8 months since my last update… sheesh. Last April our local ops group CIRROPS along with the Central Indiana Division of the Midwest Region, NMRA, hosted an “op til you drop” weekend here in Central Indiana. We had layouts in Indy, Lafayette, Bloomington, Anderson and Muncie participate. It was a very successful weekend with almost 60 attendees from as far away as California. My layout was no where near ready for ops, but I did serve as the registrar and webmaster for the event, and I was open for an open house on Saturday night.

In getting my layout ready for CIRROPS and all of the other activty that it took, I did get a bit burned out. The result was that for several months after April I didn’t really do anything on the layout. When I finally did get back down there it was already Fall. One thing I decided at the time of CIRROPS was that for my layout to be enjoyable to operate, I really needed to get my “North” staging yard complete. North staging will be the origin and destination for many trains, including interchange with GTW and IHB. After doing some thinking and bouncing some ideas off of some friends, I decided to deviate from my original plan to put the North staging under Markham yard and to put it under the peninsula. The advanatage of doing this is that it prevented a long winding run on both sides of the peninsula to get enough drop in elevation to the yard and it also left the entire area under Markham open for storage.

The right side of this pic is under Markham yard; on the left side of this pic is the new home of the North staging yard.

In order to get the drop in elevation to have the yard in its new location, that meant building a helix. Yuck… I was probably going to have to build one anyway, or at least 1 turn to get it down under Markham, so no big deal, right? Well, trying to retrofit a helix, building down, offers all sorts of complications. Needless to say I had to do some benchwork surgery, measure everything twice, mess things up, measure again, then I had my helix. I used a sandwhich of 2 layers of 5/8″ luan overlapped to build the subroadbed. Once I got the base built and the first level set, the rest wasn’t too bad. Getting to that point took me quite a bit of time though.

Here’s the helix building in progress.

Another view.

A side view.

Once I got the helix basically complete and tested, I started building the benchwork that would hold up North staging. I got to the point where I was ready to start tacking down the plywood and realized that my plan called for a handful of turnouts right over the yard. This isn’t a problem, except installing tortoises is challenging enough without trying to do it with 10″ of clearance. I stopped work on the yard and began to lay track and turnouts from Markham Yard going north to what I call Riverdale so I could get all of the turnouts in that will be powered(well, all but one). I also ran the tortoise power wires and the track power leads although I didn’t yet have the electronics on hand that would power them (in this case a Digitrax SE8C).

Here’s a view of the track work at Riverdale. On the left is the Acme rolling mill.

Tortoises installed and leads pulled.

This is where the bridge over the Little Calumet River will be. I struggled with whether to model the multiple truss bridges at Riverdale or the trestle at Harvey. I decided on the truss bridges as they will be a bit more dramatic and there are commercial products that match the prototype very closely. Underneath you can see the track leads hanging down waiting for the SE8C.

Once the trackwork and turnouts were in, I turned my attention back to the yard. The yard will have six tracks and I plan on having it double ended to faciliate the run around of engines.

Here’s the track from the helix leading into the yard ladder. I am using Atlas turnouts here as there seems to be a shortage of Walthers turnouts and I’m not so worried about looks in this area. I plan on mounting the tortoises on the top of the table here, not underneath.

Here’s a view down the incomplete yard as it stands today. I ran some C9 christmas tree lights here to help light the yard. Not ideal, but acceptable for staging. I can always go back and replace with higher wattage bulbs if I want.

The yard will be detected. Turnout control and detection will be handled by Digitrax BD4 / DS64 combinations. I am thinking about not having the far end ladder or stub track detected as it would require another DS64 and BD4 to detect two blocks and run two tortoises- I don’t think it is worth the added expense, so I am going to use a DS44 to run the remaining tortoises not covered by the other boards. Here’s the beginnings of the board that will control the yard.

Up next is the wiring of the SE8C and the DS64 boards; powering the track; and finishing some of the benchwork. Things are going slowly, but I’m getting closer to operating.

