PSX circuit breakers installed and working!

After having some issues with the PSC circuit breakers a few months ago, I was finally able to get them tested, installed and working.

Out with the old, in with the new pt2

My DCC and Electronic Guru was in town this past week and we got together one day a took a long hard look at them.

Of course when you take your car to the mechanic, it never acts up!  Likewise with the circuit breakers they didn't act up at all now that he was looking at them.  The issue if you recall was after I installed the new Buzzers on the breakers so I could hear them, some of the buzzers were buzzing whether they were shorted or not?

I pulled them off the layout and tied them directly into the Command Station to see how they reacted. Well by doing this they would still buzz regardless of a short or not. So I left them out until Mike got back.

When I tested them for him again, non of them buzzed.....damnit!

So we hooked them back into the layout, these were for the Main Yard.  Upon a successful reconnection, we turned the track power on again and they showed no sign of buzzing!  But, we did hear buzzing coming from the 4 units for the main layout!  Closer inspection revealed two were buzzing and showing a short.

Long story short, they weren't lying!  When I installed the deck bridge I never installed any insulated joiners to separate the "El Dorado" and "North" districts as I wasn't done with the trackwork and bridge sections.  I also need to go back and drop new feeders.

Thinking that they were both protecting both districts, I removed the rail joiners on the right end of the deck bridge.  But that had no effect!  I scratched my head a bit more and then it hit me.  I still had some original feeders leading up to the deck bridge and to the right of those is where I removed the joiners, so the power was still getting to the track over the bridge and on to the "North" district. 

But the real culprit wasn't the feeders, it the guardrails on the deck bridge!!!

on one end.  I had temporarily tacked the guardrails in place so trains could run and the trip pins on the couplers didn't snag the ends of the guardrails.  I knew not to connect them because they would short since I soldered them to the bridge track with PCB ties which connected them to the actual rails.

When I released the guardrails, the short went away!

After wasting all that time tracing that down, Mike and got to work programming the PSX units.

it wasn't the easiest of instructions to follow, but Mike got it and away we went.

Each PSX unit has it's own ID number that can be accessed via the DT402 using the "SWCH" button. This allows me to also program the "Variable Trip Voltage" and also to shut each unit off independently if needed. 

We got the four units programmed for the main layout, but need to program the Trip Voltage yet, then I need to get the other two units and the PSX-AR programmed for the main yard.  I better get back down there and get that done before I forget how we did that......

Even though I still can't hear them as well as hoped for, I'm going to look into getting some LED's for both sets so that I can connect them for  a visual notice of a short.

Bridges installed! Well temporarily at least...

Moving right along.....
Thanks to the long weekends and short work weeks due to this holiday season, I pushed myself to get the scene this far along.  Not sure how much more I'll get done to this area?  Planning to have an ops session the middle of Feb so I don't want it to be torn up for that.

After getting a location laid out for the Truss bridge I started removing the remaining ceiling tile and foam for the river area.  I had to re-align the drill track slightly to line up with the bridge.  

One thing I didn't put much thought into was the differences in the length of the two bridges and the close proximity to each other.  This kind of messed with the shape of the river as I had envisioned it to be a fairly evenly wide body of water running through the scene.  I gave thought of adding a 40' deck bridge to the Truss bridge but since I already had the guardrails installed and bent I didn't want to mess that up.  

This would have given a more even width of the river, but a little head scratching told me to keep the river not much wider than the Truss bridge and when it passes under the Deck bridge to keep it under the middle and right 80' span.  The area under the leftmost span will be more of a raised sandy area, but still mostly covered in trees.  So I think it should still work just fine?

I do believe the river to be a slow running, muddy river that is tree lined on both sides right down to the river banks, so there shouldn't much work involved making the banks?

A short while later I heard the distant rumble of something heading south.  Within a few minutes GP7 #4434 was leading the SB LRMP-W over the Deck bridge.  

While I was getting the shot setup, I noticed another GP in the background,  the El Dorado Switcher (an ex-drgw GP7) was dragging what must be a very long cut of cars onto the Truss bridge while working the yard in El Dorado!  After grabbing the first shot, I ran like hell from one end of the overpass (yet to be installed) to the other in order to get these two shots!

Here's a couple of other shots for fun.

With the bridges (temporarily) installed, I can now focus my attention on the next town north, Fordyce!

My overall plan at the moment is to get all the track work redone before starting any major scenery.  As of now I still have 4 major areas left to work on: Fordyce, Haskell (two jobs in Haskell), a small section in Winnfield and then the big one, I need to install a raised section in El Dorado on which to build the town of El Dorado proper which will be elevated about 3" above the yard. 

At the rate I'm moving now I'm hoping to have most of this done by late spring or early summer...

  

First train over the new Deck bridge

My B&B gang hustled to get the new Deck bridge pressed into service before the New Year.  I had to pay them double time, but they got it done.

The bridge, abutments and piers are just temporarily installed. I still have a lot of work to do it before I can stick a fork in it and call it done. I plan to leave things just as they are until I get the second bridge in place and leave them loose so I can remove them when I get started on the scenery.

Bridge Piers and Abutments

Happy New Year!

As with the color of the bridge, I wasn't sure what I wanted to use for the bridge piers?

I had several of the Chooch cut stone piers and abutments that I'd been saving for these bridges, but when it came time to use them I found it was going to be a bit difficult to get them to work.  The main problem was the offset of the ledge and trying to line them up so the track was level.

I was told to make and use concrete versions, this would be easier since I could "make" them fit the bridges.  So I sat about looking for some samples to go off of.  I found one of a Z scale abutment which I thought look very nice and it gave me a starting point.  It also gave me some ideas.

After a few quick measurements, I grabbed the bridges and ran over to my shop.  Once there I scrounged up some scraps of 1/4" and  3/4" MDF.   Within a few minutes I had a simple design for the Truss bridge sketched out,  A couple of quick cuts on the saw and I had the pieces ready to glue together.

A few minutes later I had the abutments and piers ready for the Deck bridge.

Then I set them up so I could test the fit of the bridges.

The next thing was to paint them but before I did I wanted to add a little character to the Truss bridge abutments.  I added a small section of .040" styrene just to give it a bit of relief.  It kind of reminds of a simplified Art Deco look.  Once it was dry I took my #11 Exacto blade and started chipping away at the MDF in hopes of giving the looks of chipped and worn cement.

Next I was going to sealed the MDF with some yellow carpenters glue but my bottle had dried up. Looking around, the first thing I found was the bottle of Modge Podge I used for the lake in Malvern.

I smeared some on and let it dry.  Instead of sanding them smooth, I let them stay rough in hopes of giving them a rough concrete texture.  Then I found a bottle of light gray paint, the cheap acrylic stuff.

This looked to be a little too light but I planned on covering them with a black wash and finally some weathering powders.  So starting out lighter is better.  

I used a black wash made from Lamp Black artist oil thinned with Mineral spirits. After the wash had dried I started to brush on some Bragdon "Ol Yeller" powder to tone down the gray.  Next I grabbed three colors of Pan Pastels to simulate the rust and dirt.  I started out with the lighter color first brushing it on in a wider pattern, as I grabbed the next darker color I narrowed the pattern with s smaller brush.  When applying the darkest of the colors I used the largest of the Micro Brushes so I could make the darkest part of the rust stains as narrow as I could get them.

I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out.  They may not be perfect but once I get them sat into place and get some scenery around them and water done, I'm hoping they blend into the scene.