A good day of progress today with Joel Morse.

Joel tackled a few more wheel sets...his favorite job!  And most importantly he build some mock-up buildings.  Specifically for the Railex facility and then 3 smaller buildings for smaller industries.  See photos below.

 The Railex facility has three tracks that service the building so that's what I built.  My tracks hold 6                      cars each for an 18 car train.

The master at work.  He was able to bang out a building in about 45 minutes.

                                Finished!

Architect and WORLD FAMOUS builder Joel Morse with his work.

         Trackside view of the new buildings.

While Joel was doing that I was researching industries for the RR.  A couple weeks ago when I was going to Joel's house I saw a great industry on Terminal Island called SA Recycling.  Finally I found a destination for the junk yard in Calwa!  Well, while I was doing research today it turns out that the Calwa facility is actually SA Recycling too.  What luck!

Also while Joel was doing the buildings, I did more set up on the JMRI Ops program finishing a test train.  Once I was done, Joel ran the very first train on a switch list!  That was exciting.  Of course I need to some tweaking to the program and this first run was just to learn about what needed to be done.  The program is pretty cool and if you haven't tried it, I recommend it so far.  And of course, every industry that the program sent cars to had some hick-up like no turnout throw or a tortoise that wasn't yet connected.  Very suspicious!

   Joel with the first train and the first switch list!

               All cars moved to destination.

I also refined the Traffic Center route table that Dave Waterstreet created and hung up copies to use.  To throw the turnouts I am using old DT100 and DT300 throttles because not every operator will be using a DT400 and you can't throw turnouts with the UT4R.

Traffic Center routing chart temporarily hung until I'm sure it's what I want.

Using DT100's and DT300's for turnout routing in the Traffic Center and on both ends of Bakersfield.

I will spend some time working on refining the JMRI Ops program and adding control to all turnouts that don't have it over the next couple weeks.  The next get together will be with Joel at his place on the 30th.

A tornado blows through Colton!

A tornado named Princess blew through the Colton railroad yard on March 14th knocking over a large number of railcars and causing a lot of damage. Railroad officials say they should have it cleaned up in about two days and have things back in working order by the end of the weekend.  Here is a picture of the damages and as you can see, numerous railcars have been damaged.

Ah...we were able to catch up to the tornado and it looks like she is all pooped out from playing with the trains!

Joel Morse comes over tomorrow and we're going to work on a number of projects.  If you're interested in coming by to help out, just lemme know.

Makin' Progress & Fun with the Guys!

In this post I'm going to recap the past week's activities...briefly.

A couple weeks ago the layout "died"...again.  Jumping ahead, no specific reason was found...again!  Hate that!!!  Upon connecting with my friend and DCC guru, Phil Klein in the Portland, OR area, we ended up just resetting opsw#39.  With that the railroad was back in operation...again.

This past Sunday I spend nearly the whole day on the railroad, cleaning up the Traffic Center room and the main layout room.  You may recall that I have been working on numerous electrical projects and tools, wire, parts and more tools,, wire, and parts were scattered everywhere.  Once I got all that done I ran a track cleaning train around to dust things a bit.

I called one of my friends, David Sheehan, he's an "expert" on wheels.  He agreed to bring his most finicky train of various mfgr's wheels and give the railroad a go on Tuesday night.  Oh, great...here comes trouble!  (The train...not David...well, maybe David too!)  But I committed to do it.

David came over last night and we put his train of about 10 cars on the railroad, added about another 15 cars for the first go round.  Everything ran very well, to my surprise.  (The railroad is double deck and a helix, as well as grades in the mountainous area.)  Then he wanted to add more cars for the trip the other direction.  Oh, now I'm asking for trouble.  Not only do we need to get up the mountainous grade but we needed to get up the helix.  The helix is 6 levels and the grade is about 1.75 + the oval shaped curves and the diameter on the outside track is 34", so it's a bit tight.  A heavy train will have a good chance of string-lining.

This is David enjoying his run around Tehachapi Loop.  David was drooling a bit so I got him a roll of paper towels to clean himself up.

Just then our friend Jerry Rogers showed up.  The last time Jerry was here, all hell broke lose on the railroad!  No, seriously, ALL hell broke loose.  Joel was here both days and knows things went well on Saturday but not on Sunday...so I have a witness!  I thought Jerry would never come back after that experience.  And now David wants to test the limits of the railroad...bad timing in my opinion!

Proceeding, we put on about 40 cars out of Fresno and then added a third locomotive at Bakersfield to get up the helix and mountain grade.  As expected, because Jerry was there, there were a few more derailments on the way to Bakersfield.  Then at the helix, the train started to string line so I was in the helix, giving 0-5-0 helper service.  David and I thanked Jerry for showing up.  I think I have found Murphy...he goes by the name Jerry Rogers guys so keep an eye out!  Here's a photo so you know who you are lookin' for.  And look at that evil grin!

Continuing, they split the train and Jerry took the 2nd section up the helix to meet up with David at Ilmon.  There they connected the train back together again for the completion of the run to Mojave and on to Colton without incident.

All in all, we had a great time.  As a result of this test, we decided to use the Fox Valley wide tread wheels (If you have thoughts about that or suggestions...lemme know know please.) based on the testing we did.  Thank you to David and Murphy...I mean Jerry for their help.

Lastly, I've started entering the railroad into JMRI Ops to see how that performs.  I've entered all the Locations with limited trackage and spurs as well as about a dozen locos.  I'll put in about 3 dozen cars and then test the program to see how it performs.  If that works out well, I'll enter more of the railroad details and run and op session.  If that goes well, I'll put the whole railroad into the system.  If you have any advice about JMRI Ops, please let me know

Next step will be this weekend, the 16th, and my friend Joel Morse will come over to do some building mock-ups and...argh...more wheels & resistors.  That's Joel's favorite project!  Not really.

Operations...On Joel's NYOW

Yesterday several of us met at Joel Morse's house to run his N scale NYOW and we all had a great time.  One additional plus was that Joel got out his banjo and played and sung railroad songs while we ate pizza!  All this free food and entertainment...so nice!

Joel's op session went great and the railroad seemed to take on a life of it's own and ran perfectly. Thanks again Joel!

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!