More Scenery

The scenery I'm working on is from the nod under near Bangor all the way past Katahdin on the upper level.

Still Here

Working on scenery for an upcoming open house for the Apple Valley RR club later this month.

After the cold

I have my cold weather issues finally taken care of. Since some of them were in Orrington I took that down time to make the changes that I have been wanting to do. There is now a cross over to help running around the train. Most trains stopping here will not have to switch on the main.

I made the storage track stub ended and moved some turnouts so you don't have to move boxcars to get to the other end of the plant.

And classy new laser etched control panel. Thanks to Bill Raymond for the help.

Chuck

Cold weather issues



The weekend session in the cold weather proved to be a challenge. The cold weather caused a bit of damage that was not found in time. We were able to work our way through the session, but as an owner a bit stressful.

There were issues in Rigby, Brunswick, Orrington and the helix to Saint Albans. The Brunswick and Rigby issues are fixed. Orringtone issues are cobbled together, but I figured that I already had changes to the track plan in mind, so time to fix it. Parts on order.

The helix will be tougher. It will either have to be removed to be fixed or come up with a new idea. Trying to figure that out now.

Remember……Model Railroading is fun.

Trials and Tribulations

I'm getting laser cut control panels for all of my panels. One of my operators has a laser cutting machine and is willing to do the job. I sent him three files. Two for new panels and 1 as a redo because things have changed. Of course last minute after sending the files I discovered that my CAD drawings for the holes I cut before were wrong. I always cut them the right size but they would be wrong for a laser machine. 

Then I decide to get the one panel for Rigby ready with everything up to the door of the panel. So all day yesterday I made cables and ran wires into the panel itself. It should be ready when I get that panel back.

This morning I turned on the layout and could tell right away there was a problem. Turned everything off and started looking around and to make a long story short my voltage regulator was putting out double voltage and fried one of my I/O boards. This happened once before so I already had a spare voltage regulator. The last time I had two fried boards. For some reason it always gets the closet one two the power supply. Got everything changed out and all is fine again.

Since I was already under the layout I took some time to shorten all of the lengthy wires in Bath and Brunswick North. Bath was completed, but when I got to Brunswick the first Tortoise wire I shorten had a problem. The person that done it originally crossed there of the eight wires. I had to find the right TSM and remove it to straighten them up on the tortoise end. Luckily it was the closest to the aisle.

Needless to say I spent way more time working than I thought I would have liked to.

Yes I sometimes work on the railroad

The yardmasters and dispatcher should be happier now. I connected the yard lead on the north side of Brunswick to the mainline. I also added signals and an extra block. I'm sure I will have to modify another block to get it as correct as I can. It meant re-wiring the yard lead and turntable track to be on the right block. Now there is an extra escape/approach if needed.

This wasn't my first choice of options, but it was the easiest.

Scenery coming for the loop

The loop over Rigby is now covered. It will be either a small town or a farm.

Rigby Work

With some help from Kenny Mann, I got 10 of 11 tortoises installed in Rigby. Most of them has been tested. Some minor adjustments will be needed but I'm close to getting this done.

Upper Fascia complete

About 85' of fascia installed on the upper level. This makes the upper level fascia complete. I also got a lot of plaster down in the single loop above Rigby.

Open House

Ready for an open house tomorrow after the Carolina Mountain Division Meeting.

And then I get back to construction.

New Trains and Changes

1. Passenger and Commuter Service will start.
2. 1st class trains will follow a schedule
3. Train 88 will now deliver the empties to the Dairies.
4. SB, BS trains no longer exist. The local out of Brunswick (BW) will turn at Wiscasset (WB) and go back to Brunswick. Switching should be trailing point only at your discretion.
5. The trains that go to or from St. Albans through Brunswick (AB, BA, AR or RA) will now work Belfast. Southbound will work the team track. Northbound will work Easton Mill. The waybills have been changed so that can work. In Brunswick you will need to block the Belfast cars behind the engine to keep from switching on the helix.
6. Removed references to what track you terminate on except for the SAN trains that go out and come back to the same track.
7. Removed references to any Wood Job train stopping in the yards. If there is ever a misrouted car, we can deal with it separately.
8. Train Schedules have been modified to get all of the new trains in.
9. Hopefully all paperwork has been modified to meet everyone's needs. Train schedules, worksheets, track cards, train instructions.

I guess that is enough for now.

Upcoming Changes

Now the the track is fully installed, I'm making a big push to get the rest of the trains in operation. It has taken a major rewrite of the schedule. 

All locals will now be turns. The AB/BA trains will pick up switching at Belfast. The northbound milk train will start placing the empties at the dairies. Passenger and commuter service will be back in service. 

This schedule should start in July.

Train watching

Ran across the Rocky Mountaineer sitting on the siding outside of Canyonlands NP and Moab around noon.

Bangor is now open for business.

Finally got the Bangor Panel in and wired up. All towns now have local control. Opening Bangor means 4 new industries and 12 more spots. It means that three trains will have more to do and I can start up piggyback service again.

The only places with no local panels are two staging yards.

I did a thing!

I couldn't help myself. I ran across a good price on an engine that matched the paint scheme I fell in love with. I bought it. Really it is too modern for my layout but then again it is my layout. Plus I have a club I can run at.

Acadia now online

The control panel for Acadia has been installed and is working. Time to add rolling stock and change waybills for the new industries.
The wood jobs will have more work. The milk trains will have more stops. Maybe even time to bring out some passenger/commuter service.
Bangor will probably have to wait a bit just due to time before the next session.

Local Control Panel location.

I am debating putting a control panel for an upper level town on the lower level fascia. I did this on the last layout. So, for all of you that were at my last layout, was this a problem that I didn't know about? The issue here is that I can't shrink the panel size and putting it on the upper level could be somewhat in the way.
If you have thoughts on this let me know.

Katahdin is active

Local control was installed. Eight new spots and a reactivating the Wood Job out of St. Albans. All of the Wood Jobs trains will have somewhere else to go other than the paper mill. Waybills will be printed and placed out tomorrow.

Todays issues

The last weekend session had issues with the DCC tripping for a short while and then cleared up and no issues after that. Today's session had one section of track shorting, but not the whole layout. Got it narrowed down to one car with metal trucks that had been running for years with no issues. The trucks have been changed out and hope that those tripping issues are done.
One other issue was that 80% of the phones went out. Don't you just love electronics. Good news here is that we can still go back to radios if necessary. It does make it tough to continue to get the rest of the upper level ready for ops.

Rest of the updates

In all cases the track is in mechanically but not electronically at this time. I also have to make and wire up the local control panels. All of the turnouts are operable at the computer. Then I have to make step stools for short people. Redo and add waybills and rolling stock and then I can add the industries to the operating session.
The only place left is a logging branch off Acadia.