We don't need to build no stinkin' scenery!

Scenery? Scenery? We don't need to build no stinkin' scenery!

I've been meaning to try this little experiment for a while. Could I 'green screen' (chroma key) scenery onto an otherwise bare layout? With the help of a green fold-up school project display board from Wal-Mart I believe the answer is - yes.

I took a few quick clips in front of the improvised green screen and with the help of Corel Video Studio I added a panoramic picture that I took in the valley of the South Branch of the Potomac River. While not perfect in composition or execution, it works for a quick first attempt. Judge for yourself, with and without digital enhancement:



Don't click on 'HD" to turn on Hi Def mode unless you have a fast internet connection and a fast computer.

Of course there would be ethical questions surrounding doing this without full disclosure. But I can see the utility of using this technique to try out scenery treatments.

More Progress

Nothing focuses your attention like a deadline. We've had an earthquake and a hurricane locally here over the last week, but the only thing that has been on my mind is my upcoming layout open house in two weeks.

So new benchwork has risen over the track arrangement that I lofted onto the basement floor last week.



The track plan was left on the basement floor as a guide for placing the benchwork as well as an aid in placing the subroadbed. I'll probably leave it there until the track is laid.

The left hand side of the benchwork is attached to the 2x4 supporting the stairs and to the adjacent section of benchwork; this section of benchwork has no legs supporting it. I'm going to try to keep this section clear as a 'crawl under' to get out of the dead-end aisle that is created at this section of the layout. When a crew brings a train to this point, the train will enter the central spiral which acts as serial staging and that crew's run is over. Therefore the the dead-end has no operational implications. But the crawl-under may be useful as a short-cut to get to the other side of what will be a double sided backdrop to retrieve a tool or a Coke.

Subroadbed was put into place next.



This part of the railroad is on the Cheat River grade which was literally blasted out of the side of a mountain. The subroadbed is on raisers so that on the aisle side of the track the scenery can fall away from the grade as it does in real life. the subroadbed is set level in this picture, as a next step I will raise the subroadbed to the 2% grade here. That will result in the subroadbed to being higher to the left as seen from this angle.

Here's a photo of a special piece benchwork under the straight subroadbed at the far end of the picture above.



This section of benchwork will be the future location of a model of the Tray Run Viaduct and in this area the scenery will extend significantly below the roadbed, almost to the floor.

Here's a picture of the real Tray Run Viaduct.



The Tray Run Viaduct is 443 feet long, has four 90 foot arches (the left most one is not visible in the 1974 picture above as the B&O has dumped fill over the side of the viaduct almost filling the easternmost arch), and stands about 105 feet high. I've been to this bridge; it's nestled in a deep and steep gorge and is a very impressive structure. My model will be about 65% scale size, making the model just about 6 feet long. Each of those exceptionally high track risers made out of 2x4 lumber will be one footing of an arch.

Right now all track risers and subroadbed in this section of new construction are held in place with clamps. When I adjust the subroadbed to final grade the clamps will be replaced with screws.

This new construction which intrudes into the center of the basement is the first departure from the around-the-walls route that has been the rule heretofore. It provides a hint of the involved benchwork/trackwork to come and really gives the feel that this is becoming a basement-filling model railroad empire.

Work On The Mainline Resumes

Although the staging that I've just about finished installing will greatly expand the capacity and operational potential of my layout, it has taken an inordinate amount of time to complete. My open house is just a few weeks away and I would like to finish some more of the mainline so that the usual crew of visitors will have more room to run on.

I've come up with a harebrained scheme to temporarily connect the end of the Cheat River grade with staging and allow trains to run in and out of staging, into the center of the basement, and around the walls to a point above staging; that should be over a scale mile of running.

To do this I have to finish the track on the Cheat River grade to the point where it would ordinarily enter the central helix (section in yellow on the track plan below). This section of the track plan is the most difficult for a few reasons. The only choke point (i.e. less than 3 ft. wide) in the operator aisle is located on this section of the layout (see #1 below). The track itself makes it's only close approach to structure in the basement where the track must pass between the supports for the basement stairs and a lolly column holding up the house (#2 below). Finally the bench work in this area is tricky. Do I build a double sided bench that holds both the Cheat River grade on one side and the top of Cranberry grade on the other? The grade separation between the two will be over 15 inches at this point and the two scenes must be separated by a double-sided backdrop which could make the bench work difficult. Or do I build two separate benches? If I do this the bench holding up the Cheat River grade will need to be somewhat shallow (16" or less) which could limit scenic possibilities and/or lead to problems supporting the backdrop (#3 below). Click on the track plan to enlarge it to see the details.



I designed the track plan with 3rd Planit and, so far, the tack plan has been right on; everywhere the track was supposed to fit, it has fit. However, the track plan is only as good as the measurements that I took of the basement. If my measurements that positioned the structures in the center of the basement were off, then there is a possibility that the track will not fit. Heretofore this has not been an issue as the track has not been close to structure. Furthermore, when I measured the basement it was cluttered with 'junk', which has since been moved elsewhere, and I made at least three passes at measuring the obstructions in the basement and they did not all agree.

