Scrap the Drawbridge

After a lot of frustration I have abandoned the two drawbridges across the access way to the layout, I was never really 100% convinced it would work so I have just taken the hinges off and converted them to lift out sections. I also encountered issues with the Printed Circuit Board copper sheeting being pulled off due to the tension created by the curved track and lifting due to the excessive solder required to keep the track in gauge over heating it. A search on the Internet revealed a simple but genius solution, screws! infinitely adjustable and easy to put in and solder track too.

 

 Finished and in place with some minor modifications the lift out sections (Hoo Ray).

 

 Positioning the screws for the joint.

 

 The section of track from the helix glued and soldered to the joint screws are quite solid, you can see the bits of wood added to guide the section in to place now the hinges are not there to do the job.

West side lower level.

East side lower level.

Running the track over from the helix to the lift bridge, don't worry I will put some skirting up to prevent any derailments hitting the deck.

The points are growing roots.

After the tedious task of mixing and matching all sorts of track and points I have finally arrived at the point I can actually wire up some of the layout. I have started doing the switching line that serves the industries on the top deck near the yard. It will also be an isolated power district one of several on the top deck to prevent an issue shutting down the whole layout. This is how I attach the feeders to the main power line I just strip some wire off the feeders and twist and solder them to a short piece of main power wire and then I cover the join with heat shrink tubing. Then it is a simple case of connecting it with displacement connectors to the main power line.

I am also mounting the point machines to the branch because they need to be wired for the frog polarity and as you can see I have also fitted the rod to the machine to switch the points. It is a control rod for a model air craft or boat and I brought a kit containing two rods and four of the connectors shown. The rods are fairly long and will allow me to do five or six switch machines and you can also buy the connectors separately. There are only three sets of points on the branch and this one is the last one that serves the Mill / Brewery.

The above and below photos show one of the points serving the sand transfer yard and you can see the feeder wires for the siding on the other side of the switch machine.



 

I made a slight error when I assembled the Bullfrog switch machines, the photo above is how the cam should rest on the micro switch for the frog. I thought the cam just had to pass over the switch to change the polarity and mounted the switches accordingly but I discovered my error when I tested the first switch machine to be mounted and wired with a multi-meter.Get a multi-meter people it will save you a lot of time and effort.

So you want to shunt do you?

These past month or so I have been planning and laying track on the industry spur on the top deck with a mix of finished buildings and mock ones, I worked out where the track would go and how many wagons the sidings will need to hold. I didn't feel the need to make it over complicated with run around tracks and the like and I also made a few business like decisions about the length of the line serving industries.
Like getting the railroad to store my wagons in their yard rather than building a long section of track to hold them myself, as long as I turn them around quick I will save a heap of money. I also decided to put in a R.I.P track at the east end of the yard to add a little bit of operating variety for the yard switcher and road crews.
It is good to see some real progress and I seem to be able to find an hour or two every couple of days to lay the cork for the yard and then some track and soldering feeders. It is tedious work but it will pay off in the end with smooth running and few power issues for locos in the yard. I have previous experience from a club n scale layout with sharp curves and tight points and don't want to experience that again.
I have also been laying the track in the top lift bridge and I can honestly say don't ever make a joint on a curve in N scale if you can possibly help it.

The siding above will be used for a sand trans loading facility and will hold eight wagons at a time for unloading. In the right hand corner  near the gondola is the switch leading to the flour mill or beer plant, I haven't decided which yet.

 From front to back we have the yard, main line, branch line and the flour / beer siding which can hold twelve wagons for grain unloading.

 East end of the yard and over to the left you can see the branch running along the main, this will serve a large cold storage center and another warehouse down the west end of the yard. I also decided to add a dead end track to the yard off the no 4 yard track in the middle of the photo and the line from the bottom of the photo is the RIP track. When the track is completed I will do another track plan and post it to give people an idea of how the layout will work.

 To provide a solid base for the joints on the lift bridge I used flat aluminium bar 3mm thick that is the same height as the underlay. I then used epoxy to glue the track and the trimmed P.C board to it and let it dry over night. To maintain the rail alignment I connected the track with joiners while I tack soldered it then pushed them clear of the joint and soldered over them.