Upper Facia

This past Saturday Baron helped me get the upper level facia installed. It is 1/8″ masonite. This was a somewhat tedious task of ripping the masonite (in the garage- oh yeah, it was about 15 degrees out!); take the pieces downstairs; clamp them up; trace out the areas that have variation in them to match the terrain; take it back up to the garage and use the jig saw to cut out the profile; take it back down and put it up. I couldn’t haved done it without his help!

On Monday night I had some of the USRA work crew over to finish the job. When we originally put up the facia on Saturday we just tacked it up with enough screws with finish washers to hold it up. All I had was 1 1/4″ screws and those left some “meat hooks” poking through the back of the facia that I deemed too dangerous. So Monday night Jay replaced all the screws with 1″ screws and finished tacking it up while Ron gave it a coat of semi gloss black paint. Here are some shots of where things stand right now:

Looking towards Champaign:

Looking towards Paxton:

Looking at Paxton:

Looking at Decatur:

Track Painting

Another accomplishment is that the track on the upper level has been painted. I used Polly Scale Railroad Tie Brown with my airbrush. This was my first attempt at airbrushing and I figured I couldn’t mess up track too much. I’d still like to go back and do some detailing of the ties and tie plates using the Floquil paint pens. I have done some experimenting and so far it looks pretty good. No pics available yet.

Display Case

Another project I got done over the holiday was making a display case to show off the engines that don’t have decoders in them yet!

Unproductive?

Well I can’t believe it is almost Christmas. It seems that each time I go to update this journal, I am struck by how little I have gotten done. It is a recurring theme. But then I consider the other things I have done since the last update in May. I have been to Thailand 4 times and Australia once for work. Michelle and I took our annual family vacation to Wisconsin and also spent a long weekend in Western Pennsylvania for our anniversary visiting Fallingwater. I’ve also had probably 8 or so shows with my band and had around 25 rehearsals. I’ve also probably played almost 40 hockey games in that time period. I guess the fact that I’ve gotten anything done on the layout is a miracle.

Getting Operational

My current goal is to get the layout operational from the South Staging through to Markham Yard. When I say “operational”, I don’t mean that I’ll necessarily have the operating scheme figured out and all signaling, etc. installed, but I do want to have the track running smoothly and all switch machines installed. A major hurdle I had to meeting this goal was some issues I was having with the helix. The helix was one of the first things I built since access to it is limited as it is under the stairs and behind the layout. (Note- I would never do this again unless presented with no other options.) After sitting for over a year, the helix developed many kinks where the sections of flex track join. I used Atlas code 83 track and “glued” most of the track down with caulk based on recommendations and feedback from many people. Well I must have used the wrong caulk as it was nearly impossible to get the track up without tearing up the cork. This along with the difficult access to the helix made retrofitting repairs very difficult and time consuming. Thankfully my friend Bob Lehnen was up to the challenge and fixed the majority of the kinked connections. Thanks Bob!

Pre-bending Atlas Flex Track

One little trick I learned after building the helix that I wished I would have known beforehand is a way to get the Atlas track to take on more of a pre-curved shape which would help alleviate or minimize issues of track joints in the middle of a curve wanting to kink or straighten out.

Step 1: Start with piece of Flextrack

Step 2: Remove the free moving piece of track from the section of flex-track by sliding it through the ties.

Step 3: Take that single piece of track and pre bend it which will give it the pre-curved shape you are looking for. (Be careful not to bend it too much and put a permanent bend or kink in it.)

Step 4: Do the same thing with the piece of track that is left attached to the ties.

Step 5: Put the loose piece of track back on the ties by sliding it back through the tie plates. It is a tricky process- take your time.

Step 6: You end up with a piece of flex track that takes on a radius of around 40”. You can still obviously bend it to a tighter radius when you put it down, but it won’t fight to straighten out so much. (This example was not really bent enough, but you get the idea.)

Switch Installation

A key item to get done was to get all of the mainline switches installed with tortoises. This meant I had to finish up the wiring of the SE8c, and install about 8 tortoises. I had a challenge in that I have a double cross over where I wanted all four points to move via one output from the SE8c.