To help resolve these questions I decided to lay out ('loft' in nautical terms) the track arrangement for the last of the Cheat River grade on the basement floor. I began by lofting the curves and straightaways on kraft paper per the track plan. In this way I would not be tempted to cheat on the curve radius to make the track fit. I then taped the completed kraft paper templates to the basement floor using the track plan and measurements offset from the basement walls and existing track to locate the templates; again to prevent cheating by forcing it all to fit.

To my great relief everything fit, exactly as the track plan indicated. The picture below shows the overall view.



The lolly column in the center is the choke point in the operator aisle. The aisle should be about 2' wide at this point and is, but I'm a big guy and from actually standing there it feels tighter. However it is literally only one point that the operators have to pass, using John Armstrong's design principles this should be OK.

The next photo shows where the track must pass between another lolly column and the support holding up the basement stairs.



It should JUST fit. The leftmost line on the paper template is the left hand side of the allotment for that track, 2" offset from the track center line. Since I did my 3rd Planit using track center lines, but lofted the templates using the full clearance for the swing of cars, I believe that the two are in agreement. I'll have to test this point with both full length passenger cars and articulated locos when I lay the track, but I have no qualms about notching that 2x4 if I need more clearance.

This final photo is the overview from another direction.



The faux wood grain cabinet next to the lolly column (right) has been moved back to make sure that it does not contribute to the choke point.

Seeing the track lofted on the basement floor confirmed a decision that I had already made, I will build separate bench work for the Cheat River and Cranberry grades. This is partially a decision of convenience, I can get this section done faster that way and put off some vertical alignment decisions until later. I hope that I will not regret this choice later on.

Now back to building.

First Train Runs in Hidden Staging

This Friday (7/22) I was able to run the first train in hidden staging. It's taken a lot of work to get to this point (although the months of May, June and July have not been the best months for model railroading).

Here are some pictures of what hidden staging looks like:

Tracks 1, 2 and 3

Tracks 4 and 5

Yes, the track is not the straightest in the world. That's because the black-tie track is old (1970's) AHM sectional track. When I noticed that this stuff was not laying down straight; I ordered some Fast Tracks 'Sweep Sticks' to help me get it right. The track nearer the camera is better because of this.

The staging tracks were constructed in the aisle on the plywood sub roadbed and then slid under the mainline. When I did so, one of the pre-installed servo switch machines (see 'A Few Simple Solutions' post 6/15/11) had a benchwork joist right under it and there was no clearance for the machine. So it had to be re-mounted above the plywood. That's shown in the following photo:



The servo needed to be mounted far enough to the side to clear rolling stock which, in turn, required that the throw bar be extended. This was accomplished by soldering another length of PC tie below the original. The wooden tie that you see is there to support the longer throw bar so that it doesn't sag.

Here's a video of the first runs. The sounds that you hear in some clips are from a sound decoder equipped steam loco elsewhere on the layout; the air pumps were coming on at random. The beeps that you hear are the Lenz radio throttle that uses a cordless phone as the wireless link. I test all new track with the plastic diesel that you see in the video; having a plastic diesel derail and fall to the floor is less traumatic than doing the same thing with a brass steamer. This diesel has a very old MRC DCC decoder that is not a silent running type, ergo lots of motor noise.



Runs on Tracks 4 & 5 are followed by a run on the lead for tracks 4 & 5. Tracks 1, 2 and 3 were not wired up and ready to go on Friday night. I had hoped to finish them this weekend, but there's still more work to be done.

Installing a DCC Decoder in a Brass Steamer

Creating the videos below was a long and painful process, but they're finally done! The videos take you step-by step through the process of installing a DCC decoder in a brass steam locomotive - a Sunset/3rd rail B&O Q4b in O Scale to be precise.

There's no reason to be hesitant to disassemble and modify a brass locomotive; and the Sunset locos seem to be well soldered and sturdy. Hopefully these videos will give you the information and confidence that you need to tackle the job yourself. In fact, getting the installation right took me a couple of attempts to find the right combination of miniature connectors and flexible wire to make the installation work - but that is all explained in the film. Be sure to view the videos in order.

There is one omission that I must mention. In hooking up the backup light I forgot to film (or mention) the necessity to include a resistor in the line going to the backup light. This resistor is necessary once the backup light is hooked up directly to the decoder. Use a value of 500 to 1000 ohms and put the resistor in either line of the LED backup light.

In viewing the videos, do not click on the "HD" unless you have high speed internet and a fast computer (dual core processor and good video card); and you still may want to allow the video to buffer before playing.

Part 1

Part 2

O Scale at the 2010 NMRA National Convention - National Train Show

Here's a short video of O Scale at the 2010 NMRA National. There was not much O Scale there and not many trains were running when the National Train Show opened, so I don't have much. I even forgot that I had these clips until I was cleaning up my old laptop preparatory to moving to a new one.

