It's bench work season

It seems that I tend to make bench work during this time of year.  In the afternoons the sun is now low enough behind the redwood trees to shade the front of the garage but it is still warm outside.  I pull my table saw out into the driveway and get to work.  This gives me the winter to work on the track, wiring, and scenery inside the train room.

For this next section of the layout I elected to go with a more conventional type of bench work instead of building modules.  The reasons for this are that it needed to span the window and with very simple wiring not much effort would be saved building it as a module.

In the panorama photo below the new section can be seen.  This is about 15 linear feet of new layout around the end of the room and extends all the way to the door just off scene to the left where a lift out section will be. 

I had already cut 2 inch wide strips from 1/2 inch plywood to build this bench work section.  The pieces were cut to the length needed in the garage and brought into the train room to be assembled.  The shorter left over pieces are being used as connecting plates.

So what happened to the test track / return loop that was in this location ?  It is being recycled again, this time as sub roadbed for this new section of the layout.

And with the first couple of sub roadbed sections held temporarily in place so I can verify that I am leaving enough straight track on both ends of the new brass bridge for longest rolling stock to get through OK.

The skewed bridge

The first bridge I want to create for this new extension of the layout will be the skewed bridge which carries the Western Pacific / Westbound line over the Southern Pacific / Eastbound line.

For a reference, I took some photos of a similar type bridge on the HO layout at the South Bay Historical Railroad Society.  This looks as if it could have been kit bashed from a Central Valley Model Works HO kit.

So this is my version kit bashed from a Central Valley N Scale kit.  I made my own solid headers, cross bracing, and end plates from styrene strip and the skew is the other way to fit in how this bridge will be used on my layout.

And this is my bridge after an airbrush spray of Floquil old silver.  I still need to order some bridge feet and give the whole thing another coat of paint then some weathering.

The bridges of Palisade Canyon

This next expansion of the layout will include one of the most interesting railroad sections of the Palisade Canyon where the Western Pacific constructed a bridge over the earlier built Southern Pacific line.  Both lines cross the river on one side of their approach to the crossing so it is one of those places that modelers like to build but are not so common on the prototype.

Here is a Google satellite image of the area where the skewed bridge is.  I plan to model the 3 bridges noted in blue but not the one noted in yellow.

Here is a closer view of the skewed bridge.   This span has 4 full sections.  My bridge will be somewhat shorter with 2 full sections.  I plan to modify a Central Valley Model Works kit to model this one.

Here is a close up of the third bridge I want have in the scene.  It appears to be a thru girder type bridge about 100ft long with open deck with wood trestles on the approaches.  A dirt road passes under one of the trestle parts.

And last here is a close up of the curved top thru truss bridge.  Looks like it has 5 full sections and is about 150ft long.  For this one I am going to use one of the BLMA 200ft long brass bridges and not model the additional shorter span.

Lighting the next layout expansion

Since last post the LED light bulbs have been installed under the new shelf and a valance put in along the edge of the shelf and painted.  This extends all the way around to the door.

The bulbs were spaced every 18 inches and connected to the existing circuit.  The brightness and color seem to match the existing just right.

I purchased enough bulbs and sockets to also light the area where Carlin will be in the future.

Completing the layout room storage

It's been awhile since I posted anything on this blog.  Most of my hobby time this summer has been spent working on my Japanese modules getting them ready for a layout at the 39th Narrow Gauge convention in Sacramento in early September.  Been doing a lot of posting about that on my Tokyo in N Scale blog.

With everything just about ready for that trip, I recently turned my attention back to the home layout and to completing the storage above the layout.  I needed to do this before I could further expand the layout past were it is now.  Up to now I have been using basic white cabinets from Ikea.  To finish off the area at the end of the layout room I am just building open shelves.
 

This view shows the shelves holding oversized but lighter weight items such as small modules.  The posts hanging down from the shelve will be for mounting LED light bulbs same as under the cabinets.  The bottom of the shelves will be painted white and tempered hard board lighting valance installed.

This photo shows how I used steel brackets on the top to keep the area where the layout will be open.  On the left by the door is where the Palisade tunnels will be with a lift out bridge crossing the doorway.

A computer for the layout room

A couple years ago I replaced my computer.  There was nothing wrong with the old one it just would not run some of the new software.   In the past at work I had on a number of occasions re-purposed older computers to use in situations where the program applications being run were limited so I thought why not do the same with this old computer.  The computer and monitor had been collecting dust in a corner of the train room while I was waiting to decide where to set it up.

The space under the DCC drawer was the perfect spot to set up the computer as it was right next to the work bench.

I made a shelf supported by a pair of steel brackets for the computer and monitor and added one of those pull out keyboard trays.



This train room computer will be primarily used for running JMRI Decoder Pro to program locomotive decoders and possibly experiment with some layout control in the future.   I will also use it to program Arduino micro controllers. Up to now I have been doing the Arduino programming in the house and then bringing the Arduino back to the train room to try it out.  This was rather inconvenient so this will be a big improvement.

