Seaboard Central 2.0

[John]

Nice .. a great modeling weekend

[davefoxx]

Thanks, John.  It was well worth the effort.  This turnout adds another passing siding to the layout, so I now have three around the loop.  The one in Aberdeen is small (only half a dozen cars capacity), but the passing siding in Southern Pines and this first A/D track in Hamlet Yard each hold two locomotives and approximately fourteen cars.  This allows me to operate the layout with much more capacity and flexibility.

DFF

[Rich_S]

Success, but, boy, oh boy, this turned out to be a huge project.  No wonder I procrastinated so long; I spent most of the weekend installing one turnout.  Okay, okay, I also spent much of that time building it, but this was a real challenge for me.  After I got the turnout installed and tested, I had to get the soldering iron back out to slightly widen the gauge of the 12" radius side to get things running reliably through there.  I may hit one more spot to really smooth things out.  But, for now, it's working.  Everything seems okay on the 16" radius side.

DFF

Dave, Very nice job on the curved turnout, that is very impressive.  Two thumbs up on the layout progress. 

[davefoxx]

As always, Rich, thank you very much for the compliments.

DFF

[VonRyan]

The loads in those woodchip hoppers need to be lowered. They stick up too far above the top edge of the car.

Other than that, get to expanding across that water heater.

[davefoxx]

Cody,

You're right about the wood chip loads.  Lowering those loads so that the ends aren't exposed is on the to-do list, as well as possibly gluing sawdust on to better represent wood chips.

About the expansion over the water heater, I'd love to do that, but I'm out of track.  So, until flextrack becomes available, the expansion will have to wait.

Besides, it's really time for me to stop procrastinating and start wiring the existing trackage correctly.  The entire layout is running on two wires, and I need to add a ton of drops to allow the circuit breaker feature on the command station to work at all points on the layout.  I'm sure that wouldn't happen on the far end of the layout now, which puts my locomotives at risk if I get a short.

Thanks,
DFF

[Jeff AKA St0rm]

DFF

What side switches did you use? I am planning this for my layout and yours look good.

[VonRyan]

Cody,

You're right about the wood chip loads.  Lowering those loads so that the ends aren't exposed is on the to-do list, as well as possibly gluing sawdust on to better represent wood chips.

About the expansion over the water heater, I'd love to do that, but I'm out of track.  So, until flextrack becomes available, the expansion will have to wait.

Besides, it's really time for me to stop procrastinating and start wiring the existing trackage correctly.  The entire layout is running on two wires, and I need to add a ton of drops to allow the circuit breaker feature on the command station to work at all points on the layout.  I'm sure that wouldn't happen on the far end of the layout now, which puts my locomotives at risk if I get a short.

Thanks,
DFF

I was gonna offer to sell you my stash of Atlas c55 flex, but not until you get some proper wiring installed on that railroad.

A funny story is that my friend Konrad's old layout was originally wired up in a temporary scheme using paper-clips. It worked flawlessly. Only when he started to install real wiring did problems start to pop up.

So it doesn't have to be professional or anything, it just has to work well. 

[davefoxx]

Cody,

Paper clips, huh?  Good stuff.  Yeah, my temporary jury rigging to get up and running has been working on the layout for more than two years.

While working on a track project on Friday night, though, I caused a short circuit that, at first, I feared that I fried every decoder on the layout (more than a dozen locomotives!).  Stupid me; I was tweaking the new curved turnout and replaced a PC tie without cutting an isolation gap between the rails.  When I powered up the layout, it didn't work, and I immediately shut down.  Thankfully, I found the source of the problem, but, after much cussing, I realized that only the Southern interchange worked.  Coincidentally, a turnout in Aberdeen's yard stopped feeding electricity at the same time, causing me to think I killed the layout.  A temporary jumper confirmed that the layout was okay, and all locomotive decoders survived.  Whew.  But, that was enough incentive to rewire the entire layout this weekend.  So far, it seems to be working.  The coin test (circuit breaker protection) now works almost everywhere on the layout, except for a few spots (e.g., deep in Hamlet Yard) where I will drop a few more feeders.

Tonight, I wired up the Digitrax UR92 panel by fishing an extension cord and a Loconet (RJ12 cable) under the layout, which is sorely needed on this layout for walkaround ops.  The UR92 gives me wireless throttle control.  This is the UR92 (for those that don't do Digitrax):



Here's under the layout and behind the UR92, giving an idea of how I fished and secured the wires up under the layout.  The black cord is the power supply to the UR92, and the gray wire is the Loconet cable.



Oh, and for $h!ts and giggles, I tried to take a picture that gives an overall shot of the very unfinished layout for perspective.  Although I still have one curved turnout to build to double-end the second arrival/departure track in Hamlet Yard, this track plan is really turning out to be a lot of fun.  Tonight, for example, I brought a train down from Raeford on the A&R and then switched the Southern interchange, while an Amtrak train circumnavigated the SBD mainline.  My task was to switch cars in Aberdeen and stay out of the passenger train's way when it was due to pass through town.  Fun!



DFF

[Scottl]

I like that view, the layout is looking great and coming along nicely.

I'm also absorbing your electrical lessons and hoping to avoid some of the same issues. 

[MichaelWinicki]

Yep, that shelf behind the water heater would make for one fine staging area.

[C855B]

Yep, that shelf behind the water heater would make for one fine staging area.

Just don't box-in the water heater. I recall a fellow on the old Atlas board IIRC who built major bits of his layout blocking a furnace or water heater, and had to replace the mechanical within about a year. It was necessary to dismantle a surprising amount of layout. Dave doesn't have this problem, it appears, since the layout itself looks like it can be moved (more like dragged ) enough for access. Also in his favor is the electric HW heater, which last a lot longer than gas. (I know both issues the hard way... oh, and the HW heater will die on Christmas. My last one did.)

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Looks great Dave. As I think I've said, it's inspiring me to get off my butt.

[conrail98]

Yep, that shelf behind the water heater would make for one fine staging area.

Yep, he needs to get something like this to expand around:



That's a 1x6 (I think) on top of a steel stud or channel, cant remember, 't bridge about a 10' gap around a furnace and water heater on a local layout here,

Phil

[davefoxx]

My plan is to build a plywood "bridge" in front of the water heater that would be removable by pulling just a few screws.  It would have Masonite sides to keep errant cars from falling to the concrete floor.

The real question is what do I do on the shelf?  Three-track yard with a runaround to allow locomotives to get around its train? Or, a two-track loop?  I'd need an autoreverser for the second option, but that's not that big of a deal.

DFF