My video hosting service has recently made a change to their player. Now all embedded videos are standard definition by default. If you want HD (and have the bandwidth for it) click the "HD" on the player bar at the bottom of the screen.



The truck side frames on the passenger cars, seen from the oblique angle that I shot them from, really stand out as too wide. This has not been obvious to me on the Atlas (and a little MTH) 2-rail equipment that I have. But this video may sensitize me to their appearance.

New Life for an Oldie

The All-Nation B&O B18 Ten Wheeler that you can see on other posts on this site is an 'old school' O Scale loco that I bought in the '90s and the loco was probably 40 years old at that time. This specimen of the B18 has a sand-cast bronze boiler that dates it to no newer than the late 40's or early 50's.

Since these were produced as kits and assembled by individual modelers, the running characteristics of each example can vary greatly. This one had sub par running performance. Since this one of the few models of B&O steamers made, I wanted to salvage this one for use on my layout.

I decided to go all out and see how well this loco could be made to run and I invested more money into upgrading this steamer than it is worth.

For starters I obtained a Faulhaber coreless motor from Micro Loco Motion (www.micro-loco-motion.com). The ball-bearing Faulhaber 2342 12CR motor will deliver 17 watts of power with a recommended torque of 16 mNm. The motor is 23 mm in diameter and 42 mm long with a 3 mm shaft 10 mm long. The motor had one quirk, the mounting holes are on the opposite side of the motor from the shaft.

I sought out Joe Foehrkolb of Baldwin Forge & Machine (home.comcast.net/~omodeller/) known for his 2 rail to 3 rail conversions and upgrades to 'classic' O Scale. Joe had reservations about the coreless motor, especially with it's non-standard mounting; but he decided to take the job anyway. I provided a backup motor to Joe should he not be able to make the coreless work.

Joe solved the problem of mounting the coreless motor by fabricating a brass sleeve into which the motor fits and is held in place with a cap set screw. See the pictures below:





The gearbox on the center driver is a new Northwest Short Line Mod 0.6 ball bearing gearbox. Joe also fabricated a coupling utilizing rubber tube and two sleeves bored to fit the two very different diameter shafts.



The loco worked well after remotoring, but I thought that it could be more. The next step was to add a BEMF DCC decoder; but not any DCC decoder would do. The decoder had to be compatible with coreless motors and that meant high-frequency drive. Lenz, ESU and Zimo fit the bill as explicitly stating that they are fine for coreless motors. I generally use Lenz, but for this installation I choose an ESU unit. The Faulhaber motor draws less current than many HO locos, so an HO decoder was all that was needed.



I also installed an NMRA 8-pin wiring harness so that I could swap out any other 8-pin decoder in future. While I was at it I installed a warm-white surface mount LED into the heretofore unlit headlight.

After tinkering with CVs the loco ran better, but still had a tendency to hesitate. I figured that it was bad contact and resolved to fix the problem by replacing the tender, which I was going to do anyway, and use tender-mounted pickups for both rails. Recently I have discovered that it was simply the old, oxidized drivers that was the source of the problem and cleaning them up with a sanding sponge has just about eliminated the stalling. The loco will still get a new tender as the original tender has no rivet detail!

I find it ironic that this loco now has a motor, DCC decoder, and an LED headlight (surface mount no less) that were not even conceived of when this model was manufactured. Was it worth it? Economically, no; I could have had one of any number of modern die-cast steamers for the money that I spent on the original locomotive and the upgrades. However, I now have a model of a B&O locomotive that can join my fleet of DCC-equipped motive power and have another decade or two of use on my model railroad.

O Scale Trains Article

It been another long time since I made an entry in this blog, work has been demanding recently. That does not mean that nothing is happening. The March/April issue of "O Scale Trains" has an article that I authored. "Easy Molds and Castings" outlines how to make a reusable open face mold out of readily available materials. You will not have to mail-order specialty materials nor spend a large amount of money to get into mold making and casting.

While I'm at it, a shout out goes to John Sethian for the cover story article on his railroad. John is a member of our local Baltimore/Washington O Scale Group. Also a shout out to Jim Lincoln for his review of a modern building kit. Jim is a co-host on Model Rail Radio.

O Scale Trains is the best magazine for the O Scaler - try a copy at your model railroad hobby shop.

Never Say Never Again

Here's a photo of this weekend's project, a switch installed on Cranberry grade which will lead off to the left to a coal mine that will be located in the distance by the bottle of glue. This switch was manufactured by Old Pullman and comes as a set of formed rails held in "approximate" gauge with a set of soldered-on straps. The switch is supposedly made to NMRA standards and carries the NMRA conformance seal. The buyer must install the switch on to ties, make final adjustments to gauge then cut the straps as well as cut gaps around the frog. The switch as it comes from the manufacturer is shown in the next photo:




There are not many sources of switches in two-rail "O". Atlas sells assembled switches and you can occasionally find European Roco and Peco assembled switches on e-Bay. Other "switch kits" like Old Pullman's are available from B&K Precision and Right-of-Way. Of course there are Fast Tracks assembly fixtures and you can always hand lay from scratch.

