D&H Champlain Div Version 4

[bdennis]

Guys,
Thanks for the comments.
Yep, bracing on the legs, cross bracing between the L girders and more brackets off the walls are all yet to be installed.

[bdennis]

Let the track work begin!..

Just a quick update.. Had a very productive weekend with it being cold and wet outside.
I installed the base 12mm ply for the staging section and also installed the main line out of staging up and along the wall. This is a 2% gradient from 1200mm (from the floor) up to 1300mm (from the floor) where the staging track will meet the line coming from the Fairhaven branch line. From there it will go over the drop bridge at the door way and onto Whitehall.

I usually use Atlas Code 55 flex track for my layouts. This one will be the same, however, as my track supplies were low, I managed to obtain from old Railcraft Code 55 flex and ME code 55 flex both weathered and un-weathered.
As I have never used Railcraft / ME before and wanted to ensure that the layout looks the same, so I decided to use the small stock of Railcraft and ME flex in the staging yards.

The first piece I picked up was the weathered ME Code 55 flex track.
Well, I have to say, I'm NOT a fan of the ME weathered flex. It is very difficult to manage / bend and or keep straight. So much so that I think that if I picked up this ME weathered flex as a beginner I would seriously think about going to set track!. Fortunately, I am familiar with Atlas Code 55 flex and I only had about 4 lengths of the weathered track so I only used it on the straight sections. The ME un-weathered flex is much easier to use, but, still not as good (in my opinion) as the Atlas Code 55.

During the install process I made a few changes on the fly and added an extra return loop in staging. So now I have 2 tracks that are return loops and 3 that are dead ends. 2 of the dead end tracks are not long enough for a full size 2 loco's 20 cars and a caboose, but thats ok as I will have some shorter trains including a pass so wont be an issue. I have also made the same changes to the North or Upper staging section as well so the layout wont get unbalanced by different size staging yards at each end.

As you can see in the pictures, I even managed to get a train out of their boxes and place it on the track and test the track work (by hand not with the loco's) to ensure everything ran smoothly.
The turnouts all need to have MP1 turnout machines installed to ensure that they are held in position.

Here are a few progress pictures.





For other progress pictures and info see here - http://dh2ndsub.blogspot.com.au/

[vicsmodels]

Hi Brendan,
Well you  have been burning the midnight oil again i see looking good. At this pace you will be running  trains around a finished layout by next weekend keep up  the cracking pace if you can.

regards Vic

[Santa Fe Guy]

What time should we come over LOL.
Rod.

[bdennis]

Wow.. Its been a while since I posted anything re the RR build. Needless to say, since June 2016 there has been a heap of work completed.

This from around 2018



April 2020



And more recently getting going on scenery




Then onto buildings.



A heap more work to do on buildings around the layout. Just concentrating on the basic structures for now.

Also get going on my JMRI panel.


As per usual. More details can be found on my blog. http://dh2ndsub.blogspot.com/

[GaryHinshaw]

Looking really good.  Welcome back!

[bdennis]

Have been reading and following the posts on here all that time.. Just neglected to add anything.. I will keep the posts more regular.

[superchief]

Brendan,
     WOW, Looking great, have not checked the blogs in a while, looking great!!! I love the panel, is that all on JMRI or is that also using CATS? The layout looks great, need to make another trip "down under" for an op session. Saw Rod posted a video of the second Garrett at Puffing Billy's got restored, I really enjoyed my trip back then!! Keep up the great work!
                                                                Gordon Bliss/ Santa Fe - All the Way

[bdennis]

Thanks Gordon. The panel is JMRI using NX for routes. It works similar to CATS but I wanted more flexibility over what CATS does. So developed the panel as it is.

Here is a demo of the panel as it stands. I will need to add the signals to the panel also.

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As for Puffing Billy. Yep there is some neat stuff happening there with the usual NA class locos they have 2x Garrett type loco's and another being worked on plus the Climax.

As for the D&H Version 3 that you had seen when you were here, it lives on. A local friend purchased the layout and we moved it to his shed and he has it up and running and is using CMRI hardware to manage the detection and drive turnouts and signals.

[x600]

Love the layout, Brendon. Been following along for years.  I grew up next to the Penn Div. Main in Scranton in the 60s, but any layout with
Blue / Gray /Lightning Stripes is way cool. keep up the good work.


Greg O.

[boisecity]

Great work on your panel Brendan
I'm looking forward to seeing the layout again.  How many operators can you get in there with social distancing?

JohnF

[bdennis]

John, I think the numbers would be low while we are still in Covid distancing. The isles are narrow. Would probably only get 2 people in there at any one time.

[GaryHinshaw]

Very nice job on the panel.  I'm curious what you want to do with NX routes that CATS can't do (or makes more difficult).  I might want to look into that.

[bdennis]

Garry,
I think CATS can do most of it, but I have better control over the NX routes using Layout editor than what "I thought" I had in CATS. I also run a heap of routes to set up auto reversing in my north and south staging etc.

I just felt that as CATS was older and not really supported that I would prefer to go down the raw JMRI path as I have more control over what it is doing.
I did build an initial panel in CATS to test it but from what I recall as I was also adding other Logix things got complicated.
If I recall I also did not like the way that CATS draws the panel. I much prefer the Layout editor look and feel as there is finer detail.

I checked my blog and found where I set up a panel, but did not write as to why I chose the Standard JMRI over CATS.
I also want to be able to have 2 JMRI files (or perhaps 1 with some logix to enable or disable things) so that if I'm running as a lone ranger then I want the signals to be basically ABS. Where as when Im running the layout for operations then I want APB. So that the Dispatcher has to enable the route before the signal will go green.

In watching a bunch of Youtube videos of layout tours, I see a bunch of guys in the US are using CATS and thats great to see.
My desire for control over what things are doing pushed me to the std JMRI and layout editor.  Plus I have now built a few panels for myself and others using Layout editor.
I not not done with the panel yet. I now need to layer on the signals onto the panel to show their aspect actual and I want to be able to customise the icons. I dont think I can do that in CATS. It will just show a red or a green.

So in short, if you just want to dispatcher to manage the paths for trains to set signals then CATS can probably do what you want if you like the display.

Hope this helps.
Regards
Brendan

[GaryHinshaw]

Thanks Brendan, that makes sense.  CATS works very well for me, but I have always been a bit queasy about the fact that it's a one-man show.  (That said, Rodney has been very responsive to my dumb questions.)  Before taking the plunge with CATS a few years ago, I looked into JMRI Dispatcher, but found it to be really tedious to use.  Perhaps it has improved since then(?).  Your solution with NX routes seems quite nice.