Staging Changes and wiring

I pulled out the benchwork and removed the track for the return loop. I also took out the the turnouts for stacking two trains on a single track. I am left with 12 tracks with a minimum length of 11' 4". Plenty of room for my needs.

I removed four inches from the plywood. This brings the width down from 32" to 28". It will bring the track closer to the edge. I then modified the benchwork to match. I am now wiring the track for the back eight feet so I can slide that piece back in.

The upper level will have the front board of the frame removed to give me 3 1/2" more head room. This will help make the reach easier in case of derailments on the lower level.

I decided to have each track dead in the back foot or so. I will separately power the back of the track off of a switch located near the local control panel. This will make it so the engines can't be power driven into the end board. When I re-stage the trains I can flip on one switch to power up all of the back tracks so i can back the engines out. When restaging is done I can power down the end tracks again. There will also be cameras so the engineers can see what is going on in the hidden space.

Near Disaster Averted

I decided to get a few cars, that I had been collecting, ready for the layout. This would include resistor wheels and weight.

I'm making the empty weight of the cars higher than the NMRA specs if I can. I made a spreadsheet page that would take the scale length and convert it to a NMRA weight needed. I would then put in the actual weight and it would calculate how much over or under I would be. I'm choosing to use the empty weight because I figure someday I would be removing loads between sessions. I am also adding a little weight trailers so it would help weigh the cars a little more.

This is a change from earlier because when I weighed cars before I left them close to the standard, but a little light.

During this process I realized that I forgot to enter a car in my car card program. I wasn't exactly sitting straight in front of the computer and when I went to click on waybills, my hand slipped and I clicked on the next item in the drop down box. At this point I didn't even know what I clicked on, but I tried to re-click what I wanted a crashed the program. I restarted the program and found that my click was on clear all waybill data. With no warning whatsoever the data was gone. Almost 400 cars worth.

I sat in shock for a few seconds and then went to my backups and fortunately there was another copy of the data. I have all the data in my balancing spread sheet so it could be recreated, but that would have taken a very long time.

Back to making Resistor wheels

I'll need more cars, for the new expansion, so I'll need many more resistor wheelsets. I'm making them a slightly different way than the last time.
The last time I used conductive paint which is pretty expensive. I have also noticed that the paint on the wheels might flake off when handles. This time I'm using conductive glue. It seems to go on much easier, but takes a little longer to dry.
I will take one extra step this time and that is putting clear nail polish over the resistor and glue for extra protection.
I check the resistance of the wheel after the glue dries. I use 4.7K resistors and as long as the value is between 4.7K and 10K (the value other people use) I'll call it good. Then I put it on the track and watch the signals change. Then I put on the nail polish and recheck resistance.
When the wheels are installed on a car, I will recheck the car on the layout again before placing it in service.