December 2017 Construction Journal

December 3, 2017

Just prior to Thanksgiving, I was hurrying to get enough benchwork done to let my nieces and nephews run trains back and forth. I put down some temporary track and they had a ball just running on the 40 feet of track.
After a little break, I went back and made some fixes and got sections U5 and U6 mounted on the wall.

Prior to the break, I also assembled modules U7 and U8 but did not put any temporary track on them. These are gluing to be single track mainline going over the main yard on the lower level. I need to cut some more spacer pieces to get these sections level before securing them to the shelves.

Finally, I had purchased 12 Trinity oil tank cars from ScaleTrains.com and got half of them out to measure the train length. I also got a buffer car to lead the string of cars, along with some extra decals that I need to add. These are very nice cars, even at the "Operator" level.

December 5, 2017

Thanks to a little crowdsourcing in the NMRA group, I've refined my track plan for sections U5-U7. If you compare the first three photos to the photos marked Version 2.0, you can see that the interchange yard on the left was tweaked to have a siding and a yard lead. This allows any trains needing to switch cars to get off the mainline, even though the eastbound main (on the left) is just after the staging yard.

To support the industries on the right, another person suggested keeping the double track going further "east" (towards the bottom of the photo) instead of merging the double track into a single track sooner. This allows a train working the industry spurs on the right to have extra space without blocking the entire mainline. To make it easier to operate, I think I'm going to power the turnouts and make the turnouts on the mainline (the concrete track) DCC-enabled. I was just going to do regular Tortoises, but making them DCC-enabled will allow for correct signal indications down the road.

The module just "east" of these two (towards the bottom of the first picture) will be double track for about 5-6 feet and then merge into a single track. This adds some operational variety, since double track everywhere isn't realistic and makes the dispatcher's life very boring.

I also got my first order of RR-Cirkits products, so I can install detection hardware from the outset instead of trying to retrofit it later. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all works together, even though I'm quite a ways from being able to do a full operating session.

December 10, 2017

I finished up the track work for the eastbound side of modules U5-U6. I ended up foregoing adding the yard lead coming off the siding. The track comes down a cork ramp into the flat Homasote area, and the yard lead would have either needed to be on cork or the train would have been going up and down while switching. We'll see how it works in practice, I can always add it in later. Trains coming down the eastbound main will have headroom to do their switching, which should be minimal, into the interchange yard.

I need to add feeders into the outside two tracks yet, but you can see my "work train" down the outside track. The mainline is isolated and I've already "installed" a RR-Cirkits coil around the feeder wire. When I get the other feeders installed, the second red feeder will pass through the coil to give me detection, and eventually signaling, capabilities.

December 20, 2017

I've gotten two of the industry spurs and the passing siding installed, along with feeders to all those tracks. I've got holes drilled under each of the turnouts in case I want to put in Tortoise drives for the spurs in the back.

For the transition between the mainline and the siding, I had shaved down some cork but ended up replacing it with a wooden shim "ramp" trimmed to fit the space. I like this approach better, since the cork falls apart if you shave too much. 

I also went back and isolated the utility room track for block detection purposes and will have to redo the positive feeder to go through a detection coil. It's a minor change but I think it will be valuable in the future for traffic control in and out of staging. 

December 23, 2017

During my Christmas vacation, I finished up the track on modules U7 and U8, which are just narrow "mainline" sections. Because the track nails wouldn't easily go through the cork and hold in the plywood, I used DAP Alex Plus clear caulk instead and I'm very happy with the results. I drilled a hole under the #8 turnout for an eventual installation of a DCC-enabled turnout motor, and I'm really happy with how smooth the trains roll through this nice wide turnout. I also wired it all up with detection coils that will be connected to the Watchman covering sections U4-U9.

Module U9 will take care of the remaining 7' and curve towards the south wall of the basement. I've also cleared the space under the upper staging yard so that I can reinstall the large L1 and L2 modules there, as I don't really have room to assemble the rest of the modules until I get those out of the way.

Connecting up JMRI

December 13, 2017

With a minimum of effort and cost, my little layout is now connected to JMRI. I picked up an old PC with Windows 7 on it from a company I had done business with. After assigning it a reserved network address, I downloaded and installed JMRI. The JMRI took care of bringing in all the dependencies on Java, no manual intervention required.

