then hard wire in the mini-decoder and - guess what - it worked first time! Plus I still have space to fit a couple of LED lights and get them working - but I will save that for later.

Then I need to tackle the Budd RDC. I find some good instructions on stripping the thing down to its essentials and, ignoring all the chip fitting instructions (remember, we used to chip locos professionally when we were ZTC agents and owners), carefully fit a ZTC mini decoder which we had lying around. Once again, this worked first time - but with no lights - same old excuse.

I used a SPROG to set the loco addresses as I don't have a programming track set up on the railroad yet. I then ran all three of them (as you can see in the picture).

Now comes the BAD news :-(. Where the old part of the layout meets the new part. there are two new connecting tracks. One of these is flat but the other has a bit of a ridge (or so I see now). The GP-15s make it fine. Yesterday, I didn't use the RDC through here because the wiring wasn't complete so this is the first time through. The RDC bottoms out on the ridge - the RDC has a metal plate underneath - goodness knows why! - and promptly shorts out the decoder with a small burst of 2.6amps - according to the short reported by the ZTC 505 controller.

Guess what - there is no longer a ridge there, but I wll have to fit a replacement decoder tomorrow. Luck we used to sell these things so I have quite a few lying around - all with varing parentge but mostly usable.

Postscript

I now have two Digitrax Atlas decoders which I will put on EBay - any one want to buy a single one? You will get two and have to work out yourself which one is the busted one. Everything goes on EBay, doesn't it?

Twitter

I have opened up another Twitter account just for the model railroad. With my new iPad, I am twittering away keeping everyone informed of progress on the railroad in 60 character bites. Get onto Twitter and find LongHairedDavid for a wonderful experience - grin.

The track is down

2011-05-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

This should have been up last night but Blogger was down so...

I spent yesterday evening trying to get all of the track on the old part of the layout working. Remember that this was a stand alone N Scale layout so looking from one end, every right hand rail was connected to every other right hand - same for the left to left. This what is required for DCC operation. Unfortunately, i was going to put this in the middle of an oval so all of a sudden some right hands needed to be connected to left and - and so on for the other side of the track. Hence there was a lot of chopping of track connections and a lot of making new ones. This was complicated because, first the original wiring was done with the board upside down so it was beautifully crafted with copper wire and hidden wiring. Secondly, the track had been ballasted so it was hard to see where the track connections were. As I had built this board into the layout, I could no longer work on the underneath. I wish I had thought of this because I could have wired all this up before burying it into the new layout. Patience - what's that?

The photos relate to last night - you can see some temporary connections to show what was needed to sort out the last of the problems. the photos show the three locos (if you can refer to an RDC in such a way) so they have all been DCC sorted - see next blog.

Tonight, I have finished of the wiring fix and layed the last of the track. This means that tomorrow, I can do the last little bits of wiring and clear up. - Yes, that is my new iPad you can see!!

A lot of track laid and more to come

2011-05-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

I went down to the local model railway shop - Scograil in Ipswich - and bought all the track on Saturday morning. I got a very good deal, by the way. I then spent much of Saturday afternoon and a lot of Sunday (excluding the F1 Grand Prix, of course) laying track. In N Scale, I am a great believer in hot glue guns!

Other stock - I now have 2 x Atlas GP15 with Digitrax replacement DCC circuit boards coming tomorrow. I have a single Kato Budd RDC which I think I can chip myself for DCC. I have around 30 freight cars and two Atlas kits for stations. I think I will need a few more freight cars but they can wait until I have it all up and running.

I have the basic main route laid out with the exception of the final connecting track on the left hand end of the original N Scale board. I need this to complete the continuous run. However, as soon as the shop shuts at 4 pm, I am up there beavering away. Tonight, I hope to lay the rest of the track and start the wiring.

I seem to have made two mistakes. One is on the left hand incline - nearest the window, where I have cut the boards a bit too close and will have to add some outside extensions to provide a proper track bed. The second mistake is along the front of the new section where I have joined both loops with a crossover. I wondered why I was a couple of points short as this crossover shouldn't be there. I will correct that this evening along with the roadbed problem.

