Thanks ! The wait is over - here is the weekly update !
It has been another busy week, with a lot accomplished.
I spent $100 on lighting supplies and got under fascia lights in the upper fascia (7 25 watt bulbs on a dimmer); and track lights to light the upper levels.
I have had one yard lead with a 15" radius curve in the lead-in. It worked great on all of my old engines and the easy-to-modify P2k 0-6-0’s. However the new Roundhouse 4-4-0 simply would not handle the small radius. I like the yard arrangement and did not want to basically change it (plus all of the basic scenery was already in). I finally deleted the first turn-out in the yard and replaced the lead-in with two lead-ins. One to the original entrance and the other to the end of my caboose storage track (also my programming track). I was able to get a 22" radius and a 18" radius lead-ins to the yard. Operations is really not affected; and the 4-4-0 now can use either lead-in to the yard. You can barely see where the old yard lead-in was in the following picture. Damage to the scenery is minimal.
I also got started on the top of the back mountain. Here is the left side:
And the center section:
This back mountain starts at 30" from the floor (level of continuous run loop) and ends up 7’ tall, 6 1/2’ wide and 4’ deep. It will be another week or two until I “finish” the right side of the mountain top. H
I got a lot of mountain work done. What I expected to take two weeks, I did this week. the reason is that I got a contract for some furniture/cabinetry work that will support my railroad hobby for another year. Layout work will slow down for the next couple of months.
I got the new yard lead ins scenic-ed (is this a word) and ballasted. I got the right side of the back mountain done with some base color. Next step is the bottom left side of the mountain (between the two shelf levels).
The added mountain section (in white):
The whole mountain with the 4-4-0 headed down with a load of ore from the mines:
Excellent progress shots Alan, great to see a RR developing before my eyes with such great results.
BTW, congrats on the new contract, great news for funding, bad news for free time, aint that always the way? Its either money or time you have plenty of, personally I would like them to coincide more often [:)]
Glad to see someone making good progress, I guess my time will come, keep up the good ‘work’.
I “retired” from making a living building furniture and kitchen/bath remodel work. I intend to do a couple of furniture or furniture quality cabinet jobs a year to keep the cigarette/train fund solvent; so this is not a real setback. No large commercial shop; however my home shop is complete and adequate for this type of work.
Progress comes from devotion to getting it done. The more time that you have, the faster it goes. I am “lucky” in that I can now schedule my time to do what I think needs to be done.
Running loco’s is about all that I have done to the layout that is visible. I have been finding and fixing nits all week.
The BAH R.R. had ordered 8 new ore cars. Four of the kits are now complete. Photo below is delivery of the first four ore cars (Tichy 22’ kits):
Old #4 ( 16 yr old cheap 4-4-0) died and had to be replaced with something. I decided to try the Bachmann Spectrum line; not entirely happy with the value though. I got the small wheel 4-6-0 (found one unlettered), put in a Lenz controller and it runs. After about a 15 hour break-in it smoothed out. It does not have very good low speed performance; I can switch with it, but it is somewhat of a pain.
Here is the front view:
and the rear view:
It was intended to do duty hauling ore cars up and down the mountain and to do “duty” running on the continuous run loop, which is the connection to “the outside world”. It does OK; however I am spoiled by the great performance of the two P2k 0-6-0’s that look great, run great, and sound great. I am probably not going to add sound the the 4-6-0, even though poor sound is better than no sound (at least to me). If the construction of this spectrum is what I have to look forward to with the soon-to-be-released Spectrum 4-4-0; I will end up with another Roundhouse 4-4-0. Here is a picture of the 4-6-0 leaving Hardspot with a load of empty ore cars for the Arock mines.
This has not been a good week. My Roundhouse 4-4-0 died (dead short across the engine) and had to be replaced. Caboose Hobbies did swap it out for me, even though it was 50 days old. I did get started on building two more ore car kits.
I got the new 4-6-0 badged for the BAH RR.
This is the replacement for the old 4-4-0. It will remain as D & RGW and pull a D & RGW passenger consist and act as the interface with the outside world.
I bought another Roundhouse 4-4-0 that will end up re-badged as BAH # 10:
I did get a few non-visible nits picked on the layout. Since I now have to work for a few weeks; I will probably not do another update for a couple of weeks.
Not a lot to add for the past week’s activity. I did a fair amount of operating. I fixed a few nits in the existing track-work.
I broke down and got a DCC system for my work bench. I got the Digitrax Zephyr and a LocoBuffer-USB so that I could hook up my laptop computer for programming purposes. The Zephyr turned out to be finicky reading some of my standard decoders so I had to figure out that it was load sensitive and add a 1.2k resistor (switchable in and out - across the track) to the programming track to make it work.
When I bought my Prodigy Advance for the layout; I went in planning on buying a Zephyr. After playing with the Zephyr on the work bench; I am glad that I got the Prodigy Advance for the layout. The PA fits my layout and style of operating much, much better. They are both good systems.