Each output is meant to be able to power two switch machines. So I needed to figure out how to drive four points with two switch machines. I have seen and read many different ways to move points remotely from a tortoise, and have implemented a couple of these ideas elsewhere on the layout where I couldn’t get the tortoise directly under the points of the switch. I had seen the Circuitron remote linkage assembly installed on another layout and thought I’d give it a try. This item is meant to allow you to throw points remotely by using a aircraft cable type attachment. You can also get an add on linkage that then allows one machine to throw two turnouts. (Note that by the time you buy the remote actuator and an extra linkage you can easily buy another Tortoise for the same price.) The idea behind this item again is so that you can through a switch where mounting a Tortoise underneath is not practical. What they fail to tell you is that you still need plenty of access to be able to install these remote linkages with any amount of ease. Where I was installing them I did not have great access to the spot underneath the points, so it proved to be just short of a nightmare. I did get it installed and working after a couple hours of cursing and frustration. Did I mention that there are 40+ steps in the instruction manual? I don’t recommend it unless you have no other options.

For the points on the other end of the double cross over, I decided to try a homemade approach based on an idea I got online somewhere. That turned out to be a nightmare as well and I couldn’t get it to work consistently. So, I decided to install two tortoises on that end running off of one switch address So now I’ll need to program a route for this double cross over. That is not really that big of a deal, I just ended up using an extra output on the SE8c board that I had other plans for. I’m just happy for that to be done…

I also got the Tortoises installed on the other mainline switches at the South end of Markham yard, so the switches are ready to do. That is, except for the ones that will have local control. I still need to install those buttons, but that will be a simple exercise. I’m also now considering putting fascia lights for all mainline turnouts to indicate direction. Well, that can always be retrofitted in….

Lastly I got the Tortoise/Hare combination working properly at the runaround switch for the Decatur blob. This will allow for continuous running. After spending a lot of time on it, having others over to review what I did, and ultimately exchanging my unit for another one, it came down to the fact that I did not have the dip switches on the Hare set. The instructions are a little bit vague in this area in my opinion. It sill is not 100% clear tome why it has the dip switches and the OpSw settings for things like default switch direction. So if you decide to install a Hare, don’t forget to set the dip switches. (I’ll never get that time back!)

Scenery Rough In

The other thing I want to get done is to get the scenery base roughed in through this area. In some spots I still have open bench work next to the spline roadbed. I originally planned on using foam to fill those areas in, but have had a change of plan. For the subtly rolling plains of central Illinois, I find it very difficult to get that type of feel with foam. Trying to cut / shape out meandering prairie is really a pain to me. For areas that have more drastic elevation changes, I think foam works great. That is why I am using it in Paxton. Here the IC runs below grade with the town above. It almost give it a tunnel feel.

Here’s a real picture of Paxton so you cand kind of get a feel for what it looks like.

What I decided to do instead is basically take heavy duty rosin paper (paper bags would probably work too) and use them to fill in the space, then cover that paper with plaster gauze or plaster impregnated paper towels. Here you can see an area where Illinois 45 will run near the mainline.

I think that this method will give me more of the results I am looking for. Now if I can just figure out a way to model large cornfields that won’t cost a fortune…

Other Stuff

I have a bunch of loco’s that I have accumulated over the years that need decoders in them. I have been installing decoders as time allows so now I have a handful that I can actually use. I want to do a few more sound locos. For me, having a few on the layout is enough to get the sensation. Having every loco with sound or every consist to me gets to be a bit overwhelming, especially if the volume is not turned down. Some people like it- more power to them. Here’s a recent acquisition- a Belt Railway of Chicago Bicentennial MP15. I will use BRC equipment on the Calumet area of the layout.

I also picked up a nice ICG transfer caboose earlier in the year. These were former GM&O prototypes.

This winter / spring was not as productive as I had hoped for the layout. Model railroading gets pushed to the bottom of the priority list quite often. Here’s what’s been going on.