Photos to date (Click on them to see a bigger image):
You can see a Flash Slideshow here
You can see an HTML Slideshow here (for iPhone/iPad users)

HO gone - N Scale - here we come!

2011-05-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well, thanks to EBay, all of my HO stuff has gone except for a couple of locos which will be gone by the weekend.

I have recovered the N Scale layout I made for the kitchen a couple of years ago. I took up the left hand leg of the 'L' as this was a bit of a mish mash of bits of board knocked together as my plans changed. I placed the N Scale existing layout there and filled in neatly around it.

The final result looks like this:

The final size is 7' 6" x 2' on the long side and 5' 10" x 1' 4" widening out to 1' 9" on the short side.

The original board has been scenicked as you can see.

Here is a quick sketch of what I plan to do. I have left out all the passing loops (3 of them) and all of the industry and yard tracks.

I will have a final track length of about 2 scale miles. The trains will arrive in the main yard on the short board travelling in the same direction as they left but that can't be helped. A little imagination will be needed. The arrival and departure yard is on the reverse loop of the short board. There will be two other main towns on the layout, each with their own passing sidings for the way freights to hide.

I have a limited budget because of the EBay income being the only way I can do this but I am hoping for 2 low hood units and a Budd RDC for passengers.

To get a feel for the size, here is a little video of the room.

I hope to have the points and the main box of track before this coming weekend so I will put up some more on Sunday.

There is generally a good reason...

2011-04-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

when I stop working on a project. It normally means that it isn't going the way I want and that it is unlikely to be continued. I am in this state currently with the railroad in the spare bedroom.

It is a complex layout of a branch terminus of a run down railroad but I am finding it difficult to knuckle down and work on it. All of the track is laid and everything is wired up nicely for DCC but somehow...

I went to the Clacton Model Railway Club show today and saw one of our shop customers - Peter Terry - there. He has a very nice N Scale portable layout which was on show.

I am beginning to realise that I should not have got rid of all my N scale from the kitchen layout (see earlier blogs). Although the layout didn't work, I should have kept all the running gear. Valerie is pushing me to clear out the spare bedroom and put in an N Scale layout where I can run trains - rather than just switch cars. I am beginning to agree with here so - WATCH THIS SPACE.

In the meantime, here are a few shots of Peter's railroad - 'Four Feather Falls'.

Flash - HTML - iPads and iPhones can't see Flash!

Home made decals

2011-01-03T10:15:00.000-08:00

I have been trying to find a way to get my railroad name onto my locos. I can't really justify £65 for a set of pro-decals as I will get sheets of stuff. I tried ink jet printing onto clear decal sheet but the colours were not strong enough when put onto my black locos.

Yesterday, I found a sheet of white laser decal paper so I have drawn up a sheet of the logo and some numbers. What I did was put a black box onto the page with a white design or letter. The black stands out a little but once I have put some matt varnish on and then done some weathering, I think that it will all blend in. Anyway, here are the results.

Freight Station by Suncoast Models

2011-01-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

Having mocked up some of the structures in box cardboard, I decided to have a go at making a kit that I picked up on EBay some time ago. Now, I have made a couple of laser cut wood kits but this one pre-dates such technology. This is a Suncast model which is basically a pile of scale lumber which needs to be cut to size and glued together.

Fortunately, I have an HO scale rule and an NWSL Chopper II so cutting to length and to angles, etc. is not too difficult. However, the instructions are another matter. As you can see, what you get is three sheets of typewritten instructions - presumably mimeographed, a double sided sheet of scale plans and a pile of lumber.

This one might take some time!

Late Update
I have just found out that this particular kit is still available - presumably in the same form as I have it. Amazing. This just shows the life possible in a good design.

First Video trip around the S&NE

2011-01-02T04:29:00.000-08:00

Here is my first 'promotional' video on Youtube

S & NE Part 1

Mockups and progress

2011-01-01T12:13:00.000-08:00

Status - all of the track is laid and is fully wired for DCC. The DCC controller is fully installed along with the booster. The booster is set up to handle the polarity problems of the turntable. I have a hand driven turntable which is no-way realistic but works for now until I can afford the final option (check out Walthers 90ft DCC turntable).

What I have been doing today is mocking up some of the industries with cardboard so that I can get a feel for how the switching is going to work.

