2020 Post during Covid-19 & Railroad Update

Hello,

I hope you and your family have been and are safe!

As probably with you, this has been a very trying time for me.  We've been on lockdown since about mid-March and while you'd think there is so much time to work on the railroad, that certainly hasn't been the case.  I'm a workaholic and I feel the need to always be working and yet, all the work I've been doing to stay in business is without pay.  Long story short, it took me about 3 weeks to get my bearings and create a new schedule (I'm a big planner and time blocker) and then work to have the rest of the world fit into that schedule.  It's still difficult but I've made daily progress.  Financially, we'll see what happens in the future.  I've sold lots of trains, furniture, and miscellaneous at the house, taken on a roommate, moved my office to my house and sold much of the office furniture, and have cut business expenses dramatically.  I think we're ready to get back to work in a much leaner, meaner version!

And for the railroad...Since I have not been able to mentally put my mind around doing much work on it, despite much prodding from friends, I finally was able to make a major accomplishment this past weekend by installing the 5 phones needed for operations.  I had to pull all the shit out from the railroad (sold and trashed some but not enough) and string telephone cable all around both railroad rooms.  All that is left to do is to install the dispatcher phone at the dispatcher desk in another part of the house.  Now there is a phone in each isle, one at the door between the layout rooms, and one in the Traffic Center...and YES, they work!  It will be really nice to operate without the headsets and FRS radios so many of the crew don't like to use.  Here are a few pix and please ignore the mess!  Thank you tremendously to Joel Morse for taking countless hours working with the manufacturer of the phone system on getting it to work and for creating the bases the phones are attached to.

Phone added at the door between the two train rooms.

Phone located in the Traffic Center.

Fresno phone that will also serve Mojave, Monolith and Kingsburg.

One of two control panels.  This one connects all the
phones together and allows them to talk to each other.
The other panel will be at the DM desk.

Bakersfield YM phone located behind the operators to keep it out of their way.  This is one of two with a light and beeper so the DS can call the YM.

Moving forward from there, today I was able to secure some time off of work (the calls and follow-up needed to keep us in business moving forward), for Thursday-Sunday from my employee as he will cover me so I can take a much needed vacation.  I think it's been a year or so since I had a vacation!  During my vacation, now a stacation, I am going to tackle the LocoNet.  At first I was going to add a second LocoNet to the railroad.  As of yesterday, I've decided to remove all the LocoNet and start over with two new LocoNet busses, moving the original LocoNet away from the DCC buss that it sits near in various locations.  The railroad runs pretty good, but every now and then Murphy shows up so hopefully all this LocoNet work will kick Murphy out on his ass!  Fingers crossed that 4 days of working on that will have it completed!  Once done, I will then go back and connect the phone system and LocoNet to the dispatcher desk, which I wired under the house late last year.  And if there is extra time, I'll get the CPRX Facebook page started!

Well, that's it from my end of the world.  I'm looking to getting back to operating, as I am sure most of you are as well.  The earliest that MIGHT be would be July 4th.  We had originally planned a 4th of July operating party/BBQ/fireworks with wives as my friend Duncan was coming from Australia, however, those travel plans went out the door with the lockdown.  Maybe he'll make a surprise appearance!  ;-)

Let me know if you are interested in operating with us or helping as work crew on the railroad.

Take care and be safe,
Frank Kenny
CPRX Railroad
Torrance, CA

July 2017 Railroad Update

Well, I haven't blogged anything since December 2016!  I keep meaning to but I simply use all the time working on the RR and not blogging!  So here is an update...

First...I've hosted a couple of operating session since and all have gone really well.  It seems the more ya operate, the more feedback you get, the more "updates" or repairs get made, the better the layout becomes.  It's a good cycle and the input from others is very valuable!  My favorite part of the hobby is the operating sessions.  Not only do we get to run trains, we get together and that's worth all the work that goes into putting all this together!

The next session will be during the Southern California Layout Tour in the South Bay August 19th, 2017!  Hope you can stop by or join in the op session.