Three Rivers OpSig

A few weekends ago I attended the second bi-annual Three Rivers Opsig event in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. This was another great Op til U Drop type weekend. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures this time. I also missed the Friday night session as my band had a show that night. On Saturday I operated on Drake Omstead’s N&OW. I have been at Drake’s a couple times before and it is a fun layout to operate. If you read the Dispatcher’s Office you probably recognize Drake’s name as he has published several articles. Sat afternoon we went to Joe Berger’s NP layout. While only one deck of a multi-deck layout is complete, there was still plenty of activity to keep about 10 operators busy for more than a few hours. This layout is already a great piece of work, and it will just keep getting better. Sunday we went to Gary Evan’s NoWhere Line. This is a small bedroom size layout, but that did not limit the operating fun. Gary has really squeezed a lot of action into a small place, and kept about 5 of us going for the morning.

DS64 Installation

This is just an updated picture of the DS64 installation in the previous posting. This is all wired in now driving 3 tortoises (soon to be 4) with 8 blocks of detection running through it from 2 BD4’s.

This is one of three DS64’s I have installed and running so far.

Track Down to Markham Yard

Picking up where the last post left off, I now have the mainline track laid from the entrance to the helix on the lower level to the North end of Markham Yard. I am stopped on track work until I get 2 #8 double slips in for the North end of the yard. This first pic shows the main line coming out of the helix. What looks like two tracks going into the helix is really one. Here the main line goes from two tracks to one, while the second track (closest to the back drop) goes to the EJ&E staging. Here the main line is elevated with the small yard which will feed the coke oven and blast furnace below in front.

Below is the lower level main going around the corner and you can start to see the beginnings of the yard trackage. The third track closest to the aisle is actually the drill track on the south end of the yard.

Here is the track looking North with the main in the back and the yard in front.

Here’s a close up of the track work at the South end of the yard. Crossovers on the main allow trains from the South to get to the A/D yard, as well as Southbound trains out of the yard to access the mains directly. This configuration allows for yard switchers to pull full cuts from the A/D tracks and then drill them into the classification yard. (For the IC purists out there, this has no resemblence to the real Markham yard. I didn’t have 500+ feet to build duelling north and south humps with their own separate arrival and depature yards. Some day….)

Other Projects - Hare - SwitchIt - SE8C

I have completed a couple other random projects.

I have been using the capbilities of the DS64’s to drive my tortoises, and will use the outputs on the SE8C’s I plan to install as well. I still have a couple instances where I need some random stationary decoders. I was going to use a Digitrax DS52 for these situations, but I needed one and my LHS didn’t have any in stock. A friend is using NCE’s SwithIt’s successfully, so I decided to give one a try.

The lower level main line track will be detected. It is also my intention to implement CTC signalling as well. In order to start the infrastructure for this, I am installing my first SE8C board. If you are on the Digitrax Yahoo group, you may have seen my request for help soldering to this stupid edge connector. Here’s my advise: use flux! Here’s the board all mounted and wired ready for installation.

Lastly is my first Hare installation on one of my two planned runarounds. I still don’t have this thing running correctly yet, so stay tuned. I am off to read the manual once again…

I’m getting closer and closer to my first major milestone which is to be able to run from South staging to Markham yard with all things running properly in between. The exception is signals which will be implemented over time.

I have been able to get a few things accomplished over the past couple months or so. It doesn’t look like much, but I have hit a few significant milestones.

DS64 Installations

I have been playing around with my DS64 installations since the early summer. As of now, I have three installed on the upper level driving 12 tortoises (some with local pushbutton control), and there are 16 detection blocks running through them via BD4’s for occupancy tied into the computer dispatch system. I had one DS64 that would not allow me to program the board ID, so it had to go back to Digitrax for replacement. Other than that one glitch, they have worked as advertised for me (so far).