"Whose switches are you using?" is a common question whenever O Scalers gather at someone's layout. What usually follows is a long tale of woe as the layout owner relates his quest for the perfect switch. The pros and cons of each brand and approach are recounted with the listeners nodding in sage agreement. At one such gathering (not at my layout) I was asked if I used Old Pullman switches. I quipped that I had six of them, I had installed one and the other five were for sale. This brought knowing chuckles from the group.

The mine switch is laid in a short section of straightaway (about 16") between reverse curves. This straightaway was too short to take a switch built using Fast Tracks fixtures, even assuming that I had one. Nor would a switch hand laid using one of Fast Tracks' templates fit. It was too short for an Atlas #5 or a Roco LH switch which I happened to have on hand. I could have built a turnout to fit; that would have taken a weekend or two. That left the Old Pullman switch, which fit perfectly. The fact that this switch fit into a space where no other one would to me belies the fact that this switch could be built to NMRA standards. I gave in to temptation; I should have known better than to ever say 'never again'.

The Old Pullman switch saves only a little time over scratch building inasmuch as the points and frog are already formed for you - if you can live with the parts that you get. The wing rails and guard rails are already formed too, but like the rest of the switch, requires a lot of work to get the final product to pass the NMRA gauge.

Long story short, I could get most measurements on the assembled switch to pass the gauge, except for the area of the points. As you can see from the next photo, the track gauge is tight at the points and for a considerable distance along each closure rail.



Worse still, the gap between the open point and the stock rail will not admit the NMRA gauge, which means that the opening is too tight; a fact confirmed when running my All-Nation B&O B18 through for the first time and before I had isolated the closure rails from the frog. It shorted.

I can't just widen the stock rails to correct both problems as then the gauge at the approach to the switch is too wide to mate to flex track. The switch will work because wheelsets gauged to NMRA standards have enough clearance to pass slightly tight gauge trackwork. The shorting problem with the B18 has been only partially fixed by isolating the closure rail and then making it the same polarity as the adjoining stock rail. The B18 still exhibits intermittent anomalous behavior going through the switch. It could be that the B18's wheels are out of gauge; more troubleshooting is needed.

The Springfield Show and Swag

I attended the Amherst Model Railway Society train show, the "Springfield Show", Jan. 29 and 30. This year's show was a bit of a treat because I was meeting some of the Model Rail Radio crew for dinner Saturday.

Usually the weather in Springfield, MA is bitterly cold the last weekend in January for the show; but this year was practically balmy with temperatures near freezing and a break in the frozen precipitation that has plagued the Northeast US this year.

2-rail O Scale at this year's show was not as well represented as in most years. The only 2-rail layouts that I saw were the Southern New England Club; the New Haven Society of Model Engineers; and the Narraganset Narrow gauge layout; Bachmann had their On30 display layout. Since I covered all of these layouts in last year's video; I did not make a new video this year. You can find the previous one here:


http://2railoscale.blogspot.com/2010/02/o-scale-at-springfield-show.html

This year's O Scale pickings were particularly slim because two of the major dealers who have been there in the past were not in attendance. Norm's O Scale from Maine was listed in the show directory but was not at his assigned tables and Just Trains of Delaware was also MIA; the latter probably because of the death of the owner in 2010.

That is not to say that I did not come away with a bit of swag (for our Canadian friends "swag" is old school US mob slang for stolen goods, used here metaphorically). Here are the larger items that I found:




Usually I'm lucky to find a freight car or two that I am interested in. This year I bought two; but one I had pre-ordered for pick up at the show. Left to right in this picture are a rock mold from Sterling Models; a rather spiffy kit for "Uncle Bill's Cabin" from Deerfield River Laser; a bottle of C&O/B&O blue paint from Truecolor Paint; a Funaro & Camerlengo kit for a 9-panel, USRA rebuilt hopper; and an AHM boxcar.

If you are not a long-time O Scaler you may not be aware that in the 1970's both AHM and Atlas imported lines of plastic 2-rail O scale equipment. Both lines included diesel locos and rolling stock and AHM's offerings included steam locomotives. Atlas' equipment, manufactured by Roco, were considered the better of the two and still hold up well today; so much so that Atlas has reissued them as part of their "Trainman" line (although they claim that these are from new dies). This particular AHM boxcar was among a group of them that had been re-decalled by the previous owner. NYC, Pennsy, and B&M were available, I chose the B&M.

Funaro & Camerlengo make a few O Scale resin kits. Most of them are for welded covered hoppers that are too new for my era. After asking for the gondola kit at last year's show and finding that F&C did not bring any O scale stuff with them, this year I pre-ordered this kit for pick-up at the show. It's a flat resin kit that I am looking forward to assembling, it appears to be fairly simple.

Smaller items that I found at the show are shown below:



Tichy Train Group do make a few items in O Scale and I usually buy a few at the show. The windows were not bought for any particular project. Nor was the fire escape; in fact I don't think that I can even use it. But it was new at Tichy and I bought it just to encourage them to make more O scale. The faster they can amortize the cost of these dies the sooner they can reinvest in another set of O scale dies.