Most of the open area will be an orange grove

First project...There has always been a track laying error in Famoso.  The SJVR track that veers off from the UP had a small kink at the connection to the turnout.  It operated with no issues, but visually it always bugged me!  You can see it in the photo to the right on the track that veers to the left.  So I ripped it out and started over!  The curve is much smoother now.  By the way, most of the blank space you see in the next several photos are going to be an orange grove.  Over the 4th of July I laid out a grid (thank Mark Lestico for the idea) and will be drilling holes to plant the trees, after the ground cover of course.  Yesterday I went to the train show in Pomona to get more trees, however, they changed the color of the oranges to a florescent orange (which doesn't work for me) so they are going to try to get a lighter color of orange, like the trees I already have.  I need 429 trees in this area!

More orange grove area with a small farm building in front

Most space will be an orange grove

Tearing out the offending track

Replacing the cork

Track replacement finished

You can barely see the tree grid

Orange trees for my grove

Next up was adding power to the rear industry turnouts in Bakersfield.  Joel has always been complaining about this for so long and I agree...it was a pain in the ass.  But you know how excited I was to pull everything out from under the railroad and put my body through contortions just to hook up the turnout motors!  Gee my two favorite things...installing tortoise motors and electrical and both at the same time!  Yippee!

Testing the circuit

Completed install.  This switch is recessed into the fascia and a different switch used because this particular turnout is under dispatcher control as well.

One of the local control turnouts installed.  Labeling yet to be formalized.

Here is the hook-up arrangement.  I made several of these prior to installation.

Testing the circuit and LED

Testing the power to the frog before final installation

Example of the installation

Testing the circuit

Next, Joel Morse has been prodding me for a couple years now to install a swing gate at the entrance to the Traffic Center.  Personally, I thought the benefit was not worth the effort since it's not a high traffic area.  I finally agreed so he and Chris Armstrong got together and built a swing bridge.  Not an easy task given the railroad structure and wiring were already installed.  As of this writing, it's been installed for a little over a month and I'm still installing the track and have yet to start the electrical.  The tracks must line up across the gaps perfectly to avoid derailments and that has been a difficult task.  The wiring has to be re-routed around the other side of the room to make all the proper connections.  In the end, I'm glad they built the gate as it really does make it easier to access the Traffic Center.

Before the gate being installed

Chris (left) and Joel (right) building the swing gate to the Traffic Center

Adding stiffening to the structure to hold the gate

Are they boxing?

Getting closer to being finished!

It actually opens

Almost there!

Success!

Next project...way back about 100 years ago Joe Warner installed rotary switches to control the Bakersfield Yard throats.  They work great, however, they are a little complicated for operators.  Since late 2016 Dave Waterstreet has been wanting to update the yard throat controls for Bakersfield Yard to make things easier for the operators.  Our schedules finally aligned in May 2017.  The new push button panels will replace the original rotary switches and the panels look great.  Unfortunately, they are electrically complicated with computer chips!  Should one of them die, there isn't anything I can do about it and I would lose control of the yard!  Not something I really want to entertain.  A story...When I was a kid I asked my grandpa why he didn't have automatic windows in his car.  He said it was because it was just one more thing that could break.  We all now have automatic windows but the concern is the same.  The new panels would not be fixable and they are not commercially made so I'm dead in the water should they break!  Needless to say, I'm having second thoughts about the panels.  That said, upon installation of the first one, it didn't operate.  Is that a sign?  Dave was beside himself.  I was glad it didn't operate while he was still here and didn't die after he left.  He lives in Portland so fixing things would not be easy.

Original yard throat panels installed by Joe Warner...way back when!

The North End panel.  The black dots are small pushbuttons.

Frustration!  Don't worry Dave...I can't figure it out either!

I'm gonna get this to work even if I have to sit here all day!

Attempting the install

Yet another project...the new JMRI dispatcher panel.  While I've had a JMRI panel for many years, it had so many bandaids (updates) on it, it was difficult to operate, especially for a newbie.  Not only that, but the original computer it was created on was failing and the panel needed to be installed on a new computer.  The original panel was created using custom icons and those didn't transfer well to the new computer.  Needless to say, things were a mess.  Mark graciously offers to rebuild the new panel.  Below is the old panel.

The master, Mark Lestico, at work on the new JMRI ops panel

Another broken turnout!

