Cisco Bridges: a new layout concept

[Scottl]

A short diversion, containers to match some that ride the rails on CN and CP.  These are pretty hard to come by, or impossible. 

[Santa Fe Guy]

Lots of good decaling work there Scott. Its good to have something that is not store bought on the RR.
Rod.

[Donald Jacques]

Hey Scott: 
Nice to see a variety of shipping containers.  They look great.  I saw a lot of the MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Co) containers in the Caribbean a while back.

Back to your consideration re building the CP bridge at Cisco.  I found plans for a Pratt-type truss bridge with 12 panels...very similar to the center span of the CP bridge at Cisco but much lighter-duty.  To accommodate today's rail traffic on the CP one would need to modify the plans beefing them up to approximate the current Cisco bridge.  The drawings are Z-scale but could be up-sized to N-scale and would then be an almost perfect fit.  Check out the 1887 "Big Warrior River Bridge" in the Model Railroader Book "Bridges and Trestles" 1992.  I can email a copy of the plans to you if you don't have access to the MR Book.

Happy bridge building

Don   

[Scottl]

All the parts for my LED strip light system arrived this week, and after some simple tests, I prototyped a suspended lighting fixture.  My challenge is that I can't do a proper valence in this room, so I have to come up with another way of doing it.  My backdrop is already in place and I have no interest in mounting things that might ruin its appearance.  The lumen output of properly powered LEDs is impressive- the 5 m strip yields about 11,000-12,000 lumens, in theory, much more than I can do with a few track lights.

I used lightweight PVC vacuum pipe ripped lengthwise, and then I covered the interior surface with aluminum reflective tape.  The LED strips are self-adhesive and I cut two pieces to length, and then wired them to 16 ga feeder wires.  I used 3/8" copper pipe bent to shape as supports, and mounted them to the light fixture with snug holes and cotter pins.  I fed the wires through the middle copper support and mounted it up to the layout.  The copper is strong enough to hold the fixture up easily.

It worked pretty well, and I can arrange it so it does not block my view of the layout either up close or from a distance.  The light intensity is good, better than before and nicely even.  I'm happy with that aspect.

What I am not happy about is the look:  despite my best efforts the copper pipe is not perfectly bent exactly the same for each support.  Also, when the LEDs are off, they shade the regular room lights and actually make the situation worse, so I have to fire these up to work on the layout.

We'll see how it settles in and how I feel about it before I continue with the other two fixtures.  I have some high power LED COB spot lights coming from Hong Kong and those might make this system obsolete. 

[Scottl]

A quick update.  My uneasiness with this set up left me looking for other solutions.  I had to go to Home Depot for something else and picked up a 19W LED flood light for my room and tried it out.  It has about 2X the lumens of my current lights (11W LED) and it made a huge difference.  I think I will go with these flood lights and dispense with the crazy suspended fixtures.

As always, the KISS principle would have guided my efforts had I not tried to be clever. 

[Mike C]

A quick update.  My uneasiness with this set up left me looking for other solutions.  I had to go to Home Depot for something else and picked up a 19W LED flood light for my room and tried it out.  It has about 2X the lumens of my current lights (11W LED) and it made a huge difference.  I think I will go with these flood lights and dispense with the crazy suspended fixtures.

As always, the KISS principle would have guided my efforts had I not tried to be clever. 

  I just updated my lighting yesterday . I went from using the old style Sears 4' shoplights ( I had 4 of them all together ) to a tracklight system with 9 watt LED floodlights . The layout area only uses 5 lights and I have 3 others over my work area . I really like the LED's, they definitely put out as much light as the old lights. I got the 5000K bulbs  ( the old lights also had Daylight tubes in them ) anything besides daylight bulbs just don't look as good IMO .  Went from using 320 watts of lighting to just 75 watts , that should cut down on the heat in the room !

[Scottl]

Sounds great- the quality of the LED lights is really high.  I like how clean it is compared to fluorescent.

[Scottl]

Running trains!  Working through turnout glitches and getting my locomotives moving smoothly again.  A few of HuskerN's designs help fill the engine house scene in Lytton, BC.



The Kato ES44AC and the FVM ES44DC do not play well together.  The FVM is a jackrabbit, while the Kato is slow but smooth.

[Chris333]

Yikes. I spy a snapped point rail   

[davefoxx]

Yikes. I spy a snapped point rail   

Yeah, how'd that happen?!   

DFF

[Santa Fe Guy]

Yikes that snapped rail looks nasty. Not seen that before.
Rod.

[Chris333]

I've had them sealed in the package like that. And I've had them so bent that soon as I straightened them they snap. They are cast parts.

https://picasaweb.google.com/ErieChris333/Misc#5859118738296674066

[Scottl]

Yeah, don't get me going about Atlas turnouts.  I'd like to dispose of the entire lot and hand lay.  I've been operating it in diverging route only until I can replace the turnout. 

[Scottl]

After a long hiatus where most of my efforts were working on wiring, track tweaking and running trains ( ), I started back on scenery.  I've been making wire armatures for trees all winter and now I am converting them into the finished product.  It involves spray glue and paint, so it is for outdoors.  The first batch of 30 barely made a dent, but I have about 250 more to do.

[C855B]

Stunning.