The next step was to hook up the LocoBuffer-USB interface between the computer and the layout. Again, the LocoBuffer pulled down its own drivers without any interference in my part.

I fired up JMRI PanelPro and created a new railroad profile with Digitrax and LocoBuffer as my options. I then had a brief issue because I forgot that the WiThrottle server is not the LocoNet server or the JMRI web server. However, one I remembered that, I was able to connect from my phone using the Engine Driver Android app. The reason you need a static IP is so that you always know the address of your JMRI machine.

After that, I had a little fun driving trains with my phone, which seems slightly more responsive than my UT4D throttles. However, that's not surprising given how much better my Wi-Fi is than the Digitrax wireless is.

December 14, 2017

After the initial steps of getting JMRI set up on the old PC, the next step was to try out the Watchman board to see if it could detect trains. I had already done a little work in advance; namely, getting a coil installed with the positive feeder wire running through the middle of it. Because the block is around 12' long, there are actually two positive feeders running through the same coil. I had also set up a block using insulated rail joiners. I'm installing detection on my mainline track, so the sidings are isolated from the main. While some people isolate each turnout from the surrounding track, I've decided to use a simpler approach and combine the turnout with the block. The turnout will eventually have remote control to tell me which way it's facing for signaling purposes when I get that far. 

The next step in getting the Watchman board set up is to connect the SSB Adapter to the LocoNet network. The included power adapter plugs into the wall, and then you run three wires from the terminals to the next terminal on the Watchman board. The center wire is the LocoNet, the other two are power. According to the manual, you don't have to worry about polarity on the power wires; however, I'm planning to replace this temporary SSB wire with black/green/red for simplicity. 

I ran the SSB wires to the Watchman board, plugged them in, and got a green light on both the SSB adapter and the Watchman board. 

The next step was to hook wire from the Watchman to the coil I'd installed. RR-Cirkits recommends CAT 5 twisted pair wire to eliminate extraneous noise that can affect the signal quality. This is just a temporary and ugly solder job, but it was enough to make the connection. Make sure that you don't mix up your wires or you won't get any signal at all. 

The terminals on the Watchman board are labeled "1-4" and "8-5" -- it's not written down, but pair 1 is closest to the power end of the board, and pair 8 is the closest on the other side of the board. 

The next step was to get JMRI set up to listen for the board and to start getting signals. Unfortunately, the PDF version of the Watchman manual is quite a bit different than how JMRI looks now. I did stumble on a page in the RR-Cirkits site that was updated with the more current instructions. That page is available here. One of the most important things to set is the Programming on Main option on the list of decoders. Also, when you're adding a Watchman, you click the New Loco button to get started. Even though it's not a locomotive, you'll find the RR-Cirkits (and many other) products listed there. 

I numbered this device 10001 but will probably go back and renumber it later, which is easy to do with the Decoder Pro program. Once you get past the first setup pages, the manual is somewhat helpful, but I ended up stumbling my way through. With the default settings, I put an engine on the detected track and turned on the Monitor LocoNet under the LocoNet menu. As I turned up the throttle, I could see the various commands going to the locomotive; however, no indications were present that the detector was working. After reading the manual, searching the web, and a few other things, I found the Sensitivity tab and decided to play with it. From no detection at all, I got the detection to see when the train was actually moving. There would be a messages indicating that the detection block was active, but when the throttle went to zero, the detection block went inactive. 

Through trial and error, I found that setting the sensitivity to 80 (scale of 0-255) was sufficient to detect the locomotive entering, leaving, and stopping on the track. This was a 12 foot block with two sets of feeder wires. After that, the sensor would stay "High" when the engine was anywhere in the block. 

The next step was to get this to show up on a control panel. To create a control panel, you have to use the PanelPro application instead of DecoderPro, and you can't have both running at the same time. After playing with the LayoutPro application, I found that all I needed was to create a single control panel with a single block indicator on it. This is how I did it.

