I’ve been doing wiring troubleshooting, and can happily say board 1 of Caron Street has passed the first test! ie. no shorts! Now time to wire up the BDL168 block detector…I’ll be testing board 2 early next week, then will run wires across from that board to the BDL168 on board 1.

The first building has been completed, now just waiting for painting and weathering – the Walthers ADM Grain Elevator

I’m still deciding what branding to give it…Cargill is the leader at the moment…I’m busy working on the Oil Dealer kit, then will be tackling the Lumber yard. I’m hoping to have another update early next week…I had better get a move on, as this all needs to be finished by 19th September! Tick tock!!

I’ll be taking the existing boards down to my club, the Seaboard Southern group, in Crawley, so that our members can have a layout to run N scale stock on, and also so that I can have it up to work on, as I need to re-lay two points and do some weathering. At the moment I don’t have space at home to have that part of the layout up at the same time as I am working on Caron Street – I need a bigger house!! It will also give our members a chance to get used to running a DCC and computer-controlled layout…

Right, need to crack on! Look out for another update next week!

This is the current state of the underside of Board C. This is just to show you the wiring and Tortoise motors at the moment…this will look dramatically different next week! I have worked out how many detection blocks I need and also that I need two DAC10′s to control the points. I will be getting these in the next few weeks. In the meantime I will get all the wiring ready, soldered to the tag strips and all the Tortoise motors wired up ready to hook up to the DAC10′s.

This is a composite view of the two industrial switching modules – click on the photo for a closer view:

There are going to be four industries on these boards: A grain elevator, an oil depot & merchant, a lumber yard and a factory. Finally I will have a use for the many freight cars I have!

Time permitting, I am hoping to get most of the wiring done by the end of next week. I will then have to wait a bit to get hold of the block detectors and point controllers, as well as extra point motors. Once I have those I will be able to get the installation all done about two weeks after that.

I can then get started on my favourite bit…the scenery!

I’ve finished all the final wiring to the block detection and tortoise motors, and have tested it all using Railroad & Co – it works nicely, allowing you to follow the trains around the layout on the screen and also allows me to set up basic automation, which I will do for the show. I will set up a basic demo to show everyone how it all works and what is possible using DCC and computers.

All the boards are now up and connected, and I have been running trains checking all the joints and block detection. So far only 3 joints needed adjusting, so far so good! There are two places still causing a slight problem with some rolling stock, but I think that is more to do with the rolling stock than anything drastic, so will make sure I test all the rolling stock before approving it for show running.

Now on to the final bits of scenery. I picked up more supplies from Model Junction on Friday, so now have everything needed to complete the scenery. I hope to have all completed by end of Wednesday, allowing me a final sprucing up and then a final run through to make sure everything works.

Another update tomorrow or sometime on Wednesday.

Just a reminder that Rochelle Intermodal will be making its debut at the NMRA BR’s Winter Meet at Benson this Saturday (10th Jan) – more details here > http://www.nmrabr.org.uk/meets.asp – looking forward to seeing you all there!

This view shows the newly installed fencing at the yard track entrance, showing the fencing and the gates:

This view shows the loco shed with some of the weathering and another view of the fencing & gates:

I have also added the Mi-Jack lanes on the second intermodal board, and will be installing the fencing on this board later today.

Here is a shot of one of the Mi-Jacks and the newly added lanes:

I have started with the trees for the farm scene- this I will finish off on the weekend as I need to pick up some supplies from Model Junction as I ran out of scenery cement and realised I need a few more highway overpasses to finish off the farm scene, plus as usual I ran out of white paint, needed to paint the windows of my barn!! Plus I am short of 4 yard lights!! Note to self…next time OVER-ESTIMATE supplies needed! Extras can always be used at a later stage or sold on Ebay…

Last night I put together a list of things still to do on the layout, and realised I had completely forgotten about wiring the tortoise motors to the DAC10 point controller! Doh! I also still need to add the two block detectors to the end boards…

On Monday I will be putting the whole layout together (one of the intermodal boards is out to give access to the garden!), clean the track and give it a run to make sure it all still works…! My task then will be to add the layout plan to Railroad & Co. and to set up a display panel to check that all the point motors and block detection work as expected and to set up a basic automation plan for the show.

Right, time for a cup of hot coffee (it is freezing out in the conservatory!) and then on with the work!