Here is one of the installed DS64’s. I have them on hinged boards that fold up under the upper deck for easy access and maintenance. This particular board is configured to use all 8 inputs for detection blocks. None on the tortoises controlled by this board will have facia / pushbutton control. They will be controlled either by the dipatcher panel or via a throttle only. These boards are currenlty powered by “wall warts”, but I now have a power supply thanks to Mike Morey that will provide a separate power bus for the DS64’s.

Some of the switches will have local control via pushbuttons on the facia. Since I have not installed the facia yet and have not settled on how or if the track will be represented on a panel, the pushbuttons are hanging below the benchwork for the time being.

Decatur Track

The industrial switching track in Decatur is now in. This will be a heavy switching area with industries represnting ADM, Caterpillar, Sol Tick scrap metal, Mueller Valves, Staley, and an N&W interchange. All of the hand throws are in and I am in the procees of adding additional power feeders to this area.

Loda Grain Track

I have also put in the track for the Loda Grain facility on the North end of Paxton. I am going to kitbash / scratchbuild a representation of this huge facility.

Benchwork

The benchwork, specifically the subroadbed, at the South end of Markham yard is now in. This was pretty challenging and time consuming to do because of the lead track that goes to the Acme Steel facility. This track drops at a pretty steep grade and goes under the main to come out on the aisle side in a small yard that will servcie the blast furnace and coke oven. In this picture you can see the printed out track plan from the 3rdPlanIt software used as a guide.

Lash-up’s Ready to Roll!

Here we see some lash-up’s ready to get rolling and moving some merchandise! These are two SD40’s with a U33C along side.

South Staging

South staging is now in and powered. South staging is meant to represent off-layout destination points south of Champaign, primarily Memphis and New Orleans. The three switches in south staging also have their tortoises installed. The order in which I installed things caused me a little bit of grief with the tortoise installations. I put the switches in, and I even planned ahead and drilled out holes for the tortoise wire under the points before I fixed them in place. I then ran wires to power the south staging tracks. Since this area is detected, each track has its own power supply bus. When I ran the wires, I wasn’t thinking and they went right under the switches thus making it difficult or impossible to install the tortoises right under the points. Moving the wires was out of the question as they were run through holes drilled in the benchwork and they were already tied into feeders into the track- that would have been a mess. So I did a little research on remote tortoise installs, and tried a couple different methods.

Tortoise Installs

There are some commercially available products that allow for remote tortoise instllation, but they are pricey and I wanted to try out a home grown method. The two ideas that I came across which I liked are documented on line. The first is by Wolfgang Dudler, and the other is by Rick Strebendt. I first tried Wolfgang’s idea, and quickly realized that in order to implement this method effectively, you really need some specific tools and abilities. I used 1/8″ brass tube as shown on his site and in my pictures below. Drilling a hole in a tube like this when you don’t have a drill press or any specialized tools is a challenge. I got it done, but it was ugly. The next challenge to this method is the installation itself. Lining up the motor, wire, tube, and eye bolts for the tube to sit in was very frustrating. If you are working on a moveable module that you can put upside down on your workbench like it appears Wolfgang did, it might not be so bad. Doing this under benchwork, even where I did it and have easy access, is still difficult.

Next I tried Rick’s implementation which was much simpler. I won’t go into a lot of detail as to how this works, as he has done a great job of documenting it on his site. Here is my version of this install:

So far both of these installations are working fine. We shall see how they hold up over time.

It has been a while since I have updated the construction journal on actual progress on the layout (since May). Despite being quite busy over the summer and now into the fall, there have been a few things that have gotten done. The Spring ‘07 Midwest Regional convention is going to be held in Muncie this April. My goal is to have the layout running from south staging to Markham Yard by that time. That will allow for some initial operations to begin. So here’s what’s new…

Decatur Track

Track is now in and running on the Decatur branch. At least the branchline itself is in; I am still toying with how to lay out the industries. From an operations perspective, Decatur is a dead end on the layout. In reality it is a big reverse loop allowing me to let trains run the full length of the layout for open houses and such. The PSRev reverser/circuit breaker from Tony’s has worked like a charm. Here are some shots of the track on the Decatur branch.

