Portland Staging Coming Along

The back eight feet of Portland has been put together and wired up for awhile now. I'm currently working on the front half where all the switches are. The track is installed and wired up with all the appropriate blocks. I had five tortoises to wire and install. I need eleven total.

I didn't want to tear out too much of the original staging so I bought six new tortoise machines and they came today. They are wired and ready to be installed tomorrow. I figured I would need them eventually, since I'm putting in sidings in two towns that don't currently have any.

I broke out an I/O board and occupancy detectors for hooking everything up to the computer. It looks like I will eventually need to purchase more occupancy detectors..

I modified the JMRI file for the computer to change to staging to stub staging in Portland only. This should make life easier for the dispatcher. It will allow me to add the appropriate tracks later when I get everything hooked up and still run with the current tracks until that time.

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.

Notes on NCE and Decoder Pro

The second session did not go so well, but seemed to get better as I changed out the batteries.

I was told that you didn't have to change out batteries every time you had a session so after a three hour session and a six week layoff we had another session. I was prepared for trouble as I did buy rechargeable batteries and they were charged.

As soon as we started, strange things started happening. Engines wouldn't respond all the time even when plugged in. Engines were pulled off of the layout and I started changing batteries and eventually things started to calm down.

After the session I did some troubleshooting and I couldn't find anything wrong, so from now on the batteries will be charged prior to the session.

I also took the time to hook up NCE to Decoder Pro and update all of the engine files. The strange thing is that I could read all of the decoders but the the NCE ones. Go figure.....

I even took the time to put decoders into a couple of newer engines I recently purchased. I will have to do some speed matching soon.

I think it's time for plan B

I got the frames up and laid the track in place on the lower level. The distance between the top of the lower frame and the bottom of the upper frame is 14 1/2" on the near side and 11" in the back. The last track is 30" from the aisle. The upper level is fairly easy to reach because I can lean over the benchwork. The lower level on the other hand has no way to lean over it and I believe I would knock everything over on the front tracks if I had to reach in.

I will stop work for now while I ponder my options. 

One option would be to turn the bench 45 degrees about half way in. This will give me the ability to get behind to the back tracks if needed. It just puts a curve in all of the tracks.

Another option would be to run a single track on the upper level past the lower staging and then build the upper staging. This would give me the ability to reach the lower level. It would just be a much longer run in an area that would basically be hidden.

Another potential would to trim the side frame from 3 1/2" down to a thinner board or remove it completely to give me more head room.

Looking at the lower level track.

Side view of the to staging areas.

It's a go for new staging

The engineering team says it "should be okay", go for it. So the track team is making preparations for the expansion. The track will be worked from back to front. Track will be worked on the bench and then put in place.

There are twelve tracks for staging. Track 1 & 12 will have the return loop connected about half way up. The back half of these tracks will hold shorter trains and the front half will be clear. Track 2 will have a crossover in it and both passenger trains will be on this track. Each will be a little over 5' long. The rest will be full length of at least 10' in length. This will hold 12 fifty footers and a caboose with two engines.

If by some odd chance the return loop becomes improbable and I go with stub ended tracks, I can increase to 15 staging tracks.

I already used up all of the available used code 100 track that I had for staging, so I started to tear up the last piece of track work from the old layout. Now to start cleaning the pieces to see if there is any usable track.