The Layout Gets a Glowup

 

Since coming off my model railroading hiatus, I've been focusing a lot of attention on fixing things that have fallen into disrepair. Over the years, some of the wiring to the various lights have gotten damaged. On top of that, some of the LEDs that I used because I thought they would last forever failed.

I've spent weeks under the layout reconnected various yanked wires and getting lights working again. That was the easy part.

Next, I set about replacing some of the failed LEDs. Unfortunately for me, the least accessible one on the layout, the reason I used an LED, failed (Center right photo). To fix it, I had to lean over the layout, brace myself on the tracks for support, and drill a new hole. I'm still having nightmares about it!

Next, I decided Warren's Country Store (Top right photo) needed a streetlight. I also figured it was the kind of place where the old timers would gather and shoot the breeze, complain about "kids these days" and reminisce about the good o'le days. So I added a bench and some figures.

All in all, I'm glad to see part of the layout restored to its former glory. Honestly the disrepair and my not having the spoons in my drawer to replace it, was the reason I took a break. But everything's Jake now.

More Structure Lighting

All but one of the town building are illuminated. Dang, these LEDs are night-into-day bright! The gas station roof is glowing despite the black paint. In addition to the building lights, I took a Model Power Y-Shaped street light and bent it to resemble a 1980s-style gas station light.

As for what's going on across the street from the gas station, that's going to be a used car lot. The office is an old Nucomp Miniatures trailer. I'll elaborate on this scene more when it's finished.

Next thing on my list is finishing a partially-completed Model Power house kit. That will do it for the structures on this layout.
 

Wired Up Some Buildings

 You ever have one of those days where it seems like all you do is spin your wheels and get nothing accomplished? Yup, that was me today. I came up to the train room all fired up to get going on the wiring project. Well hit the first roadblock when my drill battery died almost instantly. That delayed my plans.

Unable to drill holes, I took a whack at wiring up the turn table. I had pre-drilled the holes years ago, so routing the wires was no problem. And the turntable didn't work. Stymied, I came back later.

This evening, armed with a fully-charged battery, I drilled holes and snaked the wires through the table top, one of my least favorite tasks. I managed to get everything hooked up to a barrier strip and - nothing. I tired switching the polarity, no change. With nothing else to try I switched the polarity again, and tightened down the screws, this worked. 

One building is sitting on a wooden base so I glued it down. In very fitting end to this day, it warped! So yeah, today was a bit of a battle, but Altoona is one step closer to the finish line.

Lighting and Assorted Miscellania

 

I finished wiring up the lights in the remaining Altoona shop buildings. There were four in total, the coaling tower, sandbox, back shop, and an aircraft warning light in the water tower. Unlike the buildings elsewhere in the layout, which use LEDs, these use old Model Power filament bulbs salvaged from my previous layout. Here's hoping they last, because they'll be damn difficult to replace should they fail.

In other news, a few nights ago I fired up the layout for some much-needed playing of choo choos. When my M1 passed through the Gallitzin Tunnel, every car derailed. As I pushed the train through the tunnel, there was something snagging it. Long story short, the wires running to some building lights ended up hanging down over the tracks. The solution was a few stripes of duct tape. 

Last but not least, I built five more 1940s-era automobiles and scattered them around Johnstown. I'd post a pic, but it's lost somewhere on my phone, which seems to be something of a Bermuda Triangle for photos.

More Streetlights for Johnstown

Now that we're most certainly in the postseason here, I went and knocked a huge item off my to-do list. I installed about 18 street lamps I bought from a Chinese seller last month.

The festivities started with running a new low-voltage circuit to Johnstown. From there, it was drill, thread, glue, and solder until the lights were in. Since the lights aren't ornate, I kept them to the industrial areas. Despite their size, I think they turned out alright.

Fixed the blasted Corssever!

Isn't it funny how minor problems can snowball into catastrophes?  Oh, wait, funny isn't the word I'm looking for. Infuriating is more like it. Case and point, I fired up the layout for some roundy-rounding the other night. ow, when the layout sits idle for a while, things can squirly when it's awakened from its slumber.

