Clearwater Valley Railway Co.

[Philip]

Now your cooking adding some real depth to that scene!

[Mark Dalrymple]

Looking great, Ron.

Cheers, Mark.

[Larry C]

Dang Ron, the backdrop looks awesome and I especially like the pink ground.Lol.

[elwoodblues]

Thanks for the kind comments about the backdrop Jeff, Philip, Mark and Larry, I'm very happy everyone like it.

Larry, the pink ground is called "Pinkolium" a substance that is used in the manufacture of a board that is used as a base for railroads.  This item also has a very good insulation properties that is used for building insulation. 

[Philip]

Larry... pinkolium also shows up when a layout building or feature is moved. Devilish stuff and it should be black!

  

[Jerry]

Very nice Ron.

And a nice storage shelf.

Jerry

[elwoodblues]

Very nice Ron.

And a nice storage shelf.

Jerry

Thanks Jerry.

[elwoodblues]

The Cost of Deferred Maintenance.

How is that for a catchy update title. 

When I finished the last project I was on in Florida last year I decided that I was done working on the road, I have done it long enough and I wasn't getting the same satisfaction I was getting from earlier projects.  After checking, the last time I really worked on the layout was 2013.  Thinking back, I was probably home maybe 12 to 15 months total during that time.  Unfortunately, during that time the layout room slowly turned into what I can politely call a storage room with "stuff" all over the layout and floor.

Since I have been home, I've avoided the train room like the plague.  Instead of dealing with it, I started building the west end staging yard in an adjacent room, built a small fleet of boxcars and taking part in the winter challenge.  I am getting to the point where I need to tie in the staging yard to the main layout and I needed to finally address the issue.

Since the challenge I have slowly cleaned out the layout room, and clearing off the layout.  The hard part was finding permanent homes for everything and quite frankly a lot of the stuff ended up in the trash, but now everything has a home.

Now the fun begins . . . . 

The first step was vacuum the layout, I think the spiders thought they had a permanent home when the eviction notice went out.   The vacuuming took an evening.  The next step was firing up the DCC system.  When I flipped the switch it instantly registered a short.  Fortunately the layout has been divided into 3 districts (the 4th district will be the west end staging yard) which makes localizing the area of the short easier.  The short was found at the crossing in Mosquito Flats.  It seems the 2" thick foam base had sagged a little and closed on of the gaps.  Not sure if just sagged over time of if the weight of the "stuff" on the layout at the location caused the sag.    Probably a little of both.  This was easily solved by adding a support under the foam base to eliminate the sag.

Now that the short was eliminated I tested the manual turnouts to make sure that all still work.  My manual turnouts on the layout are controlled by Bullfrog Switch Machines made by Fast Tracks.  There are mounted on a 1" x 2" x 1/4" wood base which is glued to the foam using 5-minute epoxy.  As one would expect they all worked flawlessly except for one of them.  The one that didn't work was sticking and I apparently used a little too much force and literally ripped it off the layout.  The good news is that the 5-minute epoxy didn't fail.  The bad news is there is now a divot in the foam board where the switch machine base was.

After looking at the Bullfrog switch machine, it contained "structural damage".  Rather than repair it, I decided to replace it.  I still have a bunch of them as the original plan was to add them to all the turnouts on the layout.  That plan has changed since I started playing with servos and more recently, planetary stepper motors.   I reused the same base plate to mount the new switch machine to the layout.  I installed the new switch machine last night using 5-minute epoxy.
Hopefully the last step will be cleaning the track and then I can run trains again. 

Thanks for looking in.

[deemery]

Ron, how did that switch machine fail?  A piece of plastic broke?  General disintegration of the plastic?  

dave

[Mark Dalrymple]

Well done Ron, on cleaning out the room and all that organising/ sorting.  A huge job, I am sure, and one I need to tackle.  My problem is the inability to throw things out!  I hope the motivation and enjoyment comes back tenfold!

Cheers, Mark.

[elwoodblues]

Ron, how did that switch machine fail?  A piece of plastic broke?  General disintegration of the plastic? 

dave

Dave,

The Bullfrog Switch Machine is made from wood that you get to assemble.



The assembly holding the throw rod de-laminated.  I assembled a new one to replace it.  I did manage to glue the original one back together, so I have an assembled spare for future use.

[elwoodblues]

Well done Ron, on cleaning out the room and all that organising/ sorting.  A huge job, I am sure, and one I need to tackle.  My problem is the inability to throw things out!  I hope the motivation and enjoyment comes back tenfold!

Cheers, Mark.

Mark, it was a huge job and discouraging one when I started the process.  It was well worth it in the end.