Wow I’m really bad about updating this blog. I sit at a computer all day so I guess I just don’t want to do it when I get home too, although I probably do spend a fair amount of time at the keyboard there too… Oh well.

So what’s new since February 09! For lower staging I created a panel that will allow crews to hopefully see how things are lined up in staging. I am using the pusbutton functionality of the DS64 on the panel, but crews during an op session will generally not need to line the yard themselves- dispatch will do it. This was one of those fun projects that took way longer than it should have. I wired led’s in line with the tortoises to show how the switches are alinged so that the light will be green on the leg the points are lined up for, and red… well you understand. For this type of wiring I usually buy some round 6 conductor telephone wire and strip out the individial wires inside the insulation. This has worked well for me in the past, but the wire I bought this time was very brittle and any little nick from stripping the wire and it would break. Unfortunately I think I am going to have to rewire this thing at some point as I already have two pushbuttons that are not working. As long as dispatch can line things up and I can use the throttle when I’m operating by myself I will probably live with it for now.

Another thing I worked on over the summer is setting up RailOp. I decided to use this program to generate switch lists based on the experience my friend Bob has had with it. I am not a huge fan of car cards, but now that I’m trying to set up the software I understand their appeal. I pretty much have all my data in it and have run one op session using it which went fairly well. It will take some time to work out the kinks and get traffic to move the way I want, but it is useable already.

The engine facility at Woodcrest is taking shape. I have the tracks in and have started on the engine house. The actual Woodcrest shops is a huge facility and I am just doing a representation of one small building where minor repairs were done along with refueling and sanding.

Here’s an overview of the Woodcrest area:

Here’s a closer shot at the engine house:

Here’s a link to an image of the prototype.

The track is down in the area I call Riverdale as well. The main industry here is the Interlake Basic Oxygen Furnace and Rolling Mill. I have some stand in crude buildings made from foam in place for now. There is also a lumber company here meant to represent the lumber yard the IC served just north of the Calumet River in Chicago. I have a long stub track in place meant to suggest the power plant which will go in the area I call “Calumet”. A friend of mine is working on an operational rotary dumper for the power plant which I’m looking forward to installing.

Here is a view of Riverdale looking South:

Here are my stand in buildings for the Interlake BOF. Scrap aisle on the left and hot metal aisle on the right.

Here’s the beginning of the rolling mill.

I have also spent some time getting my motive power fleet in place and am about where I need to be as well in that arena. I do have some new Intermountain F3’s in ICG orange and white coming, as well as some Atlas GP40’s in orange and white on order. My friend Rich Bourgerie was nice enough to put together a few kits for me including four of the Walthers Parkview Terrace kits. My next goal is to continue to do some more ops sessions while starting to install some building kits here and there any maybe do a little scenery. I have a pretty big project to get the track work done for the high line in the Blast Furnace area. I am trying to figure out how to have a two track high line and leave room for some partial flat buildings behind it. The blast furnace kit that is in place is also a stand in until I can build the model I really want to have there but that could be a ways down the road.

I have wanted to build a spray booth for quite some time, and I recently decided to actually make it happen. I have a handful of projects coming up that will require me to paint and I want to get more proficient with the airbrush.

After searching around on-line and consulting an old article from MR, I decided to basically build my own design. Since I do not have a place where this can be permanently installed, it has to be portable. I started by determining a spot where I can set it up as needed, and ensuring there was room under the layout for it to be stored. That space helped determine the dimensions of the booth. I then looked at common furnace filter sizes to determine the size of the back of the booth- I settled on 25″ x 16″. From here I determined how deep I wanted the booth to be based on my research and decided to make it 16″ deep, but I would “notch” or angle the front of it to make it easier to paint from overhead.

I built the booth out of 1/2″ plywood for ease of construction. I was going to make the top out of plexiglass or lexan. I ended up buying a piece of clear acrylic from the home supply store as it is much easier to work with. The piece I bought was only 24″ wide, rather than buying a much larger piece and having a bunch of waste, I effectively built a “window” on the top of the booth. It turned out decent other than the fact that where the filter sits, there is a gap between the top of the filter and the acrylic; I will have to seal that off with tape to ensure proper air flow through the filter.