1. From the Panels menu, I chose New Panel -> Control Panel Editor.
2. From the Add Items menu, I picked the Item Palette option. 
3. Because I had set up the Watchman already, the item named LS1 was the block I had set up. I renamed this block U5-U6 (the name of the module) and then dragged the icon to the panel. 
4. I then added a small block of track and some text using the item palette, to end up with a very simple control panel, shown here:

After saving this panel, you go to the File menu and choose Close Editor. One note -- clicking on the indicator will cause it to change colors, but once you start running your train, it will flip appropriately.

Once I got all this setup, I could drive my engine in and out of the detected track and see a tiny yellow indicator flip back and forth. It's amazing how exciting seeing a handful of pixels change colors can be when this all works right. 

In case you're wondering, this is what I've purchased so far to make the JMRI interface:

• RR-Cirkits LocoBuffer-USB - $62.43
• RR-Cirkits Watchman - $43.64
• RR-Cirkits 8 coil kit - $13.60
• RR-Cirkits SSB-Adapter - $16.96

The per-block price is basically the cost of the Watchman and the coils, which is roughly $7.15 per detected block. Each Watchman board uses 20 mA of power, so a single SSB adapter power supply will power many of these boards. 

The Digitrax equivalent is the BDL168 (122.95 - Tony's Trains); however, it does not come with the remote coils. You have to run heavy gauge wire from the block back to the BDL168 for the detection to work. It appears they've added the RD2 remote sensing diode, which covers two blocks and costs another $7.65 (Tony's Trains price).  When you do the math, this works out to $11.50 per detected block, not counting the power supply required for the BDL168. 

Team Digital also has a block detection product (DBD22 - 23.95 - 2 blocks) that works with their Signal and Indicator Controller (SIC24e - 66.95 - 8 blocks). This works out to a per-block price of $20.34, not counting the required power supply. 

While I'm not trying to penny-pinch my layout, I do appreciate value pricing. I'm also very happy with the e-mail support I've gotten from RR-Cirkits' owner, Dick Bronson. He's heavily involved with the JMRI community, so I feel pretty confident using these products on my layout. 

Now that I know the detection and all the RR-Cirkits products work with my layout, I can put some of this aside and go back to laying track and installing detection coils as appropriate.  

November 2017 Construction Journal

Because of the design of my basement, the staging yards connect to the rest of the layout by going through my utility room, which has my sump pump, circuit breaker panel, and the basement lift pump. Unlike the rest of the basement, this room is not finished and is more susceptible to temperature and humidity changes.

In order to provide an easy way to turn the staged trains around, I'm putting in a pair of turnouts in order to create a runaround track. The locomotives can back their trains up, run the power around, and then back the train into staging. This assumes that all power is double-headed, the rest of the power may need to run through a reverse loop I'm planning over in the helix.

November 12, 2017

After cutting part of my 3/4" birch plywood into 6" strips, I started working on the benchwork through the utility room. I'm using Tapcons to attach the shelving brackets to the concrete walls, but my first attempt to secure them without using the special Tapcon bits did not go well. I did get a structure designed to fit between the stud wall that provides the left side of the lift out section. In attempting to attach it to the stud wall, it shifted slightly higher and the cork no longer lined up with the Homasote.

In addition, the wood screws I tried to secure the support blocks with stripped out. I'm going to use a different type of screw and redo my work. It was fun to see the trains coming through the wall, though.

The next steps are to trim down the 3/4" plywood between the studs. I'll be assembling the pieces on the bench before attempting to put them up the next time. I'm also going to be adding 1/4" Masonite guards that will also serve as bridge alignment for the pieces going in front of the circuit breaker box.

November 13, 2017

I pulled out the first incarnation of the shelf and the pieces that went between the studs. I was also able to get it lined up so that track coming off the Homasote goes right onto the cork without a major bump in it.

It's a much cleaner appearance now. The new screws with the square head drove much better into the existing wood without stripping out the heads. I also picked up the Tapcon tool set and got the bracket secured into the concrete better. I need to cut the Masonite guard rails for either side of the roadbed before I go any further, though.

November 14-15, 2017

Between yesterday and today, I finished up the upper level benchwork in the utility room. I started by adding the 2.5" Masonite guard rails on either side of the connection to the west wall. The ends of the first piece also act as alignment for the removable section.