So, the first catastrophe, I noticed my T1 wasn't responding to the throttle. So, I placed it on the programming track and readdressed it. Unfortunately I forgot to flip the DPDT switch from the layout to the programming track! I suddenly found myself faced with the task of reprogramming every locomotive on the layout! This took me the better part of an evening.

With the decoder issue licked, I tried running trains. The trains on the inside loop stalling on the Peco double crossovers at the entrance to Johnstown.  After futsing with the point rails (the usual culprit with Peco turnouts) and getting nowhere, I dug out the multimeter.  I found the outside rail was dead as Dillinger. This was baffling since one of the two rail joiners was connected to a feeder wire.

I tried soldering the joint on the end opposite the feeder, something I'm always loath to do on a turnout. That didn't work. I soldered a feeder to said joiner. That didn't work either. So I decided to move the feeder to the turnout itself. So I drilled another hole through the layout, unsoldered the feeder wire and went to feed it through the new hole. It wouldn't go through. That's usually the case, so I grabbed a small dowel and pushed it through and "crack!"

I got out from under the table to see the crossover and part of the inside loop lifted into the air. I just can't seem to catch a break.  Long story short, I got the wire fed and solder, the track repaired and the ballast touched up. Thankfully, after all, that the trains are running fine again.

Done with the Crossing Signal

I know what your thinking, "crossing signals? What crossing signals?I don't see any crossing signals!" Well, you're right. I didn't get anywhere close completing the project, but I am done with it!

These NJ International signals were installed on my previous layout.  I tried putting them in this time last year. But I ran into a problem with the resistors. They simply would not stay sodered to the wires! After some frustration, I threw them in a drawer and forgot about them until today.

I dug the signals out, fired up my soldering iron and managed to get the resistors soldered back on. After a bench test, I set about installing them. Needless to say, on the first attempt at running the wires through the layout, a resistor came off. A bit annoyed, I calmly brought it back to the work bench and soldered it back on. Then I reinforced it with masking tape. It went in fine.

The trouble started when I tried installing signal number two. I tried running the wire and resistor came off. Okay, now I was getting pissed. I pulled the signal out and went under the table to retrieve the wires still stuck in the hole. I grabbed them and yanked. Then I realized I'd yanked the wrong wires. That was it; I blew a 50-amp fuse. I yanked the signal out of the layout, which I had just yanked common wire out of, and threw it across the room. I know, a very childish thing to do.

So yeah, total cluster @#$%.  But the sort of good news is, the common wire appears to be soldered to the signal itself, so it may very well be fixable. Maybe someday I'll be feeling sufficiently masochistic to try again. 

Aircraft Warning Lights for Superior Paper

Two entries in one night after a long dry spell, talk about a 180! Anyway, I'd been kicking the idea of adding aircraft warning lights to Superior Paper for a while. I have a bunch of 3mm flashing red LEDs laying around and used them for the same purpose on other buildings. However, in this case, adding them to the tops of the stacks would have been too obtrusive and also a monumental PITA.

My bright idea was to run fiber optics through the stacks and under the layout, where the blinking LED would be located. I started out with running the fiber optics through the stacks and CA'd them on each end of the stack. Them it was simply a matter of drilling through the table and connecting the fiber to the LED. That was no easy task, but I got at least one stack blinking.

The effect is pretty subtle but I think it works and the fiber is nearly invisible when the room lights are on. Now back to that drainage ditch...

And that's a wrap for this season!

Well folks, after a short but busy construction season, it's that time of the year again. The weather is warming up, yard work is coming into the picture and I'm ready to shift over towards running some trains. It's the same thing every march. But this year is different. Most seasons end with me stuck on some major task that can't be put off any longer and I don;t have the energy left to take them on. This year, I managed to knock out those two last projects.

First and foremost, I plastered up the remaining roads and sidewalks in Johnstown. It took me the better part of two afternoons but I got it done. Once that was done, I went ahead and drilled the holes for the lights.I finished things off by getting all the plaster work painted.

emboldened by my success, I decided to go ahead and get all the lights installed and wired up. I started off with a pair of Busch operating traffic lights. Then I installed some incandescent street lights along the main streets in the Johnstown business district. The buildings are lit with a mish mash of LEDs and incandescent salvaged from my last layout, whatever was on hand.