Always something!  Overall I've replaced 20+ Atlas turnouts over the years because of this.  Most of them have been right-hand turnouts.  This just happens out of the blue and I usually don't know about it until a train traverses the turnout of course.  No clue why this happens and Atlas doesn't either.  It's not a glue thing because I've used various types of glue for the turnouts and it's happened on all of the glue I've used.  This turnout happened to be in a high-traffic location in the Traffic Center yard throat so needed to be replaced immediately!  Fortunately, a dreaded project only took 5 minutes.  I was lucky this time!

Lastly, no matter how hard I work on the railroad, the boss is always micromanaging!

Happy Railroading!

Frank Kenny, Central Pacific Railway, Inc., CPRX

Contact me if you'd like to be involved!

First Test Complete!

Joel Morse, Dave Sheehan, Wayne Lawson and I tested the updated system yesterday and it tested well!

In my last few posts I discussed how the layout runs great with just me playin' around.  But when the guys would come over, all Hell would break loose.  Of course, no one believed me that it works fine when they aren't there.

In working with Brendan Fraiser and Duncan Cabassi from Australia via email, Brendan suggested there was not enough power in the UP5's.  Long story short (you can read about it in my previous post), I ran a buss, one for each room, and connected all the UP5's to that buss.  Now there was more power in the system to run all the throttles needed to run the layout and now everything seems to run fine.

In yesterdays testing, it appears I may have a bad UP5, which I will test and replace if necessary.  Other than that the throttles and trains ran great.

One other issue reared it's ugly head AGAIN.  That is the slot max issue.  This is a random thing and there is no reason for it.  This time was unusual because as I fired up the computer to review the issue in JMRI, all I had to do was open the slot window, and the issue resolved itself.  Wierd!  See you soon slot max!  I'm gonna getcha!

Unrelated to any of this, I noticed another issue.  That is that there appears to be power coming IN from the track in a certain section, 1v, enough to light the power on LED on the DCS100.  Lots of testing later did not produce a source.  Still working on that.  Not sure if it is actually causing a problem or not.

It's been very hot the past couple weeks, even near the coast where I live.  As a result, I had two sections of track where the feeder wire came loose.  It's nice to have an easy fix once in a while!  Actually, can I get those more often instead of the ones that are just a bear to figure out and solve?

It was so fun to run trains yesterday with the guys and I ran some after they left, mainly to reposition trains back to their last location in JMRI.  There is hope!

Thank you to Brendan Fraiser, Duncan Cabassi, Joel Morse, David Sheehan, Wayne Lawson and Phil Klein for all your patience and help.  Without you guys I would have a nice clean garage with two lovely cars in it!

Frank Kenny

UPDATED AUG. 30...UP5 Power Up Starts!...And Continues!...Argh...and FINALLY DONE!

It's been a long haul with the DCC system.  From returning parts to Digitrax numerous times to buying duplicate components just because one is in the shop, etc.  I've had numerous DCC knowledgeable people here to figure out and solve the issues to no avail.  It's been a long haul!

In meeting a new friend from Australia, Duncan Cabassi, I've met other model railroaders over the internet, all super guys.  One, Brendan Dennis, knows much about DCC and Digitrax.  He has suggested that perhaps power in the Loconet was low, which when tested it is, 6.5 & 7.9.

The UP5 manual gives a few options for installing them.  They are, power to the UP5 is optional, or use the +Common connection, or apply power to the DC jack.  Way back when I installed the UP5's, I used the +Common connection.

Brendan suggests this is the problem.  With 14 UP5's on the layout, this is simply robbing Loconet of the power needed to operate properly.  It makes sense!

So, today, August 17 my project is to string 2 busses, one in the Traffic Center room and one in the main layout room.  All 14 UP5's will be connected to this buss by the end of the day.  I'm not quitting until it's done!  Then I'll test the Loconet power and report back to y'all.

Wish me luck!!!

Frank Kenny

August 18 - Well, in typical fashion, this project went about as fast as a snail missing one foot!  (pun intended)  I was only able to get the staging room 90% complete, still issues with voltage to the UR91 and it seems one UP5 isn't working properly.  The wiring is in however.  I started at 8am and finally stopped at 9:30pm.

In the main room I was only able to get 5 of 12 installed, one of the 5 still has voltage issues.

The biggest thank you in the world goes to Brendan Dennis for his assistance from Australia!  We had at least 50 emails back and forth trying to resolve the various unexpected issues that cropped up.