Starting some car cards and waybills

Since having finished a few on line industries in Battle Mountain,  I have been looking into way of having a more structured operations scheme.   After looking at different operating schemes from many different sources on the Internet, I decided to go with a type of car card and waybill system.  I drew upon several things I saw and adapted them to my own needs.

I did my car cards and waybills on Microsoft Visio.  Here is a JPEG of my car card template.  The dashed line is where it is folded over to form the pocket for the waybill.   This is printed on a medium quality paper but I laminate it with clear packaging tape to make it sturdier.

My car cars have color coded dots corresponding to the 3 different eras on my layout.  Most of my cars overlap into 2 different eras so have 2 dots.

In the September 2017 post Trying to get organized I give an explanation of the 3 eras on my layout.

For the waybill, I use one side as the "loaded to be delivered" part and the other side is a "empty to be delivered" part.  This is printed out as one part then folded and glued back to back with stick glue.  Once this is folded over it is sturdy enough without lamination.

Micro-Mark offers some nice car card boxes which are widely used but because my bench work is thin they would stick up above the bench work so for now I am going to clip the card cars to the light valance right above the location of the car it represents.

At this point I have limited my car cards and waybills to the cars needed to support the 4 industries in Battle Mountain without regard to any through traffic.



After running a couple of test locals using this system I already get the sense of a "bigger" layout with the references to some of the far away locations suggested on the waybills.  Over the summer I hope to get a couple of my train buddies over for a sort of operating session so they can critique this system and make some suggestions for improvement.  This will be an on going process.

Train watching at Weso in 1984

With the new DCC components and upgrades installed I have been actually enjoying running the layout quite a bit over the past week or two.  Operationally one of the focal points on this layout is Weso at the western end of the paired track where the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific lines diverge.  When you think about it this is actually like a junction and a great place to watch trains.

I operate this layout in 3 different eras and will switch equipment around to try to match each era.  So here we are one day in my 1983-1988 era checking out the action.  Always on the lookout for any interesting or unusual locomotives, rolling stock, loads, or paint jobs.

The first train we spot is an eastbound freight coming off the SP line from Sparks and crossing over to the eastbound paired track.  The power on this train included an SP GP40-2 and a SSW B30-7.

Spotted this Great Northern box car in this train that was still not re-painted or even re-numbered 14 years after the creation of the Burlington Northern.  The only evidence that the car belonged to the BN was a door that was replaced or re-painted in the BN green.

This train also had one of those 89 foot auto parts box cars.  These are one of my favorites and I don't see them very often.

Not long after the SP train had passed this eastbound UP train approached from the old WP line.  Soon after the UP acquired the WP a few years ago they pulled almost all of the WP power off the line as it was in such bad condition.  Power on this train was a SD45 and a SD50 painted in UP colors but lettered for Missouri Pacific which is another railroad UP recently acquired.

Nothing much else noteworthy on this train until it got to the end and a caboose.  This one was a bay window type painted and lettered for UP but with a road number for the WP.  Looks like they are having some fun at the UP paint shop with all this equipment they are acquiring.

After about 30 minutes another SP train approached from the east and passed through on the straight alignment to enter the SP line.  This was a solid train of covered hoppers and was being pulled by a B23-7 and an SD40.

At the end of this train was one of the new end of train devices or FRED.  Seeing more of these and fewer cabooses all the time.  Guess we better appreciate the caboose while it is still around.

After waiting awhile this Burlington Northern freight approached from the east.  Occasionally a BN train is routed over the UP line between Denver and the connection to the inside passage at Bieber, CA.  Power on this one was a C30-7 and an SD45.

This train took the cross over from westbound paired track to the old WP line.  The train was mostly lumber empties but again found the caboose interesting.  It was a wide vision type with a road number for the Denver and Fort Worth which had been a subsidiary of the Burlington.


Well, this was fun but it's time to call it a day.  We'll do this again sometime, perhaps in a different era.

More updates to the layout's DCC system

My Digitrax throttles of various types have taken quite a beating over the years getting dropped after being set on the edge of layouts and just being used a lot.   I hope to take better care in the future with the throttle holders I built late last year and explained in this post.

I recently got around to purchasing a new throttle and ended up getting the DT500D which is the only one now offered by Digitrax.

This throttle has some new features I like such as being able to actually turn it off without removing the battery which was the cause of some of the excessive wear and tear on my old throttles.

To go along with the new throttle I also got a new UR90 Infrared ( IR ) receiver.  For this layout IR works just fine and the UR90 is less than 1/3 the cost of the UR92.  I also found out that my old UR91 that I was not sure was working at all does still work as an IR receiver so with it at the other end of the layout the coverage is very good.

After creating a place for the DCC system in a drawer, I found myself opening the drawer to check the track status light on the command station.  Then it occurred to me that I should connect the track status LED on the panel, Duh !

This was really easy to do as it just required running a pair of wires between the command station output and the two screws on the back of the panel pointed out in this photo with blue arrows.   Eventually I would like to do this for all the panels on the layout.