For the industrial areas, I used LEDs except for Water Street Freight Terminal. I used a pair of Model Power highway lights for Superior Paper and a pair of Goosneck Lamps for the freight station.

Now, I had planned to use a pair of NJ International crossing flashers. I did start the process of stalling them. But wen I tried to untangle the rat's nest left over from the last layout, things got ugly. The resistors on each signal decided to come unsoldered. After a bit of fighting, I gave up and tossed the lights and PC boards into a box for next year, if I'm desperate.

The last thing I did was apply some turf to a few spots and then spent a few hours cleaning track and trouble shooting. The K4 and M1 needed only a few spots cleaned. But on my first attempt at running the centipedes, they went stumbling and stuttering down the track like a misfiring car! The I1 wasn't too happy either and there was a lot of work with the bright boy and alcohol and rag.

So that's it for this season. I'm sure I'll get the itch to tackle the odd project or two here and there, but the heavy lifting is done for a while. Before we know it, it'll be fall and I'll have the itch again. Until then, have a nice summer everybody!

The Johnstown Industrial Track is Operational

Another productive afternoon on the railroad. I guess the title kid of sums up what I did. I had to wire up a feeder to get the out main operational again. So I figured since I was already in wiring mode, I might as well put on my big boy pants and get it all done. Long-time readers of this blog already know how I feel about wiring so, 'nuff said.

NW2 Number 5519 had the honors of being the first locomotive to move under her own power on the line. There were a few hiccups, but I was able to run the length of the track and pickup and spot cars on the sidings. So yay, nice to have that millstone from around my neck

While I was at it, I also laid the track for the Pittsburgh Staging lead and installed the foam mountain in the corner of the layout. Now all that remains to be done is finish plastering the road, plaster the remaining mountains, paint the ground and roads and apply the turf. All? That's a lot actually. Oh and I forgot building and street lights and ballasting track. I better get busy!

Illumination!

I took on yet another project I've been dreading, lighting the buildings in the along the wall section from Cassandra to Johnstown. Longtime readers of this blog know of my distaste for wiring, so you'll understand the foot dragging.

In terms of procedure, there's nothing special to report here, just drill the hole, feed the wires and hook them up. All the lighting is LED.

In other news, I've ordered a bunch of flex track and turnouts for Johnstown, so I'll hopefully get going on that by the end of the week. I realized I had room for one more big industry, so I decided to include a kit I'e always wanted but never had room for, Cornerstone's "Superior Paper."

Finished wiring the industrial sidings

The first locomotive to enter the feed mill siding under its own power.

And spotting a car on the Vulcan spur.

Headed back to the main line.

Yesterday I tackled another project I've been dragging my feet on, wiring up the sidings for Vulcan Manufacturing and the feed mill in Gallitzin.  Long-time readers of this blog know how much I love wiring, but withmy goal of hosting an honest to gosh operating session soon, I had to get it done. Anyway, on to the blow by blow.

The first thing I tackeled was soldering a feeder wire to the inner rail of the feed mill siding, which for some reason, I'd neglected to do earlier. This turned out to be rather painless and encouraged by my early success, I went ahead and connected all the feeders to the bus wires.

And here's where things started getting squirrely. I grabbed my Bachman RS3, which normally paired with an Atlas Geep, provides motive power for the local trains. I slowly backed the Alco off the main line onto the siding. As soon as we hit the first turnout, we stopped dead. "Okay, maybe to rails are dirty," I thought and gave the engine nudge. The engine started moving once more until it encountered the second turnout and ground to a halt once more. Still convinced the problem was dirty track, I gave the loco another nudge and she ran in a rather herky-jerky fashion down the feed mill siding.

I followed my gut, grabbed my bright boy and gave the siding and both turnouts a good cleaning. On the siding, the loco ran nice an smoothly, but instantly came to a stop on the turnout again. Long story short, after spending several hours farting around with cleaning the turnouts and even adding another feeder between them, the locomotive simply would not run through them.