South Staging

To get from Champaign to South Staging (representing Memphis and points south), the track goes through the drum closet, over the door, up and out of the layout room near the helix and into the back storage / mechanical room. I thought of several ways of bridging the doorway; swing, hinge, lift out… After some experimentation, I decided to go with the lift out concept. Each side of the lift out has four adjustment points using wing nuts to allow for contraction and expansion but hopefully keep the track aligned. There is still some tweaking I need to do, but it looks like it is going to work out well. I may put up some additional details on how I did this on the construction methods page of the main site. Here is a shot of the track coming through the drum closet, then over the door, then back to staging. There is approximately a 1.8% grade through this area.

Here is a shot of South Staging going in. The paint cans you see are holding down the cork while the glue dries. There will be four tracks of staging here.

Lighting

In some of the pictures you can see that I have started on the layout lighting. I am using christmas tree strands with 25 watt candelabra Reveal bulbs. There are two 20 amp circuits feeding through rotary dimmers powering the layout lighting. Here again I am still fiddling with the final installation, but it is coming along. Here is a shot at Paxton where you can see the lighting along with a good shot of the painted valence and backdrop.

Lower Level Sub-roadbed

Some of the lower level subroadbed has been started. It is in from where the helix comes out (although not tied into the helix yet) to the south end of Markham yard. In this area the roadbed will be elevated just like the mainline on the Chicago division of the ICG. In this pic, the area behind the roadbed will have low relief buildings depicting typical suburban scenes. In front of the roadbed will be storage tracks for the Acme Steel coke oven and blast furnace. (If you know the geography of these locations, then you know I am taking some license here.)

Ebow

Here’s Ebow checking things out.

This past weekend I attended the bi-annual AmRail operations weekend in the Chicago area. This is a three day, four operating session event. I think there were approximately 35 attendees and something like 7 layouts participating. Here is my review…

Friday night - Jim Carney’s JRC

After leaving work around lunch time on Friday I rode with Bob up to the hotel base in Arlington Heights. Before our first op session Friday night, we enjoyed some fine Chicago pizza at Lou Malnetti’s. I highly recommend it. We made our way over to Jim Carney’s HO scale Jamestown and Rock City. This is a large mostly double decked layout designed for operations. (I forgot to bring my camera in to this one, sorry.) The JRC is a freelanced railroad that models from Peoria, Il to Danville, Il with lots of opportunities for switching in between. There is staging at either end along with large classification yards. Jim uses the RailOp software program to generate switch lists and manifests, and I really like this sytem. I think it is easier for unfamiliar operators to pick this up than car-cards, especially since everyone seems to have their own nuances on their cards… There were plenty of trains run with few issues. Everyone seemed to have a good time.

Saturday morning - Greg Bedlek’s GNP

Saturday morning we got up nice and early and made our way to Lake Zurich and Greg Bedlek’s “GNP”. We had heard rumors that this layout was called “the monster” and that turned out to be an appropriate name.

Greg’s layout is called the “GNP”, and models four railroads. Essentially Chicago to Seattle is depicted, featuring the CB&Q, Great Northern, and Northern Pacific before they merged. In addition, an intense switching district representing the Belt Railway of Chicago is also on the layout. Here is part of the Wisconsin Steel Works:

At the moment, the GNP is a “Plywood Central”, but the amazing thing is that everything that you see in the photos has been constructed in about one year, by Greg, with essentially no help. Greg says that he is a little hyper, and I guess that appears to be true. Keep in mind this basement is somewhere around 2800 square feet. Greg says the benchwork / track / wiring portion is not what interests him. He is just doing this so he can start on the part of the hobby he really loves - scenery.

Greg uses Lenz for control, and has a separate Digitrax Loconet bus going in to drive signals. He says he likes to leverage the strengths of each system. He will eventually be implementing his own custom programmed computerized dispatching sytem. Car cards are used to move traffic.

