JMRI and WiThrottle - a story of a turntable

If you don't know what JMRI and WiThrottle are, read on.

I recently bought a USB interface board for my NCE DCC system. I got this from my friend Kevin Dickerson at Coastal DCC who, fortunately, lives just round the corner from me in Ipswich.

The USB card connected my iMac to the NCE system. I had to install a new driver but I got that from the NCE USB web page. I already had JMRI (Java Model Railroad Interface) installed so, once I had created a new profile and connected that to my NCE, I was able to control my trains from the iMac screen. It gets better though.

JMRI provides a wireless connection for external throttles to drive trains through the USB link. I downloaded WiThrottle from the App Store and installed it on my iPad and iPhone. This quickly connected to JMRI and I was running my trains (and controlling all the sound effects) from my iPhone.

It gets even better! The following took a bit of time to work out but this is what I did.

1. I created a control panel using PanelPro. Initially, I drew a schematic of the whole railroad. When doing this, you create a list of existing turnouts and connect one at a time to the turnouts on the schematic. None of my turnouts are powered so I used internal definitions. I included the turntable but I was at a loss what to do next. After a lot of fiddling around - the documentation is lousy - I got there. There is no beginners guide at all so it is a case of try and try again.
2. I worked out that I could add a turntable to the schematic. I then defined 5 more turnouts using NCE definitions, numbering them 1 - 5 (as I have 5 roads on my turntable).
3. I purchased the full version of WiThrottle for the princely sum of £6.99 but could see no way to control anything! I e-mailed the WiThrottle people but they had obviously not come across a turntable before so weren't much initial help.
4. I sat down this morning with a clear head and decided that I could get this. Firstly, I realised that I needed to put the actual accessory code for each turnout - instead of 1 I needed to put 255, for instance. 255 is the accessory that is defined for the home road on the turntable. I deleted the existing definitions and replaced them with the correct ones. Then I applied these to the schematic. I clicked on one road and found that the turntable was turning correctly!
5. All that was left was to find out how to operate this from the iPhone. Next to the throttle on the screen is a number pad for the various functions. I had been swiping left to change the pages to see the higher functions. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I swiped right and found a list of turnouts. There, amongst the long list, were the 5 turntable turnouts. Done!
6. The only thing left to do was to go back to the schematic and delete all of the layout except for the turntable. I then deleted all of the internal turnout definitions. On going back to the iPhone, I found that the turnout list now only comprised of the 5 for the turntable. Job done!

Here is the iPhone showing the turntable options along with the Heljan control box.

Here is a shot of the turntable, itself.

Starting to lay the scenery base down

My Sculptamold has arrived. I think that it is a great material. The first time I used it, I mixed it 50/50 but now I see that it should be 2:1 Sculptamold to water. The only difference I can see is that it smooths out easier in the real mix. I am laying it throughout the freight yard to raise the ground up nearer the ties as I have put all of the yard track on foam track bed so it is the same height as the main. This way, it looks as though the track is lower to the ground without ripping up the track bed.

Once this area is dry, I am going to scenic it so that I am sure about the effect before I get on with the rest of the yard. I haven't cleaned up the Sculptamold droppings yet

You will notice that I have put up the back scenes - just simple painted with blue paint with some clouds overlaid. Not too artistic but good enough for me. The back scene is painted onto foam board and the board has warped at the top. However, I live in a rented apartment so can't fix (well, don't want to fix) anything to the walls. The whole railroad is actually free standing. I am just going to have to live with the tops of the back scene being a bit warped but I am concentrating on the track level anyway so I will manage.

The track is down and all works well

I have now laid all of the track and ballasted it. In addition, I have painted the sides of all the rails in a rust colour and used the Woodlands Scenic tie marker to tone down the glossy plastic of the track.

I have ballasted the main line in a grey ballast and the yard in black cinders. I have tested all of the track and everything works fine. In fact I did have one problem. Locos travelling over one of the points into the turntable area seemed to be loosing electrical contact. When I looked at the point closely, it seems that I had omitted to put in the requisite jumper leads to ensure continuity from the switch places to the outer rails. I put in a couple of wire jumpers and now everything works beautifully.

Here is what the track looks like now.

It all looks a bit messy but when I get the ground cover down it will all sort itself out.

I have also gone carefully through the turntable programming. I now have a consistent set of track addresses. On the turntable controller they are 1 through to 5 and on the DCC controller they are 225 through to 231.

I haven't fitted the control cabin or the centre post to the turntable. I have a feeling that I would break something if I did anything there now. I will leave these until the main scenery is down in the yard.

I have ordered a 3lb bag of Sculptamold coming so this will be the basis for the ground.

Branding the SNE stock

After some long discussions on the Model Railroad Hobbyist forum, I have sorted out the S&NEs own stock. I have made some decals using a white sheet of decal paper and putting everything onto a black background. So far, I have done the two steam locos and the one hopper that is owned by the S&NE. I have to say that the opinion out there is that my steam loco logo is too modern. However, I designed this in 1969 and it has been with me ever since. The layout is meant to be in the late 50's and the critics may well be right but "it's my party and I'll cry if I want to", if you see what I mean - smile.