The removable section ended up being longer than I had planned, due to the fact that where I chose to drill must have had rebar or some other metal in the concrete. I had to make the removable section 36" instead of 30", which also had an effect on the rest of the roadbed.

I cut the curve, which had an inside radius of 27" and an outside radius of 33". The track radius will be about 28.75" and 31.25", which is a bit smaller than what I had planned but still plenty wide for the large cars I'm running. I also had to add an extra support at the midpoint of the curve to add stability to the long piece.

The final piece was a straight shot to the wall, supported with a "bridge" between the studs.

November 16, 2017

Now that I'm through the utility room phase, the next phase is to build modules down the east wall. I started with U5 and was able to go a bit faster than the first time around. I have two battery powered drills, so I put a drill bit in one and the screw head in the other. The corner jigs work like a champ to get everything lined up squarely:

I also used some large clamps to put the plywood and Homasote on at the same time, which also cut down some effort without any detrimental effect.

I need to finish this module with terminal strips on either end, holes for wires, bus wire installation, and finally the cross pieces to sit on the shelves.

Before putting up the shelving, I cut a small hole to line up with the utility room roadbed. A few measurements later and I had my starting point for the shelves on this side of the room. I'll cut a larger portal when I have the tunnel portals in hand.

The shelves went up much more smoothly this time. I'm now using a 3" drywall screw with a square head on it instead of a Phillips head. This kept the drill from ripping the screw head out and the shelves are lined up almost perfectly, thanks to a laser level.

November 18, 2017

Big construction day today. I got all but one of my upper staging yard throat turnouts installed with their Tortoise drives. They're not powered yet, but will be once I get the appropriate equipment. I laid track around the utility room benchwork, which was made more difficulty by the pipes and the equipment in the floors. However, the cars ran smoothly through the curves, which was one of my big worries.

Putting the track on the removable section was a mixed bag. I'm going to need to find a more reliable way of lining up the rails in this section, as my first attempt caused some derailments on my test runs.

Regardless, I got the track through the utility room connected to my bus wires. I ran the bus wires around the room so that the staging yard can run, regardless of whether the removable section is in place. As I mentioned before, I want to set up an automatic kill system if the section isn't in place, but that will probably come later.

November 19, 2017

I finished the first module by adding the bus wires to the bottom, as well as installing the backdrop. After finishing the utility room track, I opened up the "tunnel" portal to fit the Woodland Scenics dual track portals I purchased. There is a new hole through the end of the module into the utility room to connect up to the bus wires running over to the staging yards, as well.

October 2017 Construction Journal

October 18, 2017

I finally got back to assembling modules to work out a few issues I'd been having. The first was to adjust the size of the top module to make it easier to get into the sump closet. A few quick cuts on the table saw and now that piece is installed.

In my initial attempts at sitting these modules on the shelving brackets, I noticed that the surface of the module was not level. After some experimenting, I found that putting a couple of Masonite shims under the shelving bracket leveled the section up almost perfectly.

I was going to put a strip of material along the crosspiece, but after rethinking it a bit, these small squares of material are more than enough.

I also installed terminal strips on each module. The first module has one at either end. Subsequent modules will only have one strip, with the wires connecting from one module to the next.

These strips have enough terminals to account for multiple pairs of bus wires. At initial thought, there will be a track bus and an accessory bus. I may also add bus wires to connect lighting strips or building lights. Either way, I have enough space for future expansion.

October 21, 2017

The next step I took was to paint the Homasote a neutral earth-brown color. I was just going to paint the constructed modules, but I decided to paint all the Homasote I'd cut. It saves a few bucks on painting supplies (roller cover, paint tray). I would have gone on to the sky blue next, but I was out of space to put the painted pieces.

The paint dried very quickly, so I was able to stack some of the newly painted pieces on top of the pieces I'd painted earlier. Since this surface will be covered in track, roadbed, and other scenery, it's not necessary to have a perfect finish on the pieces, but I did my best. I used a 3/4" nap paint roller for the Homasote, since the Homasote has a somewhat uneven texture. It did a good job of filling in the nooks and crannies of the surfaces.