The LEDs from Evan Designs are a favorite of mine and a bargain. Each LED comes prepared with a bridge rectifier and a dropping resistor. You can hook these up directly to 7-19V AC/DC/DCC. With these you do not have to worry about polarity nor current limiting. These go into all of my locomotives, unless an existing headlight cannot be opened to accept the new LED. Now I'm an electronics guy, that's what I do for a living; and I can, and have, made these myself. But for $3 apiece, barely more than the cost of the components in small quantities, it doesn't make sense and it's not worth my time. They come in 1.8 mm, 3 mm and 5 mm in a variety of colors and two flavors of white plus blinking varieties. Try some.

Saturday night I attended one of the two dinners arranged by the hosts and listeners to Model Rail Radio (MRR). MRR is a bi-weekly podcast started by Tom Barbalet; more than a podcast, Tom is trying to create a community of listeners. The show's format is open and anyone, literally anyone, can participate in the show. After discovering MRR in mid-2010 and catching up on the shows by listening to them sequentially from the beginning, I decided to jump in with both feet during the Jan. 21 recording.



At the dinner everyone, most meeting face to face for the first time, were received warmly. I sat among a group of modelers from Canada who were very interested in my modeling efforts. Of course being a O Scaler, thereby a bit of an odd duck, probably piqued their interest.

Here's a poor photo of the table Saturday night:

Model Rail Radio Appearence

I appeared on "Model Rail Radio Podcast", Episode 30, recorded 1/21/2011. I introduce myself at the beginning of the show and then participate towards the end. At the time of this post I have not listened to the podcast so I cannot give you the times when I am speaking. Actually I'm a little reluctant to listen to myself because I might have put my foot in my mouth.

You can find the podcast here:

http://www.modelrailradio.com/archive.html#30





(P.S. (2/7/11) I finally had the opportunity to listen to the show today. I did not realize that I talked for that long! And another thing; I called in on my cordless phone and I sounded bad. I need to get a high quality headset.)

It's been a while

It's been quite a while since I have posted anything to this blog. That's partially the fault of the old guy to the right. No, not me, but the other old guy in the picture. I spent the last week of October in Newfoundland on a Caribou hunt planned two years ago.

When I returned, there was an end-of-year panic at work to get deliverables (and billings) out of the door. So essentially until the week of Christmas I had little time for the railroad.

And that was unfortunate because in early October I had committed to holding an open house for the Baltimore/DC O Scale group on Jan. 8. I deliberately committed to hosting because I wanted to use it to force myself to push construction work ahead on the layout. As luck would have it, my plans did not work out as well as I had hoped.

Now I was behind the "8 - Ball"; I had prefabbed some new sections of benchwork, but they had yet to be erected. I ordered flex track and roadbed and cleared my calender for the last two weeks of the year for some serious construction.

The benchwork sections that were completed are shown on this diagram in yellow and include the section from the September 8th post. (Previously completed sections of benchwork are shown in green.)



This short video sweeps through the bare benchwork, from left to right as seen on the diagram. The benchwork made out of plywood is the last section shown. (Click on "HD" to see this video in Hi Definition)



You may have noticed on the video, the benchwork steps down as it approaches the basement walkout door. Partially this was to accommodate the light switch that you see in the final frame and partially this was to match the benchwork height on the other side of the door.

What about the walkout basement door? My initial plan was to give the railroad the right-of-way and block the door. As time went on, I rethought that plan and decided that it would be better not to block the door. The gap in the benchwork for the door is the clear section between the green and the yellow on the diagram above (not drawn to scale). How to bridge the gap was the problem. Swing-out, lift-up, drop-down and lift-out sections were all possibilities. I opted for a lift-out section, based on the perception of simplicity.

Because I was pressed for time I did not stop to take in-process photos on how I bridged the gap and that's a pity; so I'll have to use photos taken after the fact. Here is the almost completed lift-out; you can see the basement door in the background:



The gap at door is about 40"; I spanned the gap with a 2' x 8' piece of 3/4" plywood set on the subroadbed risers. The plywood extended a little over two feet on either side of the gap. Although this is on the Cranberry Grade and is running 2% here, this section was set level as I did not want the rail gaps either side of the lift-out to be on a grade - too many chances for a derailment. For a similar reason, the track on the lift-out and for 17" either side of it is straight. I did not want the trucks to hit the gaps while going through any curve. Why 17"? That's the truck center-to-center spacing of an 85' O Scale passenger car, so my longest cars should be heading straight going into the lift-out.

Even though this was 3/4" ply, I was concerned about sagging of the lift-out, especially over time. So I built a frame out of 1"x3" red oak under the removable part of the lift-out. In addition, I reinforced the 3/4" ply either side of the lift out with the same 1"x3" red oak. The reinforcement makes the lift-out heavier than it would otherwise be, but the structural integrity is worth it.