Firstly, the loco:

Next, we have the hopper car:

The Sunset and North Eastern connects the New Haven at Hartford CT to the Boston & Maine (B&M) at Boston MA via the newly created town of Sunset (close to the actual town of Worcester). The total mileage is 104 miles with Sunset 58 miles from Hartford and 46 miles from Boston. It runs its own way freights from Hartford to Boston using Sunset as a division point. It does't have any passenger equipment so that is handled by a Budd RDC from the New Haven that makes runs over the 104 miles a couple of times a day. In addition, the B&M runs the main freights between the two ends. I have yet to work out the proper timetable so this is just an estimate of what will happen. 

The Budd RDC is currently being fitted with a sound decoder so will appear in a few days time (hopefully). Also in the works is an 0-6-0 switcher which will be based at Sunset. This is also being fitted with DCC sound. In the meantime, we have acquired a B&M RS-3 (again with DCC sound fitted).

We now have a couple of extra cabooses so I will be converting one of these to a B&M caboose to go with the RS-3. This will be interesting because it requires white lettering. I am going to attempt this using dry rub down lettering onto a clear decal sheet under varnish. I might just work!

Current job - I am laying ballast in the freight yard. I am using Woodland Scenics cinders. It is quite a long job so I had better get back to work.

Sunset & North Eastern - Trains run all over - at last

I have now finished laying the track to the plan. The schematic looks like this:

I have a short video showing the layout in situ.



The turntable is a Walthers/Heljan DCC turntable. It installed and worked very easily. However, now that I have seen the trains running and having got the turntable working, I can see that it needs another couple of additions.

Firstly, the station is intended to be the mid-point on a short feeder line between two other railroads - currently assumed to be the New Haven and the Boston & Maine (to please a friend who lives in Connecticut!). As such, a lot of the trains will be going straight through. However, the S&NEs own freights will stop here and change locos - as they only have these small 2-6-0 Moguls. Hence the turntable and engine facilities. I realised when looking at the layout that there were two flaws. Where could I put the coal and water facilities and there wasn't a caboose track. A small tweak to the design came up with the following:

The second track to the turntable enables me to have the following "workflow". The loco comes from the train and enters the lower left hand turntable feed. Here it can dump its ash, put on water and coal and move to its storage track. When leaving the engine facility to take on a train, it leaves by the upper turntable feed. The extra track below the water/coal feed is the new caboose track. This should make the loco operations much more interesting.

I also realised that there wasn't a LCL/Freight House spur for the station, which will sit along the top of the layout on the top most line of the runaround. I plan to put in a left hand switch facing right along that side of the runaround which will solve that problem

I have now ordered the extra switches that I need for these changes and will post more when they are installed. Just so that you know, the two areas of staging at both ends will eventually be joined via a new station on the opposite wall. This will give me a continuous run as well as a single staging track on both side. This will have to wait until I have got a long way with what I have. "She who must be obeyed" (see Rumpole of the Bailey if you don't know that reference) - AKA SWMBO - says that I have to get some scenery and people down before I move on. She seems to think that I only ever lay track and tear it up later without doing any more. I point out that I did put some scenery down once on a N Scale layout about 4 years ago (see earlier posts in my blog) but she thinks that this was a one off.

A bit of a problem and a small success

If you don't know, Peco electrofrog switches require that the frog polarity be set for each of the routes. This is done in the version as purchased by using the switch blades to route power to the frog so depending on which switch blade is touching a running rail, the frog gets one or other feed. Using DCC, this is a bit hit and miss so it is recommended that the links that make this happen be cut and the switch blades be connected electrically to their own running rail. This leaves the frog unpowered. Many people us relays etc. to manage this. I use what is called a Frog Juicer from Tam Valley. This is an electronic switch. If the polarity of the frog is set one way and the switch is set to the opposite that there will be a short as the lcl traverses the frog. The Frog Juicer senses this short in micro seconds and reverses the polity of the frog to the correct way round.

Sounds good. I have 5 switches set to one Frog Juicer and four switches connected to the other (each juicer manages up to 6 switches). One (the 5) works perfectly. The other causes a 1 - 2 second delay when operating! I have a suspicion that the one that is playing up is an older version that is incompatible with either my DCC controller - NCE - or with Peco switches. I have a video that shows the problem.

I have requests out to my DCC supplier, Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine Forums and to Tam Valley. I will report back.

The success is this. I purchased 9 Accurail freight car kits which arrived on Friday. I have made the first one. It went together without any issues. I have, however, replaced the Accumate couplers with Kadee 148 replacements as I am having a bit of trouble with an coupler that isn't a Kadee. My plan is to replace any out as soon as I can. Here it is on the layout. (I have just noticed that one wheel is off the track!)

S&NE Starting the wiring

The layout is DCC so I need a power bus. I always do this by laying down some self adhesive copper tape. I am also using Tam Valley Frog Juicers to control the polarity of the frogs - I use Peco Code 83 Electrofrogs.

I am wiring up the first board. The railroad is designed so that it can be dismantled (we live in a rented apartment so who knows?) so the track is all connected across the board edges with short removable lengths of track (no points cross the edges at all). As I only have two 6 pack Frog Juicers (for a total of twelve points) I have to accommodate those connections across the boards as well.

I am terminating the wiring into strip connectors as, once the layout is back together, the joins will be permanent (until and if we move).

The two power busses are connected to the track via the green and yellow drop wires whilst the frogs are connected by the black wires. The black wires will connect to the Frog Juicers on the middle board. There is a staging yard coming off the other end that will have a single point, hence the ongoing green/yellow and black connections.