Weekend Update 12/05/10

[93cram]

I spent all afternoon (and a bit of the evening too to be honest) installing a TCS CN-GP decoder in a 1996 vintage Atlas GP7.
No time to take pictures, too busy with my optivisor on head trying to fix a short which eventually surrendered after a several hours long battle.

As usual, everything went fine first hand, only that the lights switched on the wrong way when testing the install.
Without reading back the TCS manual pdf. I had handy, I decided  : the best thing to do was to switch the decoder boards the other way around....
Then, a succession of weird things happened, the lights going flicker like without being asked to, etc... >
Realizing that I did wrong, I switch the decoder boards back in their initial position only to find that a short coming from who knows where
had occurred  ???
Several hours and three feet of Krypton tape later, the short finally gave up, but my GP7 sounded like a coffee grinder...supposing that doing the same thing again and again was a sure way to test my sanity, I disassembled the beast for the 10th time, checked the motor, frame, gears, etc...
No way to make it sounds like I remember it did when I was 10 years younger  ;D

Has anyone experienced the same ?  ???

P.S : I thought that posting this here was less embarrassing than posting on the DCC board, where the crowd would have told me to do what I should have done in the first place, check TCS install manual, where the opposing lights issue is duly addressed  :-[ ;D

[conrail98]

I built the base for the other two free-standing sections:





I also built the supports for the benchwork but haven't gotten a chance to put them up yet,

Phil

[SAH]

I've been working on this as time allowed over the past three weeks.  It's not pretty but is seems to work OK.  The first curved I've ever built.  I'm hoping the next one will go better. 

Steve

[davefoxx]

By temporarily laying flextrack through the location of a curved turnout that is on order, I finished the roundy-round loop on my new hollow core door layout, the Aberdeen & Rockfish RR, and was able to run a train into Raeford, which abruptly derailed, of course.  What do you expect?  It was three unruly Laurel Valley hoppers.  ;D  After some tweaking on a couple of Atlas' curved turnouts, though, I've got the layout running reasonably well.  I even tested the layout with some of my longest cars: three Walthers' 10-6 passenger cars.  They ran very reliably, despite the sharp curves and the superelevation.

An overview of the layout:


The small yard in Aberdeen, NC, which holds about 17-20 cars, depending on car length:


Coming into Raeford, NC.  You may be able to spot the superelevation in this shot.  This s-curve actually has superelevation in each direction under this train:


The "cosmetic curve" in Raeford:


Approaching Aberdeen and running past the enginehouse leads:


Here's the Juice Train, detouring on the Seaboard System's S-line (former Seaboard Air Line mainline), as the A&R's #205, the "John Blue," switches in the yard in Aberdeen:


Have a great week,
Dave Foxx

[93cram]

Nice work Dave 
I see what looks like Atlas #5 turnouts.
Have you experimented any issue with these ?

Marc

[davefoxx]

Nice work Dave 
I see what looks like Atlas #5 turnouts.
Have you experimented any issue with these ?

Marc

Hi Marc,

I've actually got curved, #7s, and #5s on the layout.  Now that I know to check the gauge on all locomotives and I replace the freight car wheelsets with Fox Valley wheels, I generally have no problems with #5s, which are great space saving turnouts for building yards, as compared to #7s.  I've heard people complain about #5s, but most of the problem is that these turnouts are built to a tighter tolerance than code 80 turnouts.  Wheelsets that are properly gauged don't cause me any problems on #5s.

Dave

[Bsklarski]

I am liking it Dave, gonna post any pics with the passneger cars on it? Im still trying to see what I can get away with running passenger cars.

Brian

[93cram]

Thx Dave, that's good news, and the FV wheels trick hasn't fell on deaf ears 

[AlkemScaleModels]

Tim is NOT wiring a train layout; he is actually near completion of Canada's first space shuttle...........

Unreal Tim...................

Agreed. That is AWESOME work.

[Zox]

Replacement road trimmed to fit and glued down:



There's still work to be done on the side road (to the left) and the sidewalk/gutter (to the right).

[N_DaveS]

I managed to get a few more feet of mainline down this weekend, as well as more cork for what will be the yard and engine terminal.

Regarding the Atlas #5s, the only problem I have experienced is what appears to be a short between the frog and the section of straight track (not the diverging track) between it and the switch points on a righthand #5. The quick and dirty solution would be to go dead frog, but I know that can cause stalling problems. Any one else experienced this?

[chuck geiger]

Looking great Dave - Now Ed's gonna want track instead of his
Cork Track from Atlas.

[davefoxx]

I am liking it Dave, gonna post any pics with the passneger cars on it? Im still trying to see what I can get away with running passenger cars.

Brian

Brian,

It isn't pretty, because the minimum radius on the layout is approximately 11".  But, the passenger cars run fine, believe it or not.  I'll try to get some pictures when I get the chance to get back over to the house this week.  Like I said, they may look funny, but I occasionally enjoy running a passenger train every now and then.  It's nice to know that they run reliably, even on the s-curves I have.

DFF

[chuck geiger]

Been working my a$$hat off on a new blog. SCALE WEST RAILS.
This has been a ton of fun and my wife informs to wait for Santa
before starting my HCD. Don't know what that means. Enjoy my
blog and let me know what you think?


http://scalewestrails.blogspot.com/

[Philip H]

Grateful for the arrival of my mother in law (who is holding babies and playing with toddlers), I managed to 1) get my workbench cleaned off enough to do some work; and 2) install plug-n-play decoders in the trio of undec units seen here:



All three are Atlas N Scale models.  The SD50 and one of the MP15's are destined for KCS Grey; the other MP15 is headed to become Watco (WAMX) 58, which is one of the two locomotives currently used by th real Baton Rouge Southern.  I photo'ed them in the company of my other two decoder equipped locos (and yes, I own Conrail thanks to Flight 2000).

I'm also seriously considering tearing out the "grassy" section between the refinery and the office - the prototype Exxon North Baton Rouge Polyolefins plant is way more concrete then then that . . .