For the fan, there are a lot of schools of thought out there. Some folks use range hoods or computer fans, but it seems the “squirrel cage” type fans from Dayton are the most preferred, so I decided to use one of them. I didn’t spend a ton of time trying to calculate out the CFM and the static pressure as I will rarely paint with solvent based paints. I am prett confident based on what I have read that I will have plenty of airflow for my needs. I wired it up with a switch as well as a GFCI outlet on the side of the booth to plug in the compressor and a light. I thought about mounting a light in the booth, but it was suggested to me that direct overhead light is not best due to shadows, and light coming from the front of the booth would be best. So I am looking for something I can clip on to the side of the booth on a gooseneck or something along those lines.

Venting the booth was fun! I had to take down part of my facia to get at a window in the basement and then build and attach a board to the window to feed the duct to. The duct runs behind the layout and comes out underneath. I will attach it to the booth with a short section of flexible dryer hose. I am looking into getting some sort of cheap folding workbench to set the booth on when in use. I’ll also need to probably build some sort of table for a work surface that I can mix paint on, etc… I hope to be using the booth very shortly!

Front of booth:

Side of booth with switch wired in for motor and outlet:

Top of booth showing “window”:

Back of booth showing the Dayton fan:

Venting:

The inaugural SWOOPS (South West Ohio Operators) Op-Til-U-Drop weekend took place the weekend of April 17 – 19, 2009. 30 out of town guests were hosted by 11 layouts in and around the Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio area. This weekend followed the same pattern as similar weekends held in Detroit, Ft. Wayne (3 Rivers), and last year’s inaugural Indianapolis event (CIRROPS). There were op sessions scheduled for Friday night, one Saturday morning, one Saturday afternoon, optional open houses on Saturday night, and one last session on Sunday morning.

We checked in at the Baymont Inn on the north side of Cincinnati on Friday afternoon and picked up our layout assignments and maps. Prior to the weekend, three of the four layout owners had emailed us with information on their layouts which proved to be helpful. The maps were well organized. We had some delicious Bar B Que at a local place right around the corner from the Baymont. I now have a reason to go back to Cincy other than the fine model railroads there.

Friday night we operated on Rick Stern’s AT&SF, 5th District, Los Angeles Division. Rick models a fictitious line from L.A. to Bakersfield. He runs steam and some early diesels. The layout is dispatched via CTC and there are phones at each station for communicating with the dispatcher. My traveling partner JJ and I worked the switcher out of the town of Cuyuma. We were kept pretty busy the whole session with some interesting moves and several through trains making set outs and pickups. We also had to keep the main clear for the first class passenger trains coming through. I think Rick told me he has been in his house for 20+ years. The layout is mostly scenicked with a lot of craftsman kits and some nice scenery.

Rick Stern’s AT&SF

From SWOOPS 2009

From SWOOPS 2009

We had to get up bright and early Saturday morning to make it up to the north side of Dayton and David Holl’s Penn Valley. David’s layout was on the cover of MR recently and very deservedly so. It is pretty much 100% scenicked and very high quality all the way around. He models a fictitious railroad based on the PRR with several live interchanges including the PRR and B&O. He uses car cards and a track warrant system that worked well. There was a dispatcher who would control the mainline turnouts and the mainline was signaled including a portion with distinctive PRR positional signals. It ran very well and was very enjoyable to operate, although the aisle way in the front of the layout room would get pretty congested.

David Holl’s Penn Valley

From SWOOPS 2009

From SWOOPS 2009

Saturday afternoon we headed down to Middletown and Ed Swain’s Pennsy. Ed has set new standards of neatness in his layout room that I feel are unattainable for most of us. This earns him a demerit in my book. (This is a joke.) The quality of the layout was very impressive. He only really has a small portion of the layout done, but was able to keep about 8 of us very busy for almost 4 hours. Here I worked the main yard and while Ed uses car cards, his instructions to the yard master were very thorough and I didn’t have too many problems. The yard got a bit jammed for a brief period, but the pace of work was just about perfect. The quality of his modeling is very high as can be seen in the pics. I really look forward to going back in a couple years to see how things are progressing if he hasn’t made it into a magazine by that time.