Unfortunately I only have a couple hours to work on this today.  It was supposed to be done yesterday to stay on the ops schedule and next weekend I'm unavailable so I'll have to carve out some time to finish this project during the week...not a very good option

Back at it today.  Again wish me luck!

Frank Kenny 

A little update... here is what the connection looks like...more details later.

This photo shows a section of wire getting ready to solder to the plug.

The above photo shows how I solder it.  It's important to make sure the red and black (or whatever color you use) wires are always soldered to the same pins on the each plug.

I wrap a piece of electrical tape around the longer pin and solder connection to make sure when the cap is put on that the two pins don't touch each other, causing a short.  On some of them I wrap both pins, just to make sure nothing touches.

AUGUST 30

Those that know me well know that I LOVE electronics and can't wait to get to the next electronic project.  NOT!  I despise anything to do with electricity.

Fortunately two awesome guys from Australia were willing to help keep me from jumping the bridge!  A BIG THANKS TO BRENDAN DENNIS AND DUNCAN CABASSI for their help.  This was a long project, that seriously should have been a quick one, looking back.  Without their help I would have been parking my cars in the garage (ex train room) by now.  Thanks guys!

Long story and 3 power supplies later, it's done!  I'm getting 15 & 11v in the main room and 13 & 10v in the traffic center.  All good there.

NEXT PROJECT...Why doesn't the damn duplex work???

CPRX Updates 2-18-13

Well it's 2013 already...no wait, it's already FEB 2013...already!  Don't worry, I haven't been sitting on my butt doing nothing.  Quite the opposite.

In January I had a friend down from Portland, Dave Waterstreet, and he stayed for the planned 3-day maintenance session PLUS an additional 2 days so we could get lots done on the railroad.  It started out as an electrical problem search and ended up with some productive things getting done.

Although I really don't think we ever found the electrical glitch, we did get both staging yards set up with turnout routing. That is a great help to operating the staging areas and now will make it easier to select a route and KNOW it's been selected properly.

We also installed the electronics to handle the Wye/Loop arrangement at Goshen Jct.  That was fun!  But it works now.

We also discovered that I had some wiring no-no's that really were probably part of the havoc issues. For various reasons I've replaced turnouts in spots (mainly due to Atlas point failures).  When I designed and built the railroad I gapped each section at the turnout.  Since then I've added block detection.  So when the turnouts were replaced I wired them for block detection, which meant that the gaps were not at the turnout but at the turnout clearance point.  And of course, now only gapped on rail for the detection.  Well, I was not paying attention to where the district gaps where and failed to gap both rails in THREE locations.  Needless to say, this caused problems with everything!  So that got fixed and it all seems to be going well so far.

I've been working on (mostly in my mind) about how to do ops on the railroad.  Car cards is one option although I hate playing with car cards and the issues they cause.  One option is to operate with a Clerk as Seth Neumann does.  A position I love to operate.  Another option is using JMRI Ops.  Not decided yet.  However, using anything but car cards (with photos on them) brings up the chance that many will not be able to read the car numbers (this is N scale), let alone the car without a photo on the card.  Any thoughts on that, please let me know.

I'm sure there are things I've forgotten that Dave and I did but as I remember them I will post.

Have fun,
Frank

CPU on DCS100 Blown?!

I sent the DCS100 to Digitrax for service.  I called and spoke to Dave and we discussed the situation and the fact that I have another DCS100 with similar unusal actions.  He was surprised and said he would get with repair dept to expediate the repair and determine what was wrong and then call me.

Well, no calls for a week so I called him.  Unfortunately Dave had NO CLUE what we spoke of and the commitment he gave to me!  Seriously?  He said repairs weren't his department and that he would pass me there.  I stopped him and had to remind him of our conversation and his commitment.  Still no clue!  He said he would check with the repair dept and call me back.

He finally called about 1/2 hour later and said the unit was done and being shipped back to me.  The issue was the CPU was bad.

When I shipped the unit I made it very clear in the description that I would like some input as to how and why whatever was wrong went wrong.  He told me he didn't know and that I should be happy because the repair was exedited.

I tried to explain to him that speed is not what I was looking for but information regarding the issue.  Still, he tried to get out of this by pushing the speed issue.  Really Dave...NO CLUE!  I advised him that as a customer I wasn't happy with his avoidance of the issue and lack of follow-thru.  He said he can't remember every phone call.  I reminded him that he could simply write a note to himself.  How hard could that be.  He said he would never write a note.  Wow!  This guy needs to work somewhere where customer service doesn't matter...or is he already?

