Working on the Railroad

The first picture is of Jack Brown's Barrels in Orrington. You can also see the Wood Chip track it was lengthened by a car and a half.

This picture shows the proposed arrangement of buildings in Acadia. I have also started the road that will go almost to Bucksport. There is a church and houses that are not shown.  I almost think this scene is way to spread out. We'll see. I have toyed with the idea of a siding going in here, but right now I'll go without.

The next picture shows the opening in the helix about halfway up the helix. I would rather stay away from tunnel portals, but it looks like I'll have to use at least one.

Chuck

Continuing on.....

The latest Op Session is history, so it is time for construction. I have about one week to make as many improvements as I can, before I have to start cleaning up for the next session.
Today I cut out some of the installed Plywood, so that a river can be added alongside the track near Bucksport. Jack Brown Barrels moved from the old Eno Valley Railroad in Pennsylvania to Orrington, Maine. Track has be added and they are now open for business.

I also added some length to the wood chip track at White Mountain Paper (also in Orrington). I can now hold 6 cars. That is half of all that I own at this time. I am eyeing some Portland Terminal Wood Chip Hoppers though.

Software Testing

The first picture is of my current dispacthers screens. Initially I wanted the whole RR to be seen without flipping to different screens.

Over time I was starting to change my tune on that. I wanted a CTC panel machine with virtual switches that could be thrown by touching the screen. What came out of that was the two outside screens (which are staging screens became hidden, but could be called up later as needed. The two inside screens got spread out into the four screens and switches were added. Below is the result

There will still be a lot of testing before it can be implemented, because a lot of the programming changed. With any luck it will be in place for NC Railrun 2012 in October, but I'm not holding my breath. Depends on what is more important Scenery or Dispatch Panels. 

Testing the fabric facia

I thought it was time to start testing out the fabric for the rest of the facia. I hot glued the clothes pins behind the facia so that I could clip on the fabric. This would allow the removal later when working around the area. It looks like I'll need the clothes pins to be closer in the corners, so the fabric will follow the contour better. 

I also finished installing the layout lighting LED's. 

BRWM Happenings

A lot of things have happened since the last post. The card boxes were painted and installed last week. Today I labeled all of the boxes.

I bought clear plastic sign holders for putting town maps into. Most would go up as is, but I had to cut some down to a smaller size. All of those went up without a hitch. I still have to buy a couple more to get them all complete.
During the last session there was a suggestion to change the operation of one of the buttons. I checked it out and agreed so I changed it. While I was at it I decided to connect the two new signals that I installed in Acadia while we were scenicking.
I knew I needed another fast clock, but it wasn't high on my list until  I closed off the dispatcher from the nearest clock and now he couldn't see. I immediatelt ordered the additional clock and now the dispatcher has one up close.

The two new reels of layout LED's have arrived so I expect they'll be installed this week.

I have an idea for a new train to use the seventh track in St. Albans. I though I would have another local out of Searsport that runs to the Paper Mill only. That would require an extra engine in Searsport where there isn't a lot of room. So why not run it out of Staging with a stop in Searsport to pick up paper mill cars and return to staging when complete. This should help keep Searsport yard a little cleaner. 

New card boxes.

The railroad was needing new card boxes to better reflect the way the railroad was being operated. I didn't even have boxes for two of the staging areas. I just installed all new facia. I felt it was time to build new boxes, so I wouldn't put unecessary holes in the facia. I also wanted to reduce the size of the boxes for each pocket, but at the same time I needed to increase to number of pockets at certain places. So today I spent all day making new boxes. Tomorrow I'll spend the day painting the boxes.