The B&B Gang arrives!

This seems to have taken years for them to get here, it's been 8 years come to think of it?

When I first laid out the tracks between El Dorado and Calion, AR I wasn't really sure what I wanted other than a bridge scene.  So I laid the tracks straight hoping some idea would come along.

A couple of the crew remarked that I shouldn't have the tracks parallel the benchwork and suggested a slight curve in the main to break things up a bit, sounded good to me.  So what I'm planning is to have the main line curve towards the backdrop at a slight angle as it comes out of the yard in one continuous curve. It'll straighten up and cross the bridge and swing back towards the existing "MQ" siding at Calion.

The second track between the main and the backdrop is the drill track for El Dorado.  Which in my books is an old branch line that has been abandoned but is now used for the drill track.  The bridge was left in and is used for the drill tracks if needed when making longer cuts.  There's no real reason to have left it in other than I wanted it in the scene (see rule #1).

The drill track will follow the curve of the main being just a bit sharper so it doesn't cross the river at the same angle.

I plan to install this Central Valley bridge on the drill track and add at least one or two of the Micro Engineering deck bridges to lengthen the span.

For the main, the plan is to use three of the Micro Engineering deck bridges for a 240' span across the Ouachita River.

Tonight I got started on the first of the three deck bridges!

It's been years since I've built one of these, I hope I remember how to do it? 

Slight adjustments at DuBach

After staring at the trackage in Dubach, something just wasn't rubbing me right.  

The rule of thumb is to keep as many turnouts off the main as possible, right? With this plan I had two RH turnouts coming off the main.

I drew up several plans the other night and tried to make something look and sound plausible.  Here is how the tracks changed in Dubach.  The top plan was the original.  

  

The back story so far......The feed mill originally had two tracks in it's heyday.  As business dwindled, the second track never got used.

Several years ago ARKLA came to town and set up shop just outside of town. Instead of adding a new turnout for ARKLA from the main, the RR decided to refurbish and extend the second siding at the mill.

So I set to work tonight to see what I could come up with?

Above is what I started with and here's what I ended up with.... looking North.

And looking South.

Now to get it wired and I'll be off to work on the river scene between Calion and El Dorado next.

Ruston Re-visited......again (sigh)

Ever had one of those times where the harder you try, it just gets harder?

I took another look at Ruston again tonight and just decided to try a LH instead of the RH turnout. Well it snapped into place (I had to snip a bit off the rails) and then I just drug the three tracks closer to the fascia and viola!  everything lined up.

The tangent behind the turnout is straight enough to uncouple easily.

Time to move onto the next project...

Ruston Re-visited

Well the track gang foreman got the pink slip today!

Quin came over for lunch today and took a look at the new trackwork.  After a few minutes of discussion it was decided to modify the tracks at Ruston in a way that was very close to what Greg B. told me to do the other night.  I should have listened to him, but I didn't have a large RH turnout in my stash.  After lunch we picked up a large RU turnout.

I removed all the mainline track from the South turnout at DuBach to just past the diamond at Ruston. Then I pulled up the junction track.  Quin had the idea that if I curved the ICG track further to the South of where the old 45° diamond was and installed a new 60° diamond that it would give the illusion that the ICG was heading off in a Southerly direction away from Dubach if you looked at the whole picture.

So I pulled out the rail nips and cut the mainline a few inches South of the old diamond and began to gently curve the mainline back towards the backdrop.  I did the same with the junction track.  This moved the junction turnout about  3" closer to the backdrop and gave me a much broader curve leading into DuBach. 

The only thing that kind of bugs me is the track takes a sharper curve through the turnout as it takes the diverging leg.  But if you look at the overall area it does have a much better flow through Ruston than it did in the original plan or the more recent arrangement.

Thanks for the input guys!

The original design

The recent design

The latest design

In this shot you can see how far I moved the new 60° diamond South, look at the two black marks just above the new diamond and after the track splice.

Another thing it did was to give me a much broader curve between Dubach and the junction turnout.

Looking at the black marks, you can see where the old main was located at.

Now I just need to re-drop the feeders and file the track joints and I can move the next section.

Track gangs arrive in Ruston and DuBach

Back in the early Spring when I was talking with a one of the crews in El Dorado, they mentioned there may be some trackwork scheduled for Ruston and DuBach, but wasn't for sure where or when.