Saturday afternoon - Mitch Rossertt’s ATSF

Saturday afternoon we grabbed a Chicago dog and headed on over to Mitch Rossett’s HO scale ATSF. Again, I forgot to bring my camera in. D’oh!! Mitch’s layout depicts the ATSF from Chicago to Iowa, with full operating CTC signals along the way. He is using a custom programmed computerized CTC disptach panel which I got to operate during the session. It worked just like the real thing, and did it very well. He has some neat things implemented like dimmed lighting (not sure if that is the correct term) instead of approach lighting. We did not have a ton of traffic for the session, but there were some harried moments coming from the dispatchers area from time to time. Compared to the other layouts we visited, it was not as large, but it is designed to be able to keep a crew of 12+ busy.

Sunday morning - Ted Schnepf’s Milwaukee

By Sunday morning, I was getting a little worn out. The enjoyment of running trains, meeting and taling to new friends only does so much to distract from the aches caused by standing on concrete basement floors for hours on end. Next we headed to Ted Schnepf’s O scale Milwaukee.

I had operated at Ted’s at AmRail ‘04. This is avery nicely done, large O scale layout with upwards of 4 levels of track in places, including staging in the ceiling!

We had a small crew this morning, but still managed to move some freight around. I was on a switching job that proved to be more than a little challenging, and was not completed before we had to leave.

I always figure if I have a good time at each layout and walk away having learned something, then it was a success. Well, I had a great time and learned a lot- I’ll be back! If you have never been to one of these operations weekends, I would suggest giving it a try. It really changes your perspective on the hobby (for the better in my opinion) and they are just plain fun! That’s what it is all about.

I had some of the USRA guys over a few weeks ago for a work session. It was a painting party! We got the entire upper valence painted in a semi-gloss black. I used a semi-gloss to help with infra-red throttle signals. I think the black really gives it a finished look. We also painted the backdrop a light blue. I am a little concerned that it is too light, but I think that once I get some clouds painted on there it will look OK. I have also got spline running from the South end of Champaign up to Decatur now. The spline ends there because Decatur will be a heavy switching district, so I am just going to deck that area. I like the results that you can get with spline, but I don’t know how best to deal with transitions to yards and switching areas. I have the plywood decking cut out for Decatur and the bottom of it painted in the light blue to help with light reflection. I am going to cover it with ½” homasote. I am leaning towards decking the entire lower level because it is mostly yard and urban switching. There is not a lot of opportunity for vertical scenery anyway.

Last weekend I attended the bi-annual Michigan Proto Operators “Op Ti U Drop” weekend with about 5 other USRA members. I think the total attendance for the weekend was upwards of 90 people. This was the third time I have attended this type of operations weekend event, having gone to one in Chicago (AmRail), and Ft. Wayne. What is an “operations weekend”? In a nutshell, this is when a group of layout owners put on an event to host people from out of town to operate on their layouts. Most of the layouts and participants are interested in “prototype operations”. To learn more about what this is, go to http://www.opsig.org/.

While I am not a die-hard prototype stickler in terms of operations or modeling for that matter, after I “operated” a layout for the first time around 1998, it totally changed my perspective on the hobby- for the better. I am building the ICG to be an operations focused layout.

The point of this post is to talk about the layouts I visited and my experiences this past weekend.

Bruce Ernatt’s HO Union Pacific - Friday Night

After a long drive up to Pontiac, we headed over to Bruce Ernatt’s basement to operate on his HO scale Union Pacific. Bruce also has his own freelanced line, the “Butte Mine & Eastern”. This guy love’s locomotives and has a mindboggling collection of diesels.

His layout is controlled using Dynatrol, which I had never used before, but it worked almost flawlessly. The layout was centrally dispatched with most mainline switches being dispatch controlled, along with two separate yard-masters. Communications were over 5 channel radios. Ample staging at either end of the layout kept the trains coming. Bruce’s car-forwarding / train scheduling method appears to be a homegrown type, where most non-through trains traded cars, it was relatively simple to understand and traffic moved pretty well.