Here is a photo of part of the work bench. I have a 4’ track on the front edge of the shelf which doubles as an operating track and a programming track by using toggle switches (one for track usage, and one to switch the 1.2k resistor across the track when needed). Shown is the laptop reading all of the CV’s for one decoder. Decoder Pro really works well; however, the process is slow (not the computer, the process).
Since I am working (for a change); there is not a lot of progress.
I have been operating for an hour or two per day, and fixing small things as I go. Nothing photo wise on the layout, I got a new switch tower for Arock, now I need one for Hardspot. It is just sitting on top of the ground and has not been weathered yet, still shiny plastic.
The main event is that my Tsunami came in for the 4-6-0. The tender is so small that there is no room for the Tsunami (boy is it large) and a speaker. I removed the coal load and mounted the speaker on top of the tender deck and will make a new coal load to cover it. I also added a rear light to the tender. I am not impressed with the sound on the Light Steam Tsunami. The whistle(s) are weak, the bell (at it’s fastest rate -1) is a little too slow, I can only get three chuffs per driver revolution not four, and the overall volume seems low (even with a larger speaker). sound quality is good and the motor control is great. The once balky at low speed engine will now idle up the side of the mountain and speed steps work great. The Tsunami was worth the price just for the motor control and should sound better when I get the coal load installed (to direct the sound somewhat). It was a joy to program, on the bench, with Decoder pro; and on the layout with my Prodigy Advance.
I will report as new information becomes available (i.e., when I can get away from work enough to get something done to show).
Here is a picture of the 4-6-0 still needing the new coal load and some paint touchup:
Thanks - sharing is the reason most of us are here !
Not a lot to show for the past week. I am making tunel portal linings using the Woodland Scenics mold and and using Sculptamold for the first time ( almost forgot what paper mache’ was). I am adding color to the water and things seem to be going OK at about 3 lining halfs per day (I need 17 complete portals).
I am building a kit switching tower (Atlas, it was cheap). I am documenting the process in the hope that it will help answer some of the questions that keep popping up here. It may take several weeks of 15 minutes-at-a-time sessions before I can try and put something together. This is a sample photo:
Other than that; some operating and actual income producing work.
Still not a lot of photographical progress here; a lot of operating though.
I bought two switching towers; one assembled and one kit. The assembled one, un-weathered, just sits on the ground at Arock (will be planted after weathering). Here # 11 waits with a load of ore cars bound for Hardspot while the tower operator tries to figure out which level to use for connection to the outgoing track.
I have made a lot of tunnel liners; though not enough yet. I have 17 tunnel portals to line and make/install portals. The Woodland scenics liner mold works well with suclptamold though. Here is # 11 with the new coal load and rear light entering one tunnel with a liner just sitting there (for testing).
the reason that the volume on your tsunami ma not be very loud could be lack of a baffle. The one I know I had a problem with (not with my tsunami but my other soundtraxx loco) was that I had a small speaker (3/4") with no baffle (no echo chamber). This was for a shay. it made the sound so weak I could barely hear it at all. I had to go back in and seal the tender part so that no air could move in and out of the coal tender in order to have a baffle. It was much louder after that.
Also for the chuff rate have you considered using a cam on the axle? The Tsunami includes a feature for this. This is what i use to control the chuff rate on my loco allowing the chuff to match perfectly with the cylinders.
The tender shell is sealed up and is the baffle/enclosure for the speaker. I did my initial testing with a soundtrax speaker in a soundtrax enclosure. I just got the high boiler 4-6-0 and put an oval speaker in it with the same volume level as the low boiler version. The volume level is acceptable; however it is not as loud as my MRC and QSI equipped engines. I have the Tsunami turned up to max on the whistle and turned way down on the MRC (set at 0 of 0-4) and QSI (set at 45/127) units. Except for the whistle, all sound levels are run at 1/2 to 3/4 volume on the Tsunami.
I did not want to mess with a cam for chuff rate. I just expected a wider chuff rate to be available in the Tsunami. At max rate it just hits 4 chuffs per wheel rev with the large driver version of the Bachmann 4-6-0. Above crawl speed; you can not tell that the chuff rate is slightly low (for all that I know, it is dead on at higher speeds).
I will put more information in my next project update as I just got the high boiler version of the 4-6-0 this week.
Not a lot done this last week on the layout; however I added one new engine with Tsunami to the fleet (Christmas gift + some of my train fund money). It is the high boiler Bachmann 4-6-0 (I bought the low boiler version about a month ago). The tender in the high boiler version is huge compared to the low boiler version. I did not need a shoe horn to install the Tsunami decoder and the original coal load even worked.
The two newest engines from the top (to show speaker installations):
The two engines together:
And finally, the new engine properly badged (flash makes the flat coat look bad - can’t tell the difference in normal viewing):
The woodworking project is expected to end this month; and then back to the layout full time. 2007 shows promise for getting a lot done in “completing” the layout.
Great job All the snow you have gotten makes for lots of hobby time. Your mountain scenes are extremly realistic. Have you thought of makng any snow for the mountains?