Long about late September while heading to Winnfield to get my tires changed on the Ol truck, I noticed a bunch of track equipment sitting on one of the junction tracks at Ruston. Evidently they were planning to get started before winter set in?

This past weekend I decided to head back south and see what if anything had changed at Ruston.  Sure enough, they'd been busy!  They had removed both tracks at the junction and replaced them with a single track.  They also re-aligned it and got rid of that kink coming off the ICG.  I was always amazed that nothing ever jumped the track at that point!  I'm sure the crews will be a bit more relaxed when switching Ruston now?

After seeing all this I wondered what if anything had been done in DuBach?   Upon arriving I was shocked at the amount trackwork that had been done there as well! They had lengthened the sidings on the south end!  But the real shocker was, they reinstalled the old spur that had been ripped out years ago when the old feed mill closed down due to a fire?

But now it looks as if someone had bought the old feed mill with plans to reopen it?  Awesome, that means a little more switching action in DuBach!  I might have to hang out down here a little more often?


*****


It's been so long since I've done any track work I had to stop and think about which tools I needed and more importantly, where they were.

I figured I'd start with the easiest project, and that was Ruston.   When I first laid the tracks there in Ruston my plans were to have the ICG drop off cars to be picked up by the Rock and visa versa.  It worked good and it also served another purpose.  It was a simple switch job where any newbie could get their feet wet with operations without feeling overwhelmed.  There were several of my crews who were a little apprehensive about taking the throttle of one of the work trains but readily tried their hands with this.

But as time went on and everybody got the hang of it, it became kind of mundane. Then one day I ran across this video that DJ of (DJtrains) posted on Youtube

Well I applied that to Ruston and came up with this.

This worked great and everyone gave it a thumbs up.
Well that has been 4 sessions ago and during those sessions it was decided that Ruston didn't need two sidings anymore. After several conversations I decided to finally Ruston Jct. to the "To-Do" list. 

The options I toyed with was to leave the two sidings in place and park Maintenance equipment there, leave one in place but have the rails ripped up and leave the ties or rip it out and relay it with a single track, I chose the latter. 
Here's the before and after's.

It's fairly long for a junction track, but we also use it for a temporary storage. Once the Winnfield Turn is done at Ruston, the ICG pulls the cars onto the siding where they will sit until the Turn comes back from Winnfield.  Winnfield has a very small siding so leaving the cars at Ruston is a good option.

  
With Ruston done for now, it was time to move into DuBach.
DuBach only has three industries, but it has turned out to be one of the more complex towns to switch.  Most of the crews who have switched DuBach have said there never seems to be enough room.  Much like Ruston, we have figured out that since Winnfield has a very short siding, it's easier to switch out the cars in Dubach and then leave the empties on the siding to be picked up when the Winnfield Turn comes back through town heading back to El Dorado.

To make things even more interesting, the Turn needs to switch out ARKLA Dist. on the return trip as it's now a trailing point turnout.  So as one can see, DuBach can be a head scratcher to work.

To compensate for the lack of space, after the first few sessions, I added a small double ended siding next to the backdrop to help alleviate the lack of space.  It helped, but at times there was still a lack of space.  Here it was giving Coy a tough time a few weeks ago.

What I came up with was to extend the two sidings to just past past the RH turnout that leads into ARKLA Dist.  This added almost two feet of storage.

I also decided to add another industry in DuBach.  This track will serve the refurbished feed mill.  LOL, this will probably just add to the issue I tried to solve. 

All I need to do now is to the re-connect the feeder wires and adjust the alignment a bit and finish the siding.

Next on the hit list is The bridge scene between Calion and El Dorado, Fordyce and finally Winnfield.

Out with the old, in with the new pt 2

Tonight I got the second set of PSX boards and the AR board installed for the Staging yard.  Turns out I bought one too many PSX boards, Oh well I have spare now or I'll use it for the engine terminal as I got thinking that I wired it in with either the Reverse Loop or one of the yard due to the way I used the PM42 outputs?

Basically they're working as they should with a few exceptions.  Somehow I must have the Reverse Loop wired into the Front yard somehow.  When I trip the Reverse Loop circuit breaker, the circuit breaker for the front yard trips as well?  I probably crossed a set of feeders.

