Follow along as I continue the build of my N scale model railroad. In this episode I finish off with the track planning and show you the track I have laid, along with a limitation I have found with the AnyRail track planning software.
LAYOUT UPDATE: DCC drawer complete
I have added a drawer underneath the lower staging yard to hold the Digitrax Command Station (DCS100) and it’s power supply, my RaspberryPi which runs JMRI , the Tam Valley Depot 5A Booster for the accessory power bus and the power strip for the BDL160 & DAC20 power supplies (with spare for others if needed). I got this idea from a few YouTube channels and thought it was a brilliant idea – provides a place for all the DCC equipment as well as making it easily acccessible by using a drawer.
LAYOUT UPDATE: Board 1 of lower staging yard is finished!
It’s official…the wiring for the first lower staging yard board is finished!
LAYOUT UPDATE: Track bus & droppers installed
Well, a few days later than planned, but only a few more droppers to connect to the track bus and all will be ready for testing on the first lower staging board. Both the track buses have been installed (one for the Metra yard, one for the freight yard), connected to a PSX-2 circuit breaker to create two separate power districts in case of shorts on either one, so it doesn’t shut both down. I’ve installed the DAC20 accessory decoder for the Seep switch motors, but still have to install 3 more motors before this installation is complete. All that […]
LAYOUT UPDATE: Track feeders, switch machines, block detection
Very productive Saturday! I’ve started adding the track feeders, switch machines and block detectors to the first staging yard board. So far I have added the feeders for the detected blocks (orange for the Freight yard, and yellow for the Metra yard), installed two Digitrax BDL168 block detectors (one for each yard) as well as a DCC Specialities PSX-2 circuit breaker (1 power district for each yard). As you can see I have used Seep solenoid switch machines – this is purely because I already have these and I have a Signatrak DAC20 accessory decoder already programmed up for these […]
LAYOUT UPDATE: Tracking laying on Board 1 almost finished
2nd evening of track laying, and I’ve almost finished laying the track on the first board of the lower staging yard. All the turnouts are laid, and I just have a few pieces of flex track to lay. I’ll lay these once I have re-installed the board on the wall brackets so that I can run the flex across the board joins, then will cut the track and add aligners on the outmost two tracks. Next step is to install the track feeders, track bus and wire it all up to the two block detectors (Digitrax BDL168’s) and PSX circuit […]
LAYOUT UPDATE: Track laying starts!
I’ve finally started laying track! Tonight I laid almost half the track for the lower freight siding – so almost one of the 6ft boards. Tomorrow I will lay the track for the Metra yard on this board, and then put the two layout boards together so I can run the rest of the track across the join. I will then install the track bus, feeders and block detector, followed by the switch motors and accessory decoders. Once that this all done and tested, I can start the track laying on the second half of the staging yard.
LAYOUT UPDATE: Episode 10 – Building Baseboard Kits
Follow along as I continue the build of my N scale model railroad. In this episode I show you how I put together the baseboard kits I am using. Be sure to view my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/chicagosubnscale as I will be adding photos and updates to that as I build my new layout.
YARD DESIGN: Testing the track spacing
Nothing better than testing the track in 1:1…as I found out, the initial track plan had a flaw, where the throwbar hit the track next to it, so I had to adjust the spacing (adding in 2cm pieces of track) to move the turnouts slightly away from each other. In this photo I am testing the whole yard spacing, making sure the turnouts don’t interfere with each other and the adjoining track. Another good reason is to check where the turnouts are in relation to the module crosspieces, so that switch motors can be installed without having to offset them […]
YARD DESIGN: Planning the staging yard
Planning is progressing well for the lower level staging yard. Using AnyRail, I’ve been trying out a few designs for the two staging yards, one for the freight and one for the Metra passenger service. While using track planning software helps a huge deal, nothing beats laying it out in situ. In fact, doing so showed up a huge flaw in the AnyRail plan I’d done, or rather, the way AnyRail does the turnout drawing (I’ll show you what that was in a future video). In the meantime, I printed out the adjusted track plan and overlaid it on the […]