Ed Swain’s Pennsy

From SWOOPS 2009

From SWOOPS 2009

Saturday night there were three open houses and we made it to two of them. The Eastern Loggers is a modular / portable layout with very high quality scenery and modeling. It is famous for being built completely out of Styrofoam. We then visited Don Leedy’s Utah South Western and UP’s Caliente Sub-Division? Don recently had a major renovation done on his house- literally rebuilt on top of his basement, and is now starting on an expansion and re-visioning of his layout. It looks like it will be enjoyable to operate once things have progressed a bit.

Eastern Loggers

From SWOOPS 2009

From SWOOPS 2009

Don Leedy’s Utah South Western

From SWOOPS 2009

From SWOOPS 2009

By Sunday morning we were pretty beat as we made our way to John Listerman’s B&O. John is a retired graphic artist and I’m pretty sure I have seen some of his cartoons in MR. His layout is a freelanced B&O layout that hauls a lot of coal through nicely scenicked terrain. Here I also ran a yard and a local out of that yard. The track plan includes some interesting back and forths through tunnels and around mountains- it was challenging to follow your train at times. John hand writes train orders and dispatches in a verbal track warrant or DTC style. A decent sized crew appeared to enjoy themselves very much.

John Listerman B&O

From SWOOPS 2009

From SWOOPS 2009

Overall the weekend was a resounding success from my perspective. The 30 op slots were filled within 3 days of being made available! I heard that there are several other nice layouts in the area that could probably be brought on line for the next ops weekend to be held in Cincy. I look forward to going back to SWOOPS in the future.

You can see all of my pictures at Picasaweb

Things are cookin’ along. I have installed all 10 of the tortoise switch machines in lower / North staging (5 on each end). All but two are wired in and powered via the DS64’s. The last two are going to be powered via a “Wabbitt“. At the moment I have one of those two working but I am having some challenges getting the second one to work. I am waiting on some feedback from DCC Specialties as to what the issue might be. I put a label on the side of each machine with it’s address to make it easy to determine which is which..

I decided to mount the Tortoise machines on the surface of the layout rather than underneath mainly for ease of installation and maintenance and accessibility. Since this is a staging yard, I am not concerned that they can easily be seen.

The only item really remaining now for North staging is to get the facia panel built. It will have pushbutton control for each turnout along with LED indication as to whether the turnout is “closed” or “thrown”. Each track will also have a corresponding route programmed for it which will also be displayed on the panel.

Another recent accomplishment is that there is now facia installed and painted on about half of the lower level (thanks for the help J.J.). While this always sounds like a quick and simple task to me, it ended up taking at least a couple hours or more to get this done. It does go a long way to making the layout look more finished.

I also have started the process of installing the facial panels on the first level. Each major interlocking will have a panel that shows mainline turnout status. In addition, I have decided to have facia pushbutton control for certain spurs and yard leads. Mainline cross-overs are controlled only by the dispatcher (or by throttle if you have a DT400). I thought I would share my process for making the panels.

First, I create an image in Excel to represent the track diagram for the panel. Here is an example:

Next, I cut out a piece of clear acrylic or lexan to fit the size of the diagram. The material you use here is not important, but you should be familiar with how to work with it as the different types of material have different properties. So far I think I like the lexan best as you can cut it with a saw and drill with a normal high speed drill. The downside to the lexan is that it is a bit more expensive. The acrylic material that I used previously was very brittle and you could only cut it by the scribe and snap method (which wasn’t always successful) and you had to drill it very slowly. I lay out a printed track diagram then fix the clear material over it so I can drill out the spots for the LED’s and the pushbuttons.

Here’s one on the workbench ready to be installed.

Here is one after installation along with a good shot of part of the newly finished lower level facia.