Anyway, supposedly the DCS is on the way back.  I'll start testing by disconnecting all TC areas, test for heating and issues, then connect one throat (of 4) at a time to see which area is causing issues.  

Last comment to Dave...When you say you are going to do something...stand by your word!

I wonder what is up with the 2nd DCS100.

More later!

Updates to the Traffic Center, BDL's, DS64's, DCS100 blowouts, etc.

Yep, it's been a while since I've posted.  And unfortunately it seems like two steps forward and 1 step backward...and then another step backward!

I was on a mission to get all the BDL's, DS64's, Torti, etc. connected and working in the Traffic Center (TC Room).  Worked dilligently like a dog.  Was to get it all done in a couple of days.  Well, you know how things electrical go so I'll spare you the details and just tell you that I actually took a couple weeks off of work at the end of July and beginning of August to get it completed and the TC room organized and cleaned.  Darn, I wish I had a picture to post here.  Think tornado in the train room!  It was so darn hot (a normal hot day in my neighborhood would be 75 degrees) but it was about 85-90 degrees and humid, so working on the RR was just not happening on my vacation.  I did manage to get a couple days in toward the end of my vacation however.

During those couple days I smelled smoke while I was working on the RR, then saw smoke.  Not a lot of it but some.  So shut the whole thing down and walked out until "another day" when I had more patience and it was cooler.

This past weekend was that opportunity so I dilligently worked for a couple days to get everything completed.   A friend of mine, Lloyd Lehrer came over and we spent several hours trying to figure out what was burning (if anything) and why certain functions would not work on the layout.  Of course, just like when you take your car to the shop, everything worked fine!  Damn!!!

This could go on forever so I'll cut to the chase.  As of tonight, I have the (spare) DCS100 connected and sent the other one to Digitrax for repair...whatever that may mean and I hope they can give me a clue as to what was wrong.

As of this past Sunday evening, all worked fine.  The system turned on fine on Monday morning, however, I was unable to select any turnouts to throw them.  No clue why, rebooted, opsw39, etc. and no changes.

I didn't notice this on Monday, but as of today I still cannot select a turnout...we sort of.  Pressing the SWCH key doesn't do anything except change the Fn notation to Sw.  So to throw a turnout, I press the SWCH key, enter a SW number (which I cannot see the numbers as I enter them), press either t or c to throw or close the turnout (the direction does not show) and watch to see if the turnout has moved.  No clue as to why.  To get out of this mode, I need to press Exit.

If you have suggestions, please e-mail me at CPRXmodelRR@gmail.com or call me at 310-344-9145.

Another issue that has come up is that 6 of my Atlas #7 code 55 turnouts have broken a switch point about 1/4 in from the actual point.  Just snapped right off.  All of them have been in a while, and all are right hand turnouts.  Could have been a bad batch?  I plan to send them to Atlas for replacements. Fortunately I've had spares to replace them.

The good news in all this is that all Torti, DS64's, and BDL's are installed and operable.  I spent about 5 hours on Monday hauling everything out of the TC room, dusting, tossing, cleaning, vacuuming and so now the room looks awesome!  I love being in here.

The next project, other than addressing the DCC system issues, is to re-clean the main train room.  I've been selling off things I don't need so things are a little messed up in there, empty boxes, etc.  But I'll get to that soon.

My goal is to have all this done and the DCC system issues sorted out so I can host the Belmont Shore RR Club guys on Oct.9th.  We'll see!

Updates for May and the Test Ops Session

While I was on vacation a couple weeks ago, I chose to stay home and complete a major project,
that is getting all the Torti installed and connected to BDL's on all 4 Traffic Center (main staging)
throats. That's over 40 turnouts! While this has been a major project, I've
completed 99% of it...yaaaa. Since I have the room torn up, I now have decided
to install the BDL's for detection in this area too and they just arrived this week. Therefore I will not be doing the test ops as planned.