Now the turnouts in question are Peco electrofrogs. Unlike the old Atlas Code 80 switched, which used a plastic frog, the switches have powered frogs and the polarity changes based on which way the turnout is thrown. To accomplish this, the movable point rails conducted power from the tow outside rails. This is dependant on them making good contact and in fact neither of these turnouts were. At any rate, the lightbulb finally went on and what I ended up doing was slightly bending the end of the point rails outward ever so slightly. This forced them into contact with the outer rails and solved the problem.

With this project out of the way, I've conquered one major barrier to operating. Now it's time to seriously think about the operating scheme.

Lighting up Gallitzin

 

Last night I sucked it up and wired up the remaining building lights in Gallitzin. All told, it wasn't that bad. I must say the results are quite impressive. Now, one problem I consistently find myself running into with these LEDs is they are so bright, the make the  buildings glow. The only real solution is to paint the inside black. 

Anyway, with that out of the way, Gallitzin is one major step closer to being done.

As you can see, I've gotten some more lights installed and wired up. Now one problem I've noticed with these LEDs is they are turn-night-into-day bright. As such even these houses painted dark colors tend to glow. Normally, the solution to this problem is painting the insides of the walls black. This worked on three out of four houses. However, my Model Power farm house is glued to a plastic with only a mall hole to allow a lightbulb. As such paining the inside is next to impossible. A solution has yet to present itself.

And hows about the streetlights? Aren't they, um, great? I ordered them from China via eBay and they looked good in the pic. Unfortunately, these things are freaking huge! Like HO scale huge. Well, since I don't have time to track down a replacement they'll have to do. It kind of take me back to my O-Gauge Hi Rail days.

Let There Be Light!

 As you can probably tell by the title of this post and the above photos, I've been installing lighting on the layout. On my last layout, I waited a bit to do this step, but since I made parts of this layout really difficult, if not impossible to access once the scenery is completed, it was now or never. The lack of access also mandated the use of LEDs for lighting. Unlike incandescent bulbs, LEDs last a long time, probably the life the layout. As an added bonus, they use a fraction of the power.

With that in mind I added some LEDs to the industrial structures in Gallitzin. Then I ordered some industrial-looking street lights from China. I must say with the room lights turned down, they look awesome. If that weren't enough, I took some blinking red LEDs and added them to the roof of the cement plant to simulate aircraft warning lights.

Now the thing about LEDs is their low power consumption does complicate wiring a bit. The plain LEDs came with preinstalled resistors and I could hook them directly to a 12-volt power supply. The street lights on the other hand did not, thus they required their own dedicated 3 volt circuit.

DC-DC Buck Converter steps the voltage from the power suppl down to the right level

Powering all these lights is an Astron HAM radio power supply. As supplied, it puts out 13 volts. This required a device called a DC-DC Buck Converter to step down the voltage. I purchased three off eBay (seller "tomtop_shop). I then took the main feed from the power supply and ran in to an Atlas Connector box, this not only split the feed into three but also gave me a master shutoff for each. I set one converter for 12 volts, the other for 3. I then ran those feed to another set of connector boxes on the control panel, giving me several circuits for each voltage.

I've also been working on the residential part of Gallitzin, which is set into a hillside. My original plan was to make steps of of styrofoam, but thy ended up being too steep. After some head scratching I decided to use some cardboard sheets to create more gradual steps down. Once the lighting for the houses and street lights is done, I should be able to tie this area up rather quickly.

A Project So Nice I Did It Twice

Yet another project I had been dragging my feet on was installing power indicator lights for all of the blocks on my control panel. A few days ago, I finally sucked it up and got it done. When I saw the results, I was quite proud of myself.

 

But then I got a look at the ammeter on my power supply and it was nearly maxed out.

 

I quickly realized my incandescent indicator lights weren't going to fly.  I still had indicator lamps for the inside loop to wire up and that alone would have overloaded the power supply. I new I would have to replace the lamps with LEDs. But the thought of adding resistors and all that soldering sent chills up my spine. Never the less, I ventured to Radio Shack to see what they had. I got very lucky and the had similar LED lamps with their resistors preinstalled. Needless to say I snapped up enough for the outer loop and spent this evening installing them.