For the LED”s I use a 3mm bi-polar red/green LED wired in line with one side of the Tortoise power feed. I ensure that the LED is green when the turnout is “normal” or “closed”. For the pushbutton I use SPST that you can get from Radio Shack or probably many other places. The pusbhuttons are wired into the inputs on the DS64’s and SE8c’s.

Monday night was an historic night on the ICG. We ran trains from opposing staging yards and had our first meet! Several other trains were run as well. While not error free, we did have a good time and resulted in a good test run of the track and rolling start. I have a handful of sticky notes around the layout indicating needed repairs! Needless to say, north staging is now powered. On hand were Bob, Jay, Rich, Warner, Ron, and JJ. Here are some pics from the night:

Here we have opposing trains meeting at Paxton.

The siding is taken at Paxton.

Bob pulling his manifest freight north out of Champaign.

The CATS dispatching software showing the helix occupied as well as the main at Paxton just prior to the meet.

Jay running the main behind Markham Yard (I know the main is actually west of the yard, but I made the decision to put it on the east side for operational considerations)

Rich watching his train come up the helix out of staging

Foreign power in the south suburbs

Somehow steam UP engines keep showing up in the Chicago Division. In the back is the ICG mainline heading south; in the front is the yard feeding Acme steel blast furnace and coke plant with BRC MP15’s working the cut.

Wisconsin Electric (WEPX) train behind a U33C

As always, you can see the full size pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/remhed

I’d like to thank everyone who has helped me get to this point so far: USRA guys- Jay H., Baron S., Kurt K., Stan K., Ron C., Rich B., and John M. Others who have helped out somewhere along the line include Ken O., Mike M., and Jeremy H. Special thanks to Bob for being a great sounding board and keeping me motivated.

In other news, I had a DS64 literally fry on me when I plugged a throttle into a panel a couple weeks ago. After talking to several experts including Digitrax, there is no conclusive explanation for what has happened. Grrrr…. I have resisted going to the message boards with this one- if the recognized SME’s can’t figure it out, I have little hope in the general masses. While the unit is being repaired I continue my debugging.

I thought I’d post a quick update…

Some bad news is that I had a DS64 on the upper level actually “fry” on me. I have been doing troubleshooting and asking various experts, but I still do not know exactly what caused it. So I need to send it in to be repaired so that means no turnout control for the switches around Champaign yard for a month or more…

Here’s the key things I can think of that need to be done before I could have a dry run op session.

I’m sure I’m missing things, and that sounds like a lot to do… Time to get back to work!

Wow! Two posts in one month! It must be winter…

Since the last post I have had help laying some track and putting in feeders for recently laid track.

An historic event- Bob is the only one working!

I have also run bus wires and got my DS64 and SE8c “boards” wired up.

Detection for part of the lower level will run through this SE8c along with control for 8 tortoises. Local turnout control via pushbuttons will eventually be wired through this as well for certain spurs and yard lead tracks. On the bottom right are the power busses coming out of the detectors. On the left side I have run wire from all of the SE8c pins out to terminals for easy connection once I start installing tortoises. I plan to eventually install signals which is why I am using this type of board.

Similarly, these DS64’s will control the turnouts in North staging as well as provide detection. These are mounted on this board with the detection blocks coming out at the top of the pic and the outputs for turnout control as well as “switches” to provide local turnout control leading out to terminals on the bottom. I plan to program these to use routes and them put up a control panel for the staging yard . That way the user will just need to push a button on the track they want to be on, and the turnouts will align properly.

Ron brought over his Trix Big Boy. While I do find it somewhat offensive to Useless Pacific power on the layout, there is no denying the coolness of this model. The wheel treads are very fine, and the sound system is impressive. This isn’t the best picture unfortunately…

Kurt brought over a few Milwaukee sound units for show and tell. Here Rich admires the FM.

Ron & Kurt

I’m now in the process of soldering and tying in leads for the remaining track in what I call “district 3″ which is the main portion of the lower level. Once those are in, I’ll start running power to North staging and installing Tortoises there. Stay tuned…

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.