The Transcontinental PRR

[eric220]

Good grief, has it really been a month since my last update?

A couple of weeks ago I managed to get most of the hard to reach brewery tracks installed on the helix cap. I also completed the turnaround loop and mains behind the brewery. The six silver circles scattered around the brewery are the threaded inserts that will accept the threaded rods that will hold up the helix. They are evenly spaced around the oval, so to achieve a 2% grade and 3" of rise per level, the elevation will change by 1/2" from one rod to the next. Or at least, that's the plan.



Last night I hoisted the sucker back up onto its supports and continued laying track. The westbound track gang has pushed past the Idaho Springs crossover and is approaching the Idaho Springs team track.



The upper level is devilishly close to being operable as a dogbone.

EP - I've been using Digitrax AR1's fairly successfully.  They're a lot less expensive than Tony's stuff and they still get the job done.

[eric220]

With my dad in town for the better part of the last week, progress has been steady.  On our first night, I laid the rest of the track on the upper level mains, and he got the electricity as far as Idaho Springs.  My newly deodorized T1 did the honors of pulling a train to the end of the electrical coverage, and then being pushed around the return loop to complete the first loop around the upper level.  Here she is waiting for the 0-5-0 at Idaho Springs.



Today, we wired up the crossovers to the Coors brewery, and the return loop inside the brewery.  After correcting a few minor electrical issues, the T1 became the first locomotive to pull a train completely under her own power around the upper level.  She even played cat-and-mouse with the GG-2 running around opposite her.  Here is the train rounding the return loop for the first time.



I have an operable loop of track again!

[eric220]

I'm a little late on this update, but here it is none the less.  Before my dad left, we laid both the Idaho Springs team track:



And the River City freight yard.



Since then, I've just had fun running trains!  With all the overtime I'm working these days to pay off two of these guys:



That's all I'm liable to accomplish for awhile.  Updates as events warrant.

[conrailthomas519]

Now thats impressive!

[eric220]

Minor update: I took a gamble in building the upper level.  I decided to use RR-CirKits components for the block detection, signal driving, and turnout control.  They are much less expensive than Digitrax, and they communicate using the Digitrax LocoNet protocol.  We've only got one occupancy card wired up so far, and I hadn't tested it until last night.  With fingers crossed, I plugged in the Tower Controller and watched as a train passed through.  Somewhat to my amazement, the occupancy detector dutifully blinked as the train moved through the upper staging area.  After hunting down a loose LocoNet wire, the Tower Controller was dutifully reporting the occupancy information over the LocoNet, and my JMRI panel was picking up the information at the other end of the daisy chain.

Interestingly, the sensitivity of the RR-CirKits detectors seems to be better than that of the Digitrax BDL-168's.  The RR-CirKits components had no trouble picking up a single car with a single resistor wheel set, whereas the BDL only detects intermittent contact with several of those wheel sets.

Success!  Now I just need to buy more components and wire them up...

[eric220]

Quick update.  The Gandy Dancers came over the other night.  It was a small but dedicated crew.  We got seven tortoises installed, four more block detectors wired up, and most of the brewery trackage laid.  This afternoon, I got two more tortoises installed, including one that required a little creativity.  Despite careful planning, I wound up with a turnout in the brewery right over the helix tracks.  My solution was to offset the tortoise , cut a grove in the plywood, and run the throw wire through a brass tube that I recessed into the groove so it's flush.



Works like a charm!

I also wired up one of the frogs with power routed using the internal SPDT switches in its tortoise.  It works perfectly in reverse, but it shorts out in normal.  Not sure why.  Fortunately, this particular turnout is set to reverse while running in a loop on the upper level, so I can figure it out at my leisure.

[eric220]

More Gandy Dancing tonight.  Again, one of the focuses of the evening was Tortoise installs.  We got a total of six more installed, which dried up my supply.  Time for a resupply order.  Two of the Tortoises had to go in under the cookie cutter, where I didn't leave quite enough room to install them vertically.  After playing around, we found a way to install them horizontally.



One major advantage of installing them this way is that the fulcrum can be adjusted so that most of the throw translates into motion on the throw bar, giving a true slow-motion throw.