You can see how it looks from the following photos. Please accept that the layout is not perfect in its design - nor is it ideal but I have limited space so I have to shut my eyes to some things so that I can get others in.

The JK Innovative Purity Milk Depot - a Laser cut kit

This is the staging area where the trains end up. The line in the front will be servicing a Saw Mill. The 4-6-0 is a Bachmann Spectrum item that came DCC installed. It is not a particularly good runner. Its sole job will be to run the two shorty passenger cars out to the other end of the SNE a couple of times a day. If it keeps running the way it does, we may become a freight only railroad!

This is hand operated turntable - just grab a knob and spin. It works, for now. There is a DCC link to the booster which handles the electrical short created by swapping the rail polarity over during the turn.

Here you can see the cardboard mock up of the Ice House and it's attendant Fruit Packing Station. The Eastern Fruit Association has been one of my industries since the heady days of N Scale Sunset and North Eastern back in 1970.

This is a high level view of the left hand industry area and the loco facilities. Again, we have mockups of a Furniture factory (lots of wood in and lots of crates out so plenty of flats and box cars)

A close up of the loco facilities - non-existent except for an oil tank. The three locos that you can see here are all Bachmann. 2 x 2-8-0 and an F-3. I have stripped the gears on one of the 2-8-0s so only one works. The 2-8-0s came with on-board DCC whilst I have chipped the F-3. The 2-8-0 is the main freight engine for the SNE (Sunset and North Eastern) whilst the F-3 is on loan to the company as they are in straightened times and their switcher died last Fall. The F-3 isn't a great switcher but it was the best that they could borrow - seeing as how none of the surrounding lines even had any steam switchers left - grin. I am still investigating how to get some decals to put road names on the locos and some freight cars - no result yet.

This is a close up of the cardboard mock ups. These will help me get the layout of the areas right before I start scratch building the real ones

The above shows the Budd RDC. Now this is where we stretch credulity. This RDC is supposed to be out of shot, away on a larger road. It comes in twice a day as an interchange passenger service but I don't have anywhere else to send it so we have to pretend that it isn't there!

Oh my - I am really getting on

2010-12-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

I must have straightened my brain because I am not only spending lots of time on scale models - I used to do 20 minutes at a time - but I am also spending 'hours' on the model railroad. I am amazed to see that it is only 10 days since I did my last blog entry which was discussing the wiring of the main track.

Well, this is where I am now. After some testing, I had to relay one piece of track and I have now built the two end extensions. That to the left is going to be my staging area and that to the right will be where I will eventually put the turntable. However, given the trouble I had with the Walthers one, I am going to construct a very simple one (won't even try to get it to look right - just to turn the locos for now) and eventually fit my dream one - there is a DCC indexed turntable out there which comes built up but costs $350! so that will have to wait :-)

Well, here are the shots of the current state of play.

I am close to having all of the track laid. There are just two wires to solder up and we can start thinking about the future.

I will, of course, start to work out the running patterns whilst I start to lay the ballast. I have to remember that this is rundown world so I need to get this right.

All Change - forget the shed, it's the spare room now!

2010-11-29T06:40:00.000-08:00

For a variety of reasons, I have had to clear the shed of the model railroad. Valerie has insisted that I keep going so I have taken over the spare bedroom, which we only use as a dressing room. It only has a set of wardrobes down one side so we were wasting the space anyway. The space I have is about 7' 6" wide by 2' deep and I can grab a couple of square feet on one end and about 4' x 1' at the other. This means that I can only do the main terminus of my theoretical late '40s short line. Hey, it is warm and I can work there in the evenings so I might just get this one to work.

Progress so far.
In the last two weeks, I have set up a couple of the boards I have salvaged from the shed and worked out a track plan. I have laid all of the track and have spent the last couple of nights doing the wiring. As it will all be DCC, I have set up a power bus using copper tape and tinned copper wire. Here is where I have got to so far. The photos show the situation where I was debugging the wiring. I seemed to have swapped a couple of track polarities as I had to carefully work out what went where. It is all done now so you can see what the wiring looks like under one of the main boards.

So long since anything

2010-08-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

I suddenly realised that it is ages since I did anything on the railroad, let alone write about it.