Not pretty but it does the job

Starting The Yard Work

Hello everybody I have started to lay the track for the yard and have decided to use cork roadbed to give the track a much lower profile as most yards do and before you ask coke zero is not paying me for product placement I use them as weights.

The track below is a bit out of alignment because I prewire the points and need a bit of play to get them o fit into the holes I drill for them, I will fix them when I glue them down.

                                                                            

The shunt lead on the left, mainline with cement sleepers the industrial lead in the middle and the loco terminal on the right wired but nor fixed down yet.   

What a bloody mess

 

 Finally have a great Christmas or whatever you choose to celebrate at this time of year and have a great 2014.

Don't Use Speaker Wire For Track Feeders and Maintaining Momentum

The hardest part of constructing the layout I have found is maintaining the momentum of the construction process, most of the time it is due to the wait on materials to arrive from overseas because I point blank refuse to pay nearly thirty dollars each for Peco code 55 points here. I also made a fundamental mistake when I used speaker wire as track feeders, luckily only the helix and two sections of track are affected and can be easily fixed. The track plan is evolving as the track goes down the main line will stay the same but the sidings will be different.

 I used the excuse to check the shunt lead to get out some rolling stock and found it will take twelve modern wagons and two locos if needed. The engine servicing area will be to the right of the wagons.

 The power for the tracks are soldered to the bottom of the rails.

 The main line is the one with cement sleepers in the middle and the yard lead is the track on the left, the yard lead also crosses the main line to the engine service facility and other industries. None of the track is glued down yet to allow a bit of movement when laying the next section. 

This photo is of a mock up of one of the industries serviced by the line leading from the engine terminal, I was thinking along the lines of a frac sand transfer facility and maybe some protestors.

Laying The First Layout Track

I have been preparing points in the last week and now its time to lay some track on the layout, the main line will be Peco code 80 with cement sleepers and the yard will be atlas code 55.

The pain in the ass bit is the fact that there are no Atlas code 55 points available on the planet at the time of construction so I have to mate the atlas track to peco code 55 points.

As you can see in the photo below the Peco track has a different rail profile to the Atlas track, after a bit of fiddling I worked out that if you put Atlas code 55 track connectors on the Peco points then rest the Atlas track on top of them then the rail heights will match, then you just need to solder them.

I am using Trackrite foam underlay to give the track and ballast a good profile, it fits snugly and helps hold the joints especially the insulation gaps in gauge. You can get a variety of profiles as you can see on the package below and is the same thickness as most of the cork roadbed avaliable. Which is good as I have chosen to use it to support the points with cork.

Here it is the first section of track on the layout woo hoo.

Just a shot to show the difference in size of the track.

Making Peco Points DCC Happy

Thanks to the internet I have been researching how to make Peco code 55 N scale points DCC friendly, there are plenty of wiring diagrams but not many photos so I have put some together to show how dummies like me have done it.

The photo above shows where I have cut the rails to isolate the frog from the switch rails you need to do this because the switch rails pass power to the frog depending on which way the rails are set.

To make the cut as small as possible I made it with a fine saw.

To make sure electrical contact to the switch rails is not reliant on them touching the outside main rails I cut some of the plastic away from the bottom and soldered some jumper wires between the two.

The jumpers are in place and I have soldered a green wire to the frog so the polarity to it can be changed.

Track Plan Top Deck V1.0

I have gone a different route with the track plan for the top level to make it easier to plan for operations and traffic flow. I decided to measure the available space and draw a line diagram first, it helps me with the placement of turnouts and length of yard tracks and position of buildings. I will then place some track on the layout to make sure that it fits and most importantly the points are clear of the supports under the deck, I found a image posted on a forum that has all the peco points on it so all you have to do is print it an hey presto you have all the points you need for track planning. I had a look on the peco website and it also has printable diagrams for all its track pieces.
Below V1 is V2 the modified plan after doing a test run with some flex track and peco points and the main difference is the main line and shunt line have been swapped around to ease the curve of the mainline at the west end of the yard and the reduction of the number of through tracks in the engine terminal.