In addition to making turnouts work, we got some more track down.  Both Keystone and the Coors brewery have their track laid and feeders dropped.  Now I just need to get them wired up.

[eric220]

Spent some time in the basement today, but alas, nothing photogenic to show.  I got four more tortoises installed, and wired up four more frogs (interestingly, four entirely different turnouts than the ones that got new tortoises).  The net result is that all the turnouts in the Coors brewery and in the crossover to get from there to the westbound main have powered frogs, and all the turnouts from Keystone east have turnout motors.  The T1 definitely likes the powered frogs, and it seems to be able to negotiate the track fairly reliably, despite the work crew's blatant disregard of rule G, and the distraction of the Asterix video in the background.

[eric220]

Still nothing photogenic, but there has been progress.  With the help of the Gandy Dancers, I now have all of the Colorado section's turnout motors installed, and all of the frogs are powered.  I have firmly come to the conclusion that there in an electrical gremlin wreaking havoc on my railroad.  Statistically, 50% of the frogs should have been wired correctly the first time.  Of the 10 frogs that we powered, only 2 were wired correctly on the first try.  Add to that several that shorted out no matter which way the feeders were connected.  I'm still not sure how those were resolved; all I know is that after reworking them several times, they suddenly started behaving correctly.  I still need to attach the "Do Not Sneeze Here" signs above them...

[eric220]

OK, let's get this show back on the road.  The next project (apart from more tortoises and frogs) will be the C&H refinery.  Here's the current plan:



This includes a hidden return loop that represents a Southern Pacific interchange at the refinery.

[eric220]

For inspiration, here's a shot of the California and Hawaii Sugar Refinery in Crockett, CA that I took from the eastbound California Zephyr last month.



I laid out the track this afternoon in preparation for Gandy Dancing.  Here's what it looks like from overhead.



The furthest rear track with the gons and flat will be under a pair of MP gantry cranes right on the dock.  The closest track to the mains is the SP interchange that can also be used to spot cars while working the refinery.  The other two tracks with the PRR boxes are the warehouse/refinery loading tracks.  The stack of Kato boxes represents the silo.  Here's a shot from my eye level.  The SP boxcars in the back are on the interchange track.

[eric220]

So here are the Gandy Dancing returns.



All of the ladder cork is done, and there's just a few strips of cork left on the industry tracks before it's done.  (Might just tackle that after I'm done typing.)

We also attacked plywood for the nolix.  We cut a full loop out of one sheet of plywood, but 55" x 44", we can only get one full loop out of one sheet.  Using the scrap, we cut seven quarter-turns.  I'm really torn on how to proceed from here.  We can probably get another two or three quarter-turns out of the scraps, meaning I could potentially make the entire six-turn nolix out of two sheets of ply.  On the other hand, I'm kind of concerned about how these things are going to fit together.  They're definitely going to take a lot of trimming and fitting, and I'm not convinced about the stability of four quarter-turns biscuited together.  On the flip side, it will save me four sheets of ply and a lot of scrap.  In the end, at $25/sheet for ply, I guess I'm not sold on the idea of cheeping out on the benchwork.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Howabout overlapping quarter sections of 1/8" luan laminated together?

[eric220]

Howabout overlapping quarter sections of 1/8" luan laminated together?

For that much work, I'll spend the money to buy the ply.

[eric220]

Well as much as I wish my latest update and 1,000th post could be a Fujiwara-inspired whirlwind of amazing progress, I'll have to settle for modest progress.  I started by realigning the dock track to eliminate an s-curve by the ladder.  I had to tear out a few inches of cork, and I gained a new appreciation for caulk as adhesive.  It took a chisel and quite a bit of sanding to get back to bare plywood.  I didn't relay the cork on that track because I'm considering dropping the dock track down to the plywood, since it's supposed to be imbedded in the concrete.  The alternative would be to lay out cork sheet (which I have) under the parking lot.  I'm not terribly enthusiastic about that option, since it would mean bringing the parking lot up to the height of the mainline.  As for the rest of the port/sugar refinery/SP interchange, I managed to lay the rest of the roadbed.



I also thought that I might shoot a different perspective of the new construction.

This begins with the turnout leading to the refinery on the left and ends at the underpass with the SP interchange pulling alongside the PRR.