Firstly, I must tell you that 180 people have looked at my YouTube video showing the turntable working - fame at last.

For some reason, even when I have time, I don't go out to the shed. This is in spite of telling everyone for years what I would do if I had a permanent model railroad!

I did get out there recently and started to put some scenery up. I put up some back sheets and painted them a base colour ready to airbrush the clouds. I also started filling in the groundwork. I like to use gaffer tape to do the base work and then fill over that with Modroc (plaster imprgnated material).

In the meantime, I did try to put a couple of point motors onto the hidden siding and then control them from the DCC. I am using Peco surface mounted motors. However, they look a little flimsy to me so I was already a bit suspicious that they might not be powerful enough - even though I am using them on Peco points. True to form, the first one worked perfectly but the second cannot move the rails. I will probably replace both the Guagemaster SEEP motors, but yet again, I have to get out to the shed.

Suggestions as to what is stopping me - please!

Well here is where I am at the moment

Ballast and electrics

2010-03-08T11:23:00.000-08:00

I spent some of this afternoon tidying up the ballast and then gave all the track a coat of various browns. After a good track cleaning session, the railroad now runs pretty well except for a single dry joint which I will clear up at the weekend.

There is a short video at the bottom of this post.

Better scenery

2010-02-15T10:21:00.000-08:00

I have now started laying down some scenic effects. I rather lost my way doing this because I realised yesterday that I had intended this to be an industrial layout. However, SWBO (She who must be obeyed) has kept on at me about having 'real' scenery that I put some hills and grass in before I realised my mistake. Now I have a small switching layout with 2 x GE 44 Tonner, running around between green hills. This is going to take some ingenuity coming up with something that makes sense.

Anyway, here are the photos. Some of the effects made from cotton wool need to be coated with ground foam to give them some texture. There is a lot of airbrushing going on here to get the various shades plus the worn look on some of the grass areas.

Obviously, I still have to build the trestle for the Sand and Gravel company that will replace the strip of hardboard (masonite) track board.

The Freight House really is the Bachmann one from the early pictures - do you remember that monstrosity in bright red and yellow plastic.

Don't forget that you can get larger images by double clicking on any photo - if you don't use the Firefox option of a new tab, you will need to do a back page in your browser to get back to the main blog.

Comments would be good here!

let's get some scenery down

2010-02-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

Two major moves forward so far this week.

1. I have built the extension for the left hand 'fiddle yard' or 'Storage Siding' as those in the USA call it, making it sound really boring - smile. I am planning on adding another extension to the right so that I can run trains off the board at both ends. As I have physically run a loco off the end already, this should also preclude any accidents!

2. I have used some plaster/material roll - not sure of the proper name - to get some scenery down. I have down this in the traditional way by putting down some scrunched up newspaper, wetting the roll, and laying it over. Having seen a Woodlands Scenics masterclass on this, I carefully overlapped each piece about 50% to add strength. I then painted the whole baseboard with Timberland Forest Floor dye to get a uniform colour. Now comes the experiment, which half worked and half didn't.

Tamiya has brought out some new diorama texture paints so I got some for the shop knowing that it was best for me to use them first so that I could recommend or otherwise. I used the darker brown earth mix on all of the plaster hills. This is supposed to have a texture to it. It worked quite well but I used nearly the whole bottle on the little I did - the bottle costs £10 ($16) so i won't be using that again! Unfortunately, the flash has washed out the colour so it looks grey, but it is actually dark brown. Secondly, they do a green grass paint which is supposed to have some filaments that give the effect of grass. I have to say that having used it, I couldn't see this effect - it just looked like green paint to me. So that is back to the green flock of old.

So here we are. The railroad works and it has some scenery down. It has the full track layout and one fiddle yard. I am leaving the trestle over the Sand and Gravel pit for now. I ave started planning the industries. i will provide a full list of them next time.

Here is the extension

and now the new scenery

All the track is laid

2010-02-01T11:42:00.000-08:00

I have now laid all of the track and wired up and tested all the DCC. I had one problem with a dry joint but that was quickly fixed.

I have cut out part of the baseboard to make a Sand and Gravel yard with raised track for delivery by dropping from hoppers. Let's see if I can make a decent job of blending it all in. The hardboard (masonite) trackbed is temporary until I can build the trestle.