Gonna have to get my jungle gear on and delve into the wired jungle of the yard to see if I can figure out what's up.

The second thing that I can't figure out is some of the buzzers are singing continually even with no short occurring?

The third thing I found is the buzzers ARE working properly, but they are just too high pitched for me to hear unless I'm right on top of them.  DCC Specialties did say there is another buzzer that is 17 dBs louder and has a lower pitch, but not by much.  Also the other buzzer is 30mm in diameter which should fit, but it will be close.  But I know it will not fit on the AR.

Not sure I'll try them or not?  So I will probably go ahead and add the LED's for a visual notification if there is a short.  Just need to find some that will work the way I want to use them.  

Out with the old, in with the new

Moving right along, tonight I got started on replacing my old PM42 for the main section of the layout.  Earlier this year I received my DCC Specialties PSX Circuit Breakers and my one PSX-AR.

When I wired my layout I used a PM42 and one older PM4 as it was already wired up.  Since then I learned about the PSX Circuit Breakers and decided to acquire some.  As of now the PM's are working good with no issues.  

One thing I found out about the PM's that I did not like was, once installed the Command Station didn't see the shorts and never made the audible noise when a short occurred.  The PM's did not make any kind of noise other than the quite "Clicking" when a short occurred and with my hearing not being the best, if there was other noise around, like others talking or chatting, I wouldn't hear the "Clicking".  

On several occasions when others were over, they would stop and listen, then ask "What is that "Clicking" noise?"  At that point I'd holler out "We have a short somewhere!"    

When I was looking into these PSX units I read that they could have a buzzer installed on them!

I later found out from a fellow modeler that the buzzers are good and loud and actually turn into a Warble if the short persists too long.  I'm looking forward to hearing these!

The first PSX 4 ready to go!

I unhooked all the wires from the PM42 and marked them with tape.  I removed it and installed the new board with the PSX4 and reattached the wires and threw the power on.
Viola!  Back in business!

Upon testing them, I was a little disappointed.  The loud buzzer seems to be a very, very high pitch whine and it harder for me to hear than the soft clicking of the PM's.  Maybe I should wire in a Klaxon?

Also the bottom buzzer (the blue disks) is sounding all the time even without a short present?  Gonna have to look into this deeper and see if there is something that needs adjusting or re-programmed?  Other than that, the Quarter test trips the breakers and they seem to work.  I plan to do some further testing with the RRampmeter.


Next will be PSX3 and PSX-AR for the yard...   

Updates for the Wheel Report and Car Tabs

Quin and I ran another abbreviated session today (10/22/2016) and I and I'm happy to report that everything worked as expected. YAY!

Issues we were having (this may get kind of convoluted, sorry) were several and some of them were compounded as well.

The first problem was a simple fix. I have my Wheel Report designed on Excel. Shortly after getting it running, Steven from The Rock Island: Ottawa Sands, told me that he could get it to automatically generate a session randomly when you hit the F9 key. He did this and it's been super nice, but it has one drawback.  Anytime you make a change and save it, it also recalculates the session!   I did find a way that you can turn this off.  But even so, I have had to redo a session before as halfway through, something changed.

Which is exactly what happened last week while running session #12 but I didn't catch it in time and halfway through the session Doug called out to me saying something was awry!  He had too many cars and others were missing while he was building the Haskell Turn.  So after the session was over I compared the sheets that I had printed off and sure enough.  One thing I found was Dixie Woods was asking for an All Door Boxcar and there wasn't any to be found.

What I came up with was to generate a session, then right away save the entire workbook as a PDF, all 18 pages.  Once it's saved I can go back and print off just the 2 sheets that I need to stage the layout and the 2 sheets that the El Dorado crew uses to block the 3 Turns with.  Plus now that I have it saved, I can go back and compare notes if anything went wrong.  I can also reuse any of the saved session at any point if needed instead of regenerating new session.

The next issue was kind of a hidden one and was hard to place a finger on until Quin started playing the Wheel Report one night.  The sessions that we have are single sessions and when they are run, they are done.  They are NOT consecutive. At the end of each session the cars that were picked up are left in El Dorado to be picked up and returned to the main yard during the next session by the 4 manifests.