During my vacation I also completed the following:
Speed matched all locos (Way too many...I should sell some of these!)
Cleaned crap out of the Traffic Center room (there's always more!)
Labeled all tracks in the Traffic Center areas
Created a Clerk board to be used by the clerk (almost finished)
Created operator positions
Created train activity sheets (instructions for individual trains)
Made an industry chart with cars in/cars out
Did extensive research on prototype industries (still working on that and that's fun!)

Yep, been a busy week and made lots of progress. I've also regretably decided to skip the
NMRA convention this year (I have a great hotel room booked in Grand Rapits if you know someone who wants it) and focus on another major work session during that
time. Who knows. I just might have the RR completed by the end of the year and then I can tear it dow and start all over again!

I'll let you know when it's safe to run trains and we'll do that test op session
with all the new changes. Perhaps around late June or 4th of July timeframes.

Crazy Stuff this DCC!

I hosted a client appreciation party at my house on St. Patrick's day and the railroad ran without a hitch.  Two weeks later, I turn it on and the DCS100 goes haywire!  Tried same for several days and same thing.  What's up with this.  This is the second time this has happened in a year.  The last time I sent it back to Digitrax for repair.  When asked what happened so I could avoid the same thing happening in the future, they "didn't know" why.  As a result, I just purchased a 2nd DCS100 for the RR so when one is down, at least I have a back up!  I had to do the same with a DT400 and now I have two of them.  Guess we need to have two DCC systems, one for the RR and one for the shop!

Turnout motors installed and operating!

I was finally able to get more turnout motors installed and operating with the DS64's.  Still several more to go.  Was talking to Mary Barstow last week and I estimated about another 20 hours to complete this project.  Uh...I should add 100 more hours to that too!

Time has been short lately...not so much because of the holidays, but because work has been sooooo busy...but then that's a good thing!  On top of that, I've started a new business rehabbing houses.  I already worked 12-15 hours a day so now I have to decide what business am I working in for that 12-15 hours a day.  Good or bad, the days fly by!  Now if I could just get this third "job" going on a regular basis...oh wait, model railroading is not supposed to be a job...it's supposed to be fun!

DS64 Update

Continuing from my last post, of course the gremlins crept in...and right off the bat too!  Installing two switches and 4 LED's, the LED brightness was compromised (for some reason!), so I went to RS and bought 4 green-only LED's and installed them that way, the LED being lit for the route selected vs a bi-color LED.  I like the look better anyway!  By the time I got all that purchased, figured out and done, half the day was over!  Is it just me or is time going fast for you too?

Now that the Loop turnouts and LED's were complete it was time to turn to the two control panels at Fresno.  This went much smoother, however, due to time, I was only able to complete 1/2 of one panel.  It went quickly so I figure I can get both panels complete if I just spend 1 more whole day doing just that.  This weekend...hmmm.

DS64 installation almost complete

I've got almost all the DS64's installed and turnouts connected.  Just a few more and then complete the installation of the two panels at Fresno Yard.  As planning and reality connect, I "plan" to have all this done today.  Let's see what reality allows!  Once this project is done I can get all the crap that is normally under the layout out of the dining room (now a storage area!) out of the dining room and back in the train room.  Ideally, I'd like this done by the end of the month!  Planning vs reality again!  Fingers crossed...LOL.  Now, once the turnout control is handled we'll have a test run session to make sure everything works.

DS64's Installed on Lower Level

Yes, I haven't been blogging much.  Yes, I have been working on the RR.  Yes, I have been productive!  Friend Lloyd Lerher has given me info on fascia panel mounting of the Tortise switches.  I put his advice to use and finished all the lower level mainline tortoise control switches, recessed into the fascia.   These are connected to LED's on the fascia and to DS64's.  Yaaaa!  I need to install DS64's in the upper level and then we won't have to worry about turnout control when running a train...except in the Traffic Center, which will get done soon too.  Yeah...I know...photos...sure...soon!

BDL's Complete!

Finally!  I finished the installation of the BDL's with the completion of the Bakersfield area.  There are really two more to go but those are for the staging area and will be installed at a later date.

Still waiting for the DCS100 to be returned from Digitrax.  There is a layout test date set for July 2 but that may not happen if I don't have a DCS100.

Mark and I have changed several items on the JMRI panel and he is working on a few more changes for better operational ability.

The layout is on a local layout tour at the end of July and I plan to be on that tour, given I have the DCS100 back and operating.  If you would like to run trains for that tour, please contact me at 310-344-9145.