In the process of testing, a couple of evenings ago, I ran one of the locos off the end of the track and broke one of the couplers. As these couplers are 'non-working', they would need replacing eventually so sooner will be better than later. I have been pointed at a Model Railroader article which recommends some options.

Fastest Model Railroad Ever!

2010-01-30T08:37:00.001-08:00

As part of the shop operations, we became a Bachmann agent but only selling their Dynamis range of DCC hardware. When we eventually came out of the DCC market, we were left with two Dynamis units that had failed. We asked the rep if we could get them fixed but were surprised (and pleased) to get a full refund. This left us with a balance on our account and no real reason to use it. We still get the Bachmann stock lists each week and I noticed that they were just about to release a DCC fitted N-scale GE 44 Tonner in New Haven colours. So I came up with an idea.

"As it is cold in shed", I said to my wife, "Why don't I make a small N-Scale layout that will rest on the kitchen table?". "So you can do that while I do my Latch Hook" was the reply - so off I went.

I ordered a wodge of stuff from Bachmann up to the credit note figure, which got me 2 of the GE 44 tonners, a quantity of freight cars and a couple of other bits. Then the Express bit kicked in.

Monday - I went down to Scograil - my local model railway shop - and bought some track. then off to the wood yard for some 2" x 1". That afternoon, I used up some spare Sundeala board and had the baseboard made.
Tuesday - nothing done because it was the Ipswich Model Club Meeting.
Wednesday - I laid all the track that I had - I now need some more!
Thursday - I wired up the track for DCC (I am using a spare Lenz Compact as a controller).
Friday - I have trains running.

Not bad going! Here as some snaps.

The underside shows the power bus - made from copper tape. You just run droppers down from the track and hook onto the bus. The droppers are all tinned copper wire so it's all nice and easy.

Note to Dan : Nice New Haven colours!

Finally got the turntable working

2010-01-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

After many attempts at getting power to the track, I finally stripped the whole thing down this week. I put a lot into making sure that everything was right. I threw the Walthers track base away by cutting it out from the two sides of the deck. I then made a new deck out of 30 thou styrene so that I could lay some standard track down. The previous attempt at laying individual rails using superglue was rubbish. At least this way I know that the track is going to stay in alignment.

After putting it all back together again, I still found that I couldn't get power to the track properly and decided that the brass fingers pressing against the two brass collars on the pivot just didn't have enough pressure. I discussed with a friend (Dan) the option of just 'sledgehammering' it by using direct wire connections into a connector block. That way, every session, I could unwind the wires. He suggested using some springs as they do in slot cars. I didn't fancy the work so what I did was to solder a wire from each finger around the collar so that the finger couldn't lose contact.

At last I have something that works - not every time, but if it fails, it seems I just have to do one more round trip and it all sorts itself out.

Don't forget that the whole layout is DCC, so the turning motion is controlled by a DCC chip addressed at 99. I have set the CV for maximum speed right down so the fastest speed you see here is with the controller full on. This also gives me tremendous slow speed control - I can move it by about 1/16th of an inch very easily. I do have a DCC booster that can control the polarity change as the turntable turns automatically but I don't have a suitable cable. Hence, I have resorted to a DPDT switch which I flip with every turn. Fortunately the DCC controller overload protection is excellent so no damage occurs if I get this bit wrong. I will get it controlled properly but I need to get a cable, which is proving difficult at the moment.

Here is the exciting video.

Further to the Turntable plus a new RDC

2009-11-05T02:01:00.000-08:00

No photos this time. I will post some over the weekend.

The turntable is proving to be very frustrating. I seem to have messed up on the internal connections for the track power and the unit is all super-glued together so it's a major drama to take it all apart. Also, super-gluing the track rainls to the turntable deck is proving to be very flaky. they keep springing off so I will probably replace the deck with a piece of normal rail and re-wire the track connections.

My short line - the Sunset and North Eastern connects to a larger railroad, which exists as two lines coming from nowhere and going to the no place - I seem to remember that line from Popeye?. I thought it would be a good idea to have a twice daily Budd RDC travel in from ther connecting line and run through to the S&NE terminus. I went in search of a Proto 2000 RDC. A model shop here in the Uk had one on their EBay store at a delivered cost of £42 but I dithered too long and missed it.

