Progress update…!

August 5th, 2009

Right, it’s about time I did another update! Unfortunately the day job has been getting in the way…but I’ve slowly been making progress on the new addition…Caron Street.

Caron Street

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

ADM 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!

Work started on industrial switching modules

January 14th, 2009

I have started work on the two industrial switching modules. These I took over from my friend Jim who has moved over to San Francisco. Luckily for me, he did all the tracklaying before he left, so I just need to make final adjustments and do the wiring. I also have to install the point motors. Hopefully I will be able to use Tortoise motors, but I will have to see how much space I have to fit these in, as some of the points are quite close together.  Amazingly, there are 16 points on these two boards!!

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

Industrial switching

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!