Superior & Seattle Railroad Build

[bparrish]

John............

Great scenicing.  The rock faces really dwarf the trains.  In most of the world that is the case and you have captured it.

thanx
Bob

[S&S RR]

John............

Great scenicing.  The rock faces really dwarf the trains.  In most of the world that is the case and you have captured it.

thanx
Bob

Thanks Bob - The idea is to have three levels of layout where the train fits into each of them separately as you follow your train or into all three at once when you back away. We will see how it works when I get it detailed.

[S&S RR]

I spent 4 hours today finding a short that popped up when I fired up the tracks in the yard. The 4 banks of switches that I added when I built the main control panels paid for themselves today. I broke the layout up into power districts and blocks and added a switch for each so I could turn each block off for trouble shooting and for turning sound decoder engines off when they were not in use.  Today's problem was that the yard all worked by itself but would short out when I turned on the upper main power district. After 4 hours of turning switches on and off I found a two red wires in the main control panel that were labeled correctly but connected to the wrong connectors. Without the trouble shooting switches I have no idea how long it would have taken to find the problem. If you are just starting to wire your layout add the switches - I'm sure glad I did.
Here is a couple picture of one of the four banks of switches. At this point I have 8 power districts, 8 reversing loops and 120 power blocks.  The control panels are all wired for the planned expansions, I will just have to add another bank of switches for the additional power blocks.

[S&S RR]

I'm going to take the next few days off from the layout and take my nephew up to Michigan's North country for a fishing trip. I need a vacation after hurting my brain tracing all those wires today. When we get back the yard is going to get a workout to test for any track work issues.

[gnatshop]

I'm going to take the next few days off from the layout and take my nephew up to Michigan's North country for a fishing trip. I need a vacation after hurting my brain tracing all those wires today. When we get back the yard is going to get a workout to test for any track work issues.

Glad you planned ahead for them Ledbetter glitches!

But fishin' is a great brain reliever for next steps!!!!   Actually, Mary Sue (my wife) is the one in the family that
loves fishin'!  Although she's one of them 'sit her butt on the bank and watch'er cork' types!

[S&S RR]

I'm going to take the next few days off from the layout and take my nephew up to Michigan's North country for a fishing trip. I need a vacation after hurting my brain tracing all those wires today. When we get back the yard is going to get a workout to test for any track work issues.

Glad you planned ahead for them Ledbetter glitches!

But fishin' is a great brain reliever for next steps!!!!   Actually, Mary Sue (my wife) is the one in the family that
loves fishin'!  Although she's one of them 'sit her butt on the bank and watch'er cork' types!

David (Grand National) Thanks for the pictures for Ledbetter's cave I will use them. Tell your wife I said good luck with her fishing.

Interesting side story - when they were digging the basement for my neighbors house they dug up a big copper coil attached to a beautiful copper tank. It seems there was a time when the Ledbetter's were doing business in Michigan.

[S&S RR]

I'm back from my fishing trip - great trip and I came back with lots of new ideas to implement on the layout.  Today it's back to the track work.

[ACL1504]

Welcome back John! Looking forward to some pictures.

I should have an update on the ovalix this weekend. Gee, so much to do, Cliff Powers, Howard Zane and my own! Where does the time go? And, I'm semi-retired.

Tom

[S&S RR]

Welcome back John! Looking forward to some pictures.

I should have an update on the ovalix this weekend. Gee, so much to do, Cliff Powers, Howard Zane and my own! Where does the time go? And, I'm semi-retired.

Tom

Thanks Tom

I'm putting the finishing touches on the yard track work and hope to post some pictures early next week.

[bparrish]

John............

What ? ? ? ?  I don't want to wait that long.

Instant gratification takes too long...........

see ya
Bob

[S&S RR]

John............

What ? ? ? ?  I don't want to wait that long.

Instant gratification takes too long...........

see ya
Bob

Sorry Bob but you are going to have to wait - need to let the smoke clear before I can take any pictures. After making 100's of soldier joints top side I decided to start making the connections under the layout. Well, to make a long story short the soldiering iron fell in the waste basket when I pulled on the wrong wire.  The smoke alarm alerted me to the problem.  No fire just smoke. The basket was full of cork trimmings so now the layout room smells like burnt cork. We know the smoke alarm works!

[gnatshop]

Sorry Bob but you are going to have to wait - need to let the smoke clear before I can take any pictures. After making 100's of soldier joints top side I decided to start making the connections under the layout. Well, to make a long story short the soldiering iron fell in the waste basket when I pulled on the wrong wire.  The smoke alarm alerted me to the problem.  No fire just smoke. The basket was full of cork trimmings so now the layout room smells like burnt cork. We know the smoke alarm works!

And this if the feller that helped design my favorite GM car!!   

Sorry, John - just had to gig you a little!   

[S&S RR]

Sorry Bob but you are going to have to wait - need to let the smoke clear before I can take any pictures. After making 100's of soldier joints top side I decided to start making the connections under the layout. Well, to make a long story short the soldiering iron fell in the waste basket when I pulled on the wrong wire.  The smoke alarm alerted me to the problem.  No fire just smoke. The basket was full of cork trimmings so now the layout room smells like burnt cork. We know the smoke alarm works!

And this if the feller that helped design my favorite GM car!!   

Sorry, John - just had to gig you a little!   

Learned how to burn tires up on that program.  I think there is a lot of old rubber tires mixed in with the cork we use for roadbed - smells like it.

[S&S RR]

It has been awhile since I posted a progress picture on the roundhouse build.  I have been scratch building the doors which works real well as a sit down for a half an hour job while I'm working on track work. Each of the doors are hand built (18 in total) and will be sanded to size for each of the 9 stalls of the roundhouse. Here is a photograph of the work in progress on my workbench. I whole lot of cutting and gluing but I think it is going to be worth it.

[ACL1504]

John,

Hey, I forgot all about the roundhouse! The doors look great!

Tom