The 4 manifests that feed El Dorado leave the staging with 2-3 locos, 18 cars and a waycar.  Depending on the amount of cars that were picked up from the previous session, the manifests may grow beyond their 18 car limit.  We've had some that topped out at 28 cars.  Now these manifests do not fit in MQ and DuBach siding with 18 cars so the length doesn't really matter that much.  But it can and does cause a small problem in El Dorado at the start of each session.  El Dorado only has four tracks and it can get kind of crowded at times.  But being crowded or having too many outbound cars isn't the whole problem.  To complicate matters, there are captive service cars that never return to the main staging yard, instead they would sit in El Dorado in a track that we first called the "Pool Track".  Some of these cars would have a day delay because they didn't get picked up and returned to El Dorado in time to be placed on the W&OV's Razorback train.  So they would have to sit in the "Pool Track" until the next session where we would pull from them when the Razorback came to El Dorado to swap the cars for that session.

The problem was the amount of Pool Track Cars would at sometimes be enough that it would fill 1 of the 4 tracks. At times we had to use the lead that will eventually run up the hill to El Dorado Proper as another yard track. This will become a problem after I get the El Dorado proper built because there will be an incline to this track of about 3%.  This means the cars won't stay put and will roll back down.

Yes I know 3% is steep, but it's going to be nothing more than an industrial track so there should be no more than 4 cars going up at any one given time, so it shouldn't be a problem?

What Quin came up with was to do away with the Pool Track and Pool Cars. Basically we restaged the yard at El Dorado on this test session.  Otherwise what we were doing was running a single session on the layout but consecutive sessions for El Dorado. It's kind of a step backwards but it worked. 

The original Wheel Report that Jim Hediger used on his Ohio Southern worked like this: When a local left the yard it had a limit on its length so it would fit in all his sidings.  As the local worked it's run, it would pick up the same amount of cars that it dropped off at each industry, thus the length remained the same.

What we did was to place the exact number of cars that would be picked up or delivered in this session in El Dorado yard.  If the first NB manifest was to drop off 3 cars, then we placed 3 cars in the yard and marked them with white NB tabs.  If the next SB would drop off 6 cars, then we set 6 cars in the yard and marked them with white SB tabs.  We did this for all 4 manifests.  Likewise, whatever cars that would have been pulled from the Pool Track, we place enough cars in El Dorado to cover those needed for this session and placed the proper colored industry tabs on those as well.

Now how this played out was good, the 4 manifests came to and left El Dorado with 18 cars.  Before each of them arrived I grabbed that exact number of NB or SB cars from the yard tracks and placed them on one of the A/D tracks.  I knew before they arrived how many cars were needed as I could look on the Yardmaster list that we used to stage the 4 manifests with.

One thing I should remind you of, we have four manifests, the first two run near the beginning of the session and bring cars to El Dorado that are needed for the Winnfield Turn and W&OV's Razorback.  One NB and one SB.  The second 2 manifests run about halfway through the session and do the same thing for cars needed for the Haskell Turn and El Dorado Trick.  Knowing how many cars are being dropped off from the 4 manifests can be seen on the Yardmasters list.

As for the changes to the tabs, this was simple.  We decided that ANY cars that were called for pick up would receive a White tab marked with "EDY" (El Dorado yard).  By doing this, El Dorado Yard became and industry.  During the restaging of this session, those "EDY" tabs in El Dorado yard were replaced by either a White NB or SB tabs for the cars being picked up by the manifest and the old "Pool Track" cars would receive a Blue or Yellow tab so they could be picked out of the yard easily when the El Dorado crew was building either the W&OV's Razorback (Yellow tabs) or the Winnfield Turn (Blue tabs)

Another thing we're going to do will be to leave the colored tabs on the cars that are delivered to their respective industries.  This will do 2 things, one it will help mark the industries (as some of them do not have any buildings in place yet) and two, it will show for sure that those cars will not get picked up. 

Now that this has been done and I have a better plan, I'll need to make a up a bunch more tabs.  I can add this to the "To Do" list I already have planned for this winter.

But the first thing on the "To Do" list will be to get the new circuit breakers installed and replace the aging PM42's, so stay tuned...