I then went to Walthers and found that searching for a proto 2000 Buddf resulted in hundreds of hits which made it impossible to find what I wanted. If anyone can tell me how to use Walthers search and find what i want then that would be rteally useful.

Ifinally found an undecorated one on an EBay shop from A ustralia which sent it here at a total cost of £43 so I got a great deal.

problem - the RDC is scale length and does two things on my 'cr*py' track laying. At the bottom of one of the grades, it stretches oevr the transition and loses power and on one of my curves it stalls. I will take some photos of these two problems but it does highlight my inability to lay good track :-(

Thanks all for now - as I said, pictures over the weekend.

Turntable in and running - sort of

2009-10-08T10:07:00.000-07:00

I have mounted the turntable and wired it up. It works fine in one direction but it is not happy in the other. I think I must have missed a washer from the topside but I don't remember having anything left over so maybe not. I think that I will have to cut some styrene to make a washer, however, if I want it to run smoothly in both directions.

There are no rails on the turntable as these have to be laid using track gauges. I have ordered two Kadee ones but these only arrived today (I did the turntable work last weekend). This is a test to check that everything works with the weight of a loco on there. I used a diesel to make it easier to mount. Putting a 2-8-0 tender loco (see in the background of the video) would have been a bit trickier without rails.

Well here goes:

I now have the gauges so I am hoping to install the rails and the access track this weekend, so watch this space.

The turntable is in place

2009-10-05T14:29:00.001-07:00

It doesn't work too well in one direction but fine in the other. I think that it needs some further support around the hub as it seems to rock too much. Maybe I left a washer out although I don't remember there being one left over.

Still it works.

Turntable - progress

2009-09-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

As the layout is run by DCC then it makes sense to have the turntable controlled in the same way.
I have a ZTC255 chip spare that has a 2Amp capacity so that is ample for running the turntable.

First off, though, I did a lash up to make sure everything worked. Remembering the mantra - red and black to the track, orange and grey go away, I soldered up the motor leads to the orange and grey (remembering to put some heat shrink over the wires first. Then I connected the red and black to some wander leads to get the power in. As you can see from the video, it worked!

The chip is addressed as 99 to keep it clear from the loco chips I have running.

Needless to say, there is lots that still needs doing - like setting the turntable into the baseboard etc. but, hey , this is more fun!

Turntable - first steps

2009-09-24T10:47:00.001-07:00

I have got a Walthers Turntable and their motorising unit. Making the turntable was easy and fitting the parts for both motorising and powering the track were also easy. What has not been easy is fitting the track. I decided to buy two Kadee track gauges but bougth them from a guy on EBay in the US. I have had some great results buying HO MR stuff on EBay.com but this time, I have waited two weeks and received nothing - :-(

Anyway, here is the turntable on its first test.

Hopefully when my track gauges come, I can fit the track to the platform..

Here is a picture of it in-situ, but not finally fitted yet. I first have to wire it for DCC so that will come in the next Blog posting.

Click on the pictures for a larger image (use the back button to come back here).

Sunset and North Eastern is GO!

2009-08-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

All Change - Sunset and North Eastern is GO!

So the space was too small. I moved to the garage with the intention of doing an English Seaside resort in the 50s but still didn't get to grips with it. So we cleared out the shed and used it for what we originally bought it for - a US outline Model Railroad!
I have always called my railroad The Sunset and North Eastern RR so that's what this one is. Having recently re-read Mixed Train Daily by Lucius Beebe - found in a bookshop when I was kindly given a trip on the Green Mountain Railroad in Vermont - a trip arranged by my good friend Dan Antion of Windsor Locks CT. I read this book when I was 20 and was entranced with the East Tennessee and West North Carolina RR - known to all as the Tweetsie. We even called our first cat Tweetsie in recognition of this. Hence I decided that a country short line was the way forward. More about that later but here is a video of one of the first smooth laps of the track.

The railroad is run using ZTC DCC so both trains are running under independent control. I hope to clear the top tomorrow so another post will give a better idea of what it looks like.