Close-up of the frame under the lift-out:



The track risers at the opening would need to be reinforced so that they did not move or shift over time thereby preventing the lift-out section from aligning properly when it was replaced. I added longitudinal stiffeners attached to the last two track risers either side of the opening:





The far ends of the stiffeners butt up against a cross-member of the benchwork. To stiffen the benchwork in the lateral direction, I added cross-bracing to the last set of track risers either side of the opening. Here's one example:



At this point the 3/4" ply was still in one piece across the opening. It would need to be cut so that the lift-out could be removed. Before I did that I fabricated the two ledges on which the lift-out will rest. These were made out of 1 1/2" x 1/4" x 24" metal strap. These straps form a a ledge attached to the underside of the plywood either side of the gap and the lift-out rests on the ledge. Hard to explain, and unfortunately I have no in-process photos; but maybe you can get the concept from this picture (remember that this picture was taken after the lift-out was almost completed and the plywood deck has been cut through):



The location of the ledge is highlighted by the red ellipse. You may be able to see that the edge of the ledge has been rounded so that it will not catch anyone walking through the opening.

After the ledges were in place and secured to the fixed benchwork, I set my circular saw for a 3/4" deep cut and cut through the plywood deck to free the lift-out. The lift-out section was able to be removed and replaced easily and accurately. Which implied that the ends of the fixed benchwork had not moved; but the real test will come if it's still accurate after several seasonal changes in weather.

Now was the time for laying track. I've seen movable sections where the roadbed and flextrack was laid directly on the plywood top. This did not seem to be sufficiently rigid in that the track and roadbed could be moved very easily or even expand/contract over time resulting in a misalignment of the track. I'm an engineer and very much a belt and suspenders type of guy so I wanted to come up with a better way to fix the ends of the track.

You can see my solution in the following picture. I made anchor blocks out of 1/2" plywood, beveled on the sides for the ballast profile, which are placed either side of the rail gaps where they are secured with glue and screws. The flextrack is secured to these blocks with adhesive and brads.



The scheme that I came up with to keep the ends of the rail in alignment can be seen in the following photo. I put brass screws under the rail before the track was laid. These screws were adjusted to just touch the bottom of the rail. After the track was laid I soldered the rail to the screws to prevent the rail ends from moving.



Only two of the three tracks that cross the lift-out will be in place before the open house. Nor will I cut through the rail until the third track is laid after the open house. Then I'll know if all of the preparation that I made to keep the track in alignment has worked.

It took three days of my two weeks before the open house to finish the lift-out, much more than I had anticipated.

Weaver Pacific Decoder Install

The Weaver Die-Cast Pacific can be equipped with a decoder almost (I did say almost!) without cutting a wire. Most importantly, the tether between the loco and the tender does not have to be cut or rewired. Nor do you even have to go into the tender, as I've already traced all of the wires for you. I actually did this installation in 2009. No video of this installation as I did not have a video camera back then.

The Pacific's performance on straight DC was OK, but slow speed starting and smooth running at realistic speeds left a bit to be desired. This was the perfect candidate for a first-time steam DCC conversion. How I converted this Weaver die-cast steamer is applicable to die-cast locos made by K-Line, Lionel and MTH as many have identical or very similar mechanisms.

The schematics for both the loco and tender are below (click on the image for a larger view), I'll refer to the loco diagram later, the tender is included for your information:





Following the standard convention, the tender picks up current from the left-hand running rail and sends power forward to the locomotive through the tether. Since power from the right rail is not available in the tender, but power from both of the left and right rails is available in the locomotive, it became clear that it would be better to mount the decoder in the locomotive rather than have to bring the right rail power back from the loco to the tender and then send the DCC-controlled motor current back forward. In this way no rewiring of the tether would be necessary.

Locomotive disassembly came next. The loco shell comes off with two screws mounted under the cab, approximately under the backhead, and two screws mounted out-of-sight in the steam cylinders. Watch out, there are a lot more left-over switches from the 3-rail model under the cab of the locomotive, do not undo these screws; also avoid the screws attaching detail parts such as the injectors.

With the shell off, the locomotive looks like this (click on any photo for a full-size image):



The red and black wires emerging from the boiler shell are for the front markers; these are LEDs and you must observe polarity in hooking them up. The black wires on the right are for the front headlight; this is a regular bulb. The red and black wires on the left are for the cab light. Curiously, while the markers and headlight have connectors to ease disassembly, the cab light does not. So to separate the boiler from the frame I popped the cab light out of the rubber grommet that holds it in the cab and undid the wire nut that attaches the cab light to the boiler shell.

There are two circuit boards mounted in the rear of the frame, under the cab. I’ll refer to the ‘T’ shaped one into which the tether plugs as the ‘Tether Board’ and the other as the ‘Main Board’. See the photo below:



Begin by removing the main board. Unplug the connectors, W2-W5, on the right and bottom edge of the board (as oriented in the photo). Remove the single Phillips-head screw that holds the main board to the frame. Cut the two red wires as close to the main board as possible. These wires are carrying power from the rails to the main board and you can reuse them later. Put the main board aside, it is no longer needed.