October 23, 2017

Next, I painted my backdrop. I used 1/4" Masonite (also known as tempered hardboard) because for a backdrop, it was far less flexible than the 1/8" item. The 1/8" should work well for fascias that need to curve, but these backdrops need to stay straight and I'd prefer not to put a bunch of extra lumber on it to reinforce it.

I painted 10 pieces of backdrop. These 10 pieces will last through upper level modules U1 - U3 and U5 - U9, plus the two lower level modules I built first. By the time I was done painting, the first piece was dry and could be attached to module U1.

I cut wire holes through the center of each crosspiece and mounted the module on the shelving brackets. I used some 1/8" Masonite shims to level the module at each shelving bracket. At long last, I have a finalized layout module on the wall.

After getting through this first module, module U2 should go just as easily. U3 will need to be cut to fit the space between the end of U2 and the wall, but I've got all the pieces to build it.

October 24, 2017

I installed module U2 but found that I did a lousy job on the shelving brackets. I ended up reinstalling 3 of them to level them up. After that, the module installed nicely. I leveled it with module U1, bolted it together, and secured the module to the shelving brackets.

After I completed that task, I was able to confirm the measurements for module U3, which goes between U2 and the wall to the sump pump / circuit breaker room. Using the painted backdrop and Homasote from the other day, I built and assembled the module. I used a slightly different support under the bracket due to the short width of the section. I need to adjust the backdrop a bit to line it up with the other section, but otherwise, it's just right for the space.

All in all, I'm happy with the result for the upper level. I've got a few things that I can do next:

• Build the structure in the sump / breaker room and cut tunnels through the wall. The lumber for this is out in the garage, so I'd like to get that done sooner than later since the weather is changing. 
• Run the bus wires in each of the modules. I also need to install terminal blocks in the sump / breaker room to allow the wiring to go around the liftout sections. The wires will eventually terminate near the center of the east wall where the command station will be. 
• Start laying down the staging yard track, starting with the throat closest to the sump / breaker room. I already have the basic design but need to update it to ensure it will fit the space. 

Getting through the sump / breaker room is one of the more difficult things I need to do but after that's done, the rest of the modules on the east wall are ready to be assembled and installed.

October 31. 2017

Over the course of a week, I got the track laid in the upper staging yard, which covers modules U1-U3. Each of the tracks is at least 12' long, but the tracks get longer as you move towards the center of the yard. I started laying the track "horizontally" as seen in the photo below.

I had to keep moving my stool, so after the first few tracks, I started laying the track from the front to the back and it went much faster. While I didn't get the tracks perfectly straight, the slight deviations are only really visible because all the tracks are parallel. Each track is spaced 2" on center from the others, along with a wider space in front for safety reasons.

As I got the track laid down, I was able to determine how the yard throat would be laid out. In addition, I had some extra space towards the end and decided to put a small engine parking area there.

After I got the first few tracks down, I decided I needed to run some trains. Unfortunately, my feeder soldering skills were a bit weak on the first few tracks. However, the power flowed and I got the first trains to run successfully. The rear half of the yard went faster and I got all the pieces cut to finish out the throat.

I also finished up soldering the feeders to the bus wires, and then got the feeders connected to the bus wire using the suitcase connectors. Despite some people's statements to the contrary, I've had no issues with them at all.

The bus wires are wrapped around the terminal strips, but I am going to replace those with spade terminals to make a cleaner connection.

After getting all the wires connected, I was able to start filling the yard up with the fleet, after first rechecking couplers and installing metal wheels. Even though the trains are just going back and forth, it's still more operating layout than I've had in almost 20 years.

Next steps:

• Now that the tracks are cut, I need to drill holes under each of the yard turnouts to accommodate the Tortoise drives. 
• I'll need to set up the accessory bus to power these Tortoise drives and try wiring up one of the turnouts to a local switch. I'll probably experiment with LEDs to show the turnout position, as well. 
• In terms of construction, the next step is to punch through the sump pump / circuit breaker room wall and build the U4 section of track. Quickly thereafter, I'll start on modules U5 and U6 on the east wall.