Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[peteski]

Mike, we should give you a nickname: the Big Blow!  Just like the UP GTEL turbine.   

[nickelplate759]

That's some heavy metal!

I was once a (halfway decent) French Horn player, and played Sousaphone (poorly) in a college marching band.  Shared an apartment with a fine tuba player in college - we decided to practice the 3rd act Prelude from Lohengrin one morning when we were mad at our neighbor...

Never got to perform Bruckner 8, but I did see and hear and the Chicago Symphony perform it under Solti -  brass heaven!

Oh - and that's some mighty fine modelling (even in progress)!

[C855B]

JFRTM on the GC&W:



Life has been running interference, so not a lot of work on the MRR lately. Tonight was an F'it, however, and I took time out to run a couple of trains, the first being the track cleaner.

The dehumidifier installed last year seriously helped with track cleanliness. There were only a couple of spots that needed attention, even after five weeks of nothin' running.

[Specter3]

I totally understand the life thing. For Summer break I was supposed to get a decent amount of train time. Well shorten break due to Covid-19. Then have the boss kick off the largest home improvement project I have ever done. Turned out great. Took forever. And is still going forward in small stages dealing with the landscaping.

[C855B]

Back in the saddle again. The "life interference" turned into a big thing, spending most of the summer luxuriating at a small resort, just getting away from it all to reset our psyches. Resort season closed last week and it had turned cold anyway, so now we're home and back to our regular routines. Just be forewarned that the resort time was soooooo refreshing and rejuvenating there will be more of the same next year, 'specially that we're having our own private cottage built there.

One minor layout "disaster" during our absence - the Roomba escaped Robyn's studio and went wild in the layout room. It snagged a track wire that hadn't been tacked down, breaking it off the rail connection. No other problems found so far besides knocking down a pile of pink foam scraps kept on-hand for scenery work.

Today's project has been staging and programming new PAR lights:



The original lights were OK-ish, just not bright enough for general lighting. Mentioned nearly five years ago, one other problem was the manufacturer had discontinued the model, so replacements for the two failures (in six years! - not bad!) had proved difficult. I installed six of the new style last year to verify the improvement, and now have enough on hand to make the changeover worth our while. Will need eight more to finish the job, but like the rest of the world they're on backorder. 

[C855B]

Oh... one more thing, and it's sort of big. We are working on drawings to add a residence to the studio/layout building with a nod to ADA features. Next step is to find a local architect to formalize the drawings for permits and construction. It dawned on me this is a little backwards - a lot of guys add on to their house for a layout room, we're adding on to our layout building for a place to live. Added feature is the work already started for an upstairs apartment over the studio, in our case it would be a potential caretaker suite for our dreams of "aging in place". Works for us.

Our current main house is in need of a lot of repair and updates, and given the insanely poor home values here even after repairs, we decided to call the house a loss, work on new construction at the "campus", and just get what we can for the house. This and selling the guest cottage I've been renovating - sale already planned for next spring since the kid has moved on - we should break even. It also vastly simplifies our lives and gives us beaucoup time for her art and my trains, minus the summer outings to the resort cottage.

[MVW]

It dawned on me this is a little backwards - a lot of guys add on to their house for a layout room, we're adding on to our layout building for a place to live.

Nah, I think you got it exactly right. 

Jim

[Specter3]

Mike

That is some really outside of norm thinking that sounds like it will put you both where you really want to be. Hope the red tape is thin and cheap.

[dem34]

Knowing what was used for the lighting, my company just received a demo kit about 2 hours ago for a new line of Lutron Ketra bulbs and controllers. Don't know if they are price competitive to the stage lighting. But throwing out there that it could prove useful in the future for anyone trying to do something similar. Each bulb has individual dimming and a full RGB spectrum that can be tied to a phone app. Means if done for a layout you can have all the layout lighting on a single circuit but say have half the layout be "Night" while the other part is day, or set lights to automatically cycle between the two in sequence from each other.

[C855B]

Thanks, Al.

The "Ketra" line is high-high-end stuff only available through architects - basically a "Homes of the Rich and Famous" sort of thing. I wasn't able to price anything online, but I will hazard an experienced guess that it would be in the tens of K-bucks to reproduce what I've done with "cheap"... well, relatively cheap... stage lighting components and a software-based controller. I say "cheap" because they're not true professional stage fixtures, what I use is marketed to DJs, primarily the guys that prowl bridal trade shows to "stage" "your fabulous wedding reception". The hardware is probably 1/3 the price of real stage lights.

That said, each fixture is separately addressed, and the controller software can do all sorts of cool stuff operating fixtures all at once, in groups or one at a time. Sunset to night to sunrise effects are a piece of cake. I've got another programmed sequence that simulates lightning. It's eerily accurate in its effect, what I need to do is to expand on this idea and create the greenish sky of an approaching tornado to send guest operators diving under the layout. 

The stage lighting control protocol - DMX512 - has been around in useful form since ~1990, so it's a mature standard with lots of support. It's basically a DCC for stage lighting and other theater equipment like fog machines and other effects generators.

The fixtures I'm replacing were nice and had lots of color flexibility but overall they weren't bright enough to run the RR without a little help from the "house" lights. The new ones fix that, and for operating sessions I should be able to spring night ops on the guys at the (surreptitious) touch of a button.

EDIT: I just closed a sweet deal on the 8 lights I needed to complete the conversion. The sales rep was helpful, but probably gritting his teeth that the website "offer" he was committed to was based on pricing from two years ago and is now below cost - way below his current cost. Pays to shop sometimes.

[dem34]

Yeah, its sorta pricey. $100 a bulb at cost. Was just amazed at it, throwing it out there for people that can acquire it. Going to try to weasel a couple from the sales reps for my own uses.

[C855B]

Well that was fun. Gradually getting back in the saddle after a little health mishap - heart attack; mLAD 99% blocked, stent, all good now, lotsa meds. Blockage in the LAD (left anterior descending artery) is "the big one", also known as "the widowmaker" since not getting to it immediately on symptom onset is well, you know. Cardiologist verified no heart muscle damage and post-event EKGs are normal, so bullet was dodged. Anyway...

I am back to working on infrastructure. This week's project has been getting the scissor lift out of mothballs now that all the new stage lights are on-site for installation, including the set that was on back order.



Three out of the four rows are done as of this evening, and I expect to finish the last row tomorrow save for wire conduit work on that set. The new lights are bright, and the design objective was met - the stage lighting alone can now be used for general room illumination. Wasn't easy getting there. There is more lighting work in the offing since I supposedly have strip LED reflectors on their way for UV testing, so the scissor lift will be in the way for a while.

Next on the project list is moving the JMRI DS console to its semi-permanent location. That's probably two days' worth of hacking and patching power supply, booster and LocoNet cabling.

Then I can get back to the layout. I have a new resin for the Photon (strong & flexible) I want to try for the C40-C55 adapter joiners I designed last year that were too brittle. If those work out this time I can get the yards down in Yermo and Kelso, and maybe, just maybe, get serious about scenery on that peninsula.

[Wolf N Works]

Well glad you are on the mend and doing better.

[davefoxx]

Thanks for staying with us, Mike.

DFF

[glakedylan]

thankful you got treatment asap and all is well

sincerely
Gary