 

While certainly not as bright, the LEDs serve their purpose. I plan on buying similar red LEDs for the inside loop at some point. 

 

And, as you can see, the load on the power supply has been drastically reduced.

Now on the subject of wiring and projects I've been dragging my feet on (two things that seem to go hand in hand around here), I've been slowly but surely getting all the remaining sidings and yard tracks wired up and operational. All four tracks in Johnstown yard have been wired up, as have all sidings on the Southfork branch. With that done, I've moved to the Altoona shop complex and gotten several of those tracks wired up too. Hopefully I can get all the wiring knocked out before school starts again.

 

Added a Programming Track

 

A separate programming track has been a long-overdue project since switching to DCC.  Before, every time I wanted to do something as simple as address a new decoder, I had to remove every other locomotive from the layout. Needless to say, that's kind of a pain.

This was a very simple project. I took the wires leading from my DCC system to the layout and routed them to a DPDT switch. I then ran one set of wire back to the layout and the other to the programming track. Not only can I switch between the two easily, but I can kill the power to the layout quickly if I have to. 

The track itself is nothing more than two pieces of Kato Unitrack that came with my Broadway Limited set.

About time I posted on here

Wow, over a month since I last posted any progress on the layout. Well, I certainly have a ton of reasons for my recent layout building inactivity. First and foremost, my wife and I hosted Thanksgiving so not only was I busy with getting the house ready, but I also wanted to keep the layout and train room neat and clean for visitors. After that, it was finals. In other words, layout was on the back burner.

Now that the semester is over, I've manged to take on a few long-overdue projects. First among them was moving the track lights around to better illuminate parts of Horseshoe Curve and Altoona.

 

I'm still fine-tuning things but the new setup seems more effective. Ultimately, I'd like to replace the CFL bulbs with LEDs, since the latter are dim-able and put the track lights on their own circuit. 

Another item I crossed off my to do list was installation of more Digitrax UP5 panels. I added an additional panel near the entrance to Johnstown yard and the other near the Gallitzin industries.

 

While I was at it, I also added a cup holder near Gallitzin too. After all, a stable place to set one's beer is always a must. Now, I am ultimately planning  to buy a UR90 panel, which will let me go wireless. So why the UP5s? Well, they are there as a backup. If for whatever reason, the wireless isn't working, I still have the panels at all the main switching areas and the layout can still be operated.

And speaking of DCC and operations, I decided it was time to acquire a few more throttles. I opted for the Digitrax UT4. Unlike the "Super Throttle" that came with my system. These feature only basic functions and can't program decoders.  But that's really all you need for operators anyhow. 

 

The last project I tackeled was getting one of the Gallitzin switching areas, glued down, wired up and operational.

 

This project required an handful kludges to get done. Foremost among them was covering up the short section of incline that brings the siding down from the main line. Normally, one would use plaster cloth for this task.However, I hadn't any on hand and didn't want to go out. For mountains, I usueally use paper towels dipped in plaster of Paris, but I was out of plaster mix too. Undaunted, I remembered something from elementary school art class and diluted some Elmer's glue. I dipped the paper towels in this mixture and let it dry over night. That was the ticket, the flex gaps in the riser were covered and I had a firm place to lay my track.

The next problem I ran into was I was out of cork roadbed. Since the one hobby shop in my area is never open when I'm off from work and I didn't ant to buy a whole case for a handful of sidings, I took a throwback to my early N Scale days. On my first two N Scale Layouts, the Table Rock diorama and the PR&Y, I fashioned my own roadbed from foam sheets sold at my local Michael's. I decided to do the same thing here. All told, it's the same amount of work as the cork stuff, and for a siding, it's more than adequate. 

It also turns out, I was out of Peco insulated rail joiners. However, I had a pack of Atlas Code 80 joiners. Good idea in theory, but in practice, not s much. Turns out the Atlas joiners are a tad too narrow for the Peco rail. So I had to spend a good bit of time gashing the joiners wider with an Exacto knife until they fit. 

So despite all the kludge jobs, I was able to reliably back my L1 down each siding without the slightest hiccup. With that result, I'm calling this project as success. I'm kind of excited to have more operating opportunities.