Now you will have an empty space in which to put a decoder, but there are some posts in that space which, if they shorted out to the decoder, would destroy it (see the next photo).



To prevent a short, I insulated the posts with heat shrink tubing. The photo shows all three posts insulated. Although the insulated posts will hold the decoder off of the frame; just to be doubly sure I covered this entire area with electrical tape, except for the vicinity around the stud for the trailing truck.



Now for the decoder; I chose the Lenz Gold Maxi because one objective for this conversion was to obtain smoother engine performance and Lenz is known for its motor control capabilities (see next photo). This is a 3.5 amp decoder with 6 function outputs and quite capable of handling this locomotive and, coincidentally, it fits in the space that has just opened up.



Every DCC installation requires that the motor be completely isolated from track power. To do this we must remove the brown wire from the screw located between the second and third pair of drivers on the right hand side of the frame, this wire normally supplied right rail power to the motor.

Now you have a choice. You can reuse the two red wires that you cut away from the main board to supply track power to the decoder, this is the simplest connection. If you do reuse these wires, attach them to the decoder's track terminals; the decoder doesn't care which rail is which. However, these wires are small and the solder joints to the tether board are poor, this could lead to reliability problems – the solder joints might even give way during the rest of the installation.

I chose instead to put a new wire on the screw where the brown wire was just removed; the red wire that I used follows the DCC color code for the RHS running rail and provides a robust, low voltage-drop connection between the rail and decoder. I used a crimped-on terminal, but wrapping the stripped end of a wire around the screw would work (next photo).



For the same reliability reasons I soldered a black wire (DCC color code for the left hand side rail) to the point on the tether board with the red and gray wires (refer to the schematic for the loco above). This point has the connection to the left rail via the tether and the tender. By using a more robust wire (I used 20 ga.) and making a good solder connection I have eliminated a potential trouble spot.

I soldered gray and orange wires to the motor terminals (per the DCC color code) to provide a larger gauge of wire as well as to replace the typically poor oriental solder work. The motor in many of the "China" steam locomotives is in "backwards", that is the motor is towards the front of the boiler with the shaft pointing rearwards into a gearbox mounted, in this Pacific, to the center driver. This does not make a difference except that you have to guess which terminal on the motor gets the orange wire. Put it on the same terminal that had the brown wire that was attached to the frame of the locomotive. If you guess wrong it only means that the loco will go backwards when you command forward and vice versa. If this happens don't worry. Most recent decoders, like the Lenz, have a CV that allows you to select which direction is 'forward'.

The gray and orange wires will have to be snaked alongside the gearbox to reach the motor terminals. I found it easier to do this by removing the top of the gearbox with the motor attached to allow the larger gauge wires to lie alongside the gearbox. While I was at it, I ran blue and white wire (DCC color code for the headlight) along with the gray and orange. Replacing the top of he gearbox will retain the wires running alongside it.

Was all of this rewiring strictly necessary? No. But I haven't seen a common consumer product from the orient that had good soldering. Several of the wires broke loose during the installation. Once I reassemble this loco, I don't want to have to fiddle with it again. Therefore I rewired it.

If you choose not to rewire, run the two red wires from the tether board to the track inputs on the decoder, run the two black wires from the headlight connector to the headlight outputs of the decoder (blue and white) and reuse the brown and gray wires already attached to the motor to connect to the decoder's motor output.

The next picture shows the Lenz decoder placed in the space. The seven-terminal strip on the left are the 6 function outputs plus common. The nine-terminal strip on the right is the track input, motor outputs, headlight and backup light plus common; as well as a pair of terminals used with a reed switch for station stop effects.



It's not entirely clear in this picture but the decoder is sitting on the three posts that I had insulated previously. One stud is longer than the others and the decoder is high on the right end. The fact that it is not level has no practical effect.

The next photo shows how I secured the decoder in place. I insulated the left hand side of the decoder board (near the seven-terminal strip) top and bottom with electrical tape. Then I loosened the tether board and captured the insulated end of the decoder board under it. Finally, I re-tightened the screws on the tether board trapping the decoder in place; a neat and simple way of holding the decoder in place. Click on the photo for a larger view and examine the picture in this area and you'll get the idea.



This last picture shows the decoder installation almost finished. Notice that some wires are attached to the nine terminal strip. Starting at the top you can see the read and black track inputs. A few terminals down you can see the blue and white wires going to the headlight. Finally the last two terminals are the orange and gray wires going to the motor.



Not shown in this picture are the wires going to the backup light. Refer to the schematic for the loco above. The backup light is connected to the wires going to socket W2 on the main board and the corresponding solder pads on the tether board are illustrated on my diagram. Connect these wires to the terminals on the nine-terminal strip for the backup light (normally blue and yellow).

Hookup of the headlight and backup light are simple as these are incandescent bulbs. Either wire can be connected to the blue and either the yellow (backup light) or the white (headlight).