Dave Regittko’s Pennsylvania - Saturday Morning

Saturday morning we headed over to Dave Regittko’s HO scale Pennsy.

This layout is of impressive size and scope with several levels meandering through the basement. I mainly served as a yard switcher, so I did not get to experience much else of the railroad, but people seemed to be kept busy. In the main yard we utilized 4 people! While I ran the A/D yard, there was one person breaking down trains, a hostler, and a fourth person doing local switching and serving as a helper for a steep grade. This was a pretty fun area to work.

The Pennsy ran on car-cards and way-bills which were of standard design so they were easy to follow. Dave has made small boxes for each train to hold the cards that you take with you. The box is small enough that it can fit in an apron pocket, and it has the train instructions right on it- a nice idea. This layout used the CTC-80 control system, which worked well, and had a central dispatcher. All turnouts were thrown locally, most using electric switches. Some of Dave’s electrical work is quite impressive. The indexing turntable is another mind-blowing installation to view.

Chuck Liford’s Conrail

Saturday afternoon we headed over to Chuck Liford’s HO scale Conrail.

The Conrail is a single level, linear, point to poin table top design. Since Chuck is modeling the modern era, traffic is dominated by through trains, including some hot-shot intermodal trains. While there is little scenery at this time, everything that is done so far is of very high quality.

The real treat on this layout is the operating signals and dispatcher panel. The signal system was installed by Mike Burdett, a signalman for the CN. It follows prototype practices and is very impressive.

The layout is run by a Lenz system, and also uses car cards and way-bills, with traffic manged by the fully functional CTC system. Very fun, and very impressive.

Mike Burgett’s C&O - Saturday Night

Saturday night there were a couple of open houses that attendees could visit. We went by Mike Burgett’s to see his in progress C&O layout. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera in with me as I was expecting to see mostly benchwork- boy was I wrong. Mike has most of his upper level in with a short span fully scenicked. Everything he is doing appears to be top-notch and well thought out. This picture was emailed out after the event.

While I believe the layout is going to be a world-class piece of art when it is done, the real draw at Mike’s is his signal system and CTC panel. Mike has dedicated a room on the first floor for his CTC panel, and it is one of a kind. As a full time signalman for the CN, and someone who does model railroad signal installations on the side, this is his showcase. I will try to find a picture, but suffice to say I doubt you have seen anything like it outside a real signal facility. I understand Mike has only been in his house for less than 2 years; at the rate he is going, he could be operational for the next Michigan Op Til U Drop in 2008.

John DePauw’s Elgin, Joliet, & Eastern - Sunday Morning

By Sunday morning my feet were killing me from standing on concrete basement floors for hours on end. But I had heard much about John’s “J” layout, and being a Chicagoland native myself, and a fan of the Chicago belt line, I was really looking forward to this operating session. I was not disappointed.

The size and complexity of this layout is on par with only a handful of privately owned layouts in the country. John models just about the entire J from Gary to Elgin, and has multitudes of staging representing interchange with the many roads the J crosses. At some points there are 4 levels of track from about 24″ up to 60″ +. While the distance to reach some tracks, and the very low clearance to get at others would make me a bit nervous as an owner, things seemed to work well.

The J runs on an NCE system, and uses car cards and way bills. While they are of John’s own design, they are similar to the commonly used type and easy to follow. I ended up running the hot metal bottle train out of US Steel. Due to a problem with the phone system, we ran mostly without a dispatcher, or with no dispatching at all depending on who you asked. This made things a little hectic at times. I missed a switch I was supposed to take and didn’t realize it for literally 20+ minutes later- that is how big the layout is. This little mistake on my part added about another 40 minutes onto my trip! Being a steel modeling fan, I was in heaven on this layout.

I understand that at times there are 30+ operators running this thing, and I can see why. Operating on this layout was a blast. Mike Burdett is installing a signal system here as well, but only a small portion of the layout is signalled. Typically the layout is controlled by dipatch via phones, but as I mentioned, the phone system was on the fritz this day. Still, it was very enjoyable, and I can’t wait to go back.