Connecting the markers is not so simple. It was not clear to me, and nowhere in the Weaver documentation is it mentioned, whether the markers are bulbs or LEDs. On closer inspection I assumed that they were LEDs. The Lenz documentation does not indicate the polarity of the function outputs. I determined the polarity with a meter, traced the connections through the tender and connected the LEDs with the proper polarity. However, I assumed that there was a dropping resistor in line with the LEDs somewhere. Wrong. So when I activated the function I got a brief flash of red from the rear markers then snap, crackle, pop from the rear and then a whiff of burning. I had blown the rear markers and the function outputs of the decoder (or so I thought)

What I should have realized was that the current-limiting resistor was on the now-discarded main board. The only salvation was that the Lenz gold decoders are overload protected and the function outputs could be reset using a CV.

So as of this writing the rear markers have not been replaced, nor have I hooked up the front markers (they should be white instead of green anyway). I'll get around to both of these chores eventually.

Was the installation a success? Absolutely. The loco now has a speed of 2/3 smph at speed step 1; and I have not made any adjustments to the factory settings on the decoder. I could probably get it to go slower. I've previously posted video of this loco going through it's paces and you can find it here:


Lenz decoder Performance

Benchwork Experiment

This is my latest section of benchwork. I have been wanting to build some benchwork out of 3/4 inch plywood because I am tired of picking over the lumber pile, even the premium lumber pile, to find straight dimensional lumber. I've have been dragging my feet building new benchwork until I could try this experiment; now that I have, the experiment has had decidedly mixed results.

People have written about how they have had their lumber yard rip a sheet of 3/4 in. ply into 3 1/2 or 4 inch strips. Call around as I might, I could not get any yard to rip the sheet for me. So I picked up a sheet of ply at Home Depot (this could be my first mistake) and ripped it myself.

I do not have a table saw, so I set-up and ripped each strip using a circular saw and a saw guide. This resulted in some annoying dimensional differences between strips. Furthermore, each strip had two beveled, not square, edges where the hand-guided saw tilted beyond 90 degrees. Worse still, as each strip was cut free, it immediately curled!! WTF!!

This was not what I had expected. I stopped cutting after about half of the sheet was consumed. It produced a number of wide strips plus two 1 1/2 inch strips for leg braces. The legs of the benchwork would still be premium 2x4s.

I placed the strips on the basement floor for over a month in the hope of straightening them out - no luck, they were still curled, although not as much. The strips were every flexible, so I believed, rightly, that they could be built into a reasonably square structure; but their utility over dimensional lumber was fading rapidly.

The strips were very lightweight, which also did not bode well. When the basic frame structure was assembled it was light but not very rigid at all. When the legs were attached and the benchwork attached to the concrete basement wall at three points, the structure was easily distorted with little pressure. The fact that the rearmost longitudinal member is a two-piece affair to fit around the drain pipes that you see in the picture probably did not help. The benchwork was more than strong enough to hold up the railroad, but at this location that was not enough. This section of benchwork is to the left of the basement walkout door and has to be rigid enough to maintain the alignment for the lift-out section to span the doorway.

To salvage the section, I doubled up the rightmost two cross-members with 1x4 dimensional lumber to make it more rigid in the area where the lift-out section will attach. More leg cross-bracing was added to help stiffen this area, and the section will become more rigid when the benchwork sections to the left are added. These sections will be made out of conventional 1x4 lumber.

If this is not enough I may add some cross-bracing in the plane of the grid to add stiffenss by the door. If all else fails, I may be able to hang the subroadbed from heavy-duty metal brackets attached to the wall thereby making the alignment independent of the benchwork altogether.

Decoder install

The new Blue and Gray diesels cannot go into service until they have DCC decoders installed. So this weekend I did an installation on the FB-2 unit and filmed and video'ed the process.

Installing a DCC non-sound decoder in an O scale diesel "B" is about as easy as it gets, this side of 'plug and play.' There are no lights or sound to hook up and there is plenty of room to do so in the wide-body.

Here we're ready to start, the body's off the chassis of the Weaver diesel and the decoder, a Lenz LE1835W, is at hand.



The LE1835W is an HO decoder, albeit a robust one with a 1.8 amp continuous output.

Here the leads from the left and right rails have been snipped at the motor terminals.



The two feeders from the right rail have been joined with a short length of red wire per the DCC color code for the right rail.



The red wire is connected to the red wire from the decoder and both solder joints have been insulated with heat-shrink tubing. Similarly the left rail leads have been attached to a black wire that has been connected to the black wire from the decoder.



The orange and gray leads have been soldered directly onto the motor terminals (orange to terminal 1, gray to terminal 2) and insulated with heat shrink. This could have been a tighter installation but I deliberately left the wires from the decoder full length in case I ever want to replace this decoder and reuse it elsewhere, I'll have long wires to work with. Therefore all of the excess wire along with the function outputs have been dressed with a cable tie. Finally the decoder has been attached to the weight with double stick tape.



Here's the chassis on the layout ready for a test.



Test run:



Here's the full installation video at standard definition (640x480):



Here's the full installation video at HD (1280x720) recommended for faster computers only: