Progress Update 12-25-17

Hello,

I promised an update so here goes:

1. It seems every op session gets Murphied with wifi issues.  Not sure why really, however, had Geek Squad out and the confirmed I have the best wifi mesh network using Eero's so even he was puzzled.  Great guy though and he may come over for an op session!  Can I convert him?  LOL  His testing showed excellent wifi coverage.  That said, we hardwired two of the Eero's just in case that makes a difference.  The operating department will know at the next op session.  (See below for dates)  It could be all the bodies in the rooms for the session.  Maybe I need to put all visitors on a diet before they come so they block less bandwidth!

2.  The IT department, Mark Lestico, has been working on the new JMRI dispatcher panel.  Still a ways to go, but making progress.  The new panel is much cleaner than the old one and will size to any monitor automatically.  The old one used custom graphics and would not fit the new monitor.

This is the old panel.  I'll show the new one in another post.

3.  The marketing department has been working on a new paint scheme for the CPRX home road and that will debut mid 2018!  The preferred scheme is the green one.  Their plan is to have mainly CPRX locos running, with a few BNSF and UPRR for assistance.  Customers need to know who to call!  Not BNSF or UPRR.

Drawings courtesy of Don Gaiser...Thank you!!!

4.  Scenery has progressed!  Big projects take big time and the time between Thanksgiving and New Years Day is the best time for me to get big projects done.  Thanksgiving weekend started with the new grove at Orange Grove.  What looks like about a hundred trees is actually 401 trees!  It took 72 hours to complete.  If that wasn't enough insanity I'm adding an area of 93 more and then another section of yet to be determined number of trees.  It looks great though.

The first step was to draw a grid on the benchwork, then drill small holes for the trees.  I used 1.5" grid.  Then I put tooth pick ends in the holes so they would not get plugged by ballast.  Spread and glued ballast.  Removed the tooth picks as I planted each tree so I would not lose the hole.  Looooong arduous process!

Blue tape is to prevent ballast from fouling the points.

I purchased the trees from a lady that sells at the local shows.  $5 for a block of 8.  Can't beat that!

In my opinion each tree has too many oranges.  So I take each one and rub the heck out of is to remove as many oranges as I can, being careful not to ruin the esthetics of the tree.

The trunks are way too long so I cut them down short, so when I plant the tree it sits close to the ground.

I saved all the extra oranges and leaves just in case I might want to use them for something down the road.

The ready-to-plant tree gets a small hole drilled in the bottom for the wire that will then be inserted in the benchwork.

A dab of glue on the base.

A dab of glue, then insert the wire.  The wire is only about 1/2" long.

Remove the tooth pick.

Insert wire in hole and plant the tree.

The completed orange grove.  My plan is to add 93 trees in the white area in the upper left and another grove of trees just out of the photo to the right, mid photo.

5.  Before planting the orange trees, the track maintenance crews needed to ballast the track and so that started the ballasting project.  Neighbors have been calling the home office complaining about noise from the increased number of ballast trains!  Since the planting at Orange Grove, crews have continued to ballast south to Famoso, Kern Jct., and as of this writing, they're ballasting Bakersfield Yard, totally disrupting the operation of the railroad!  The deadline is January 1, 2018, including laying the concrete in the engine facilities!  The crews are working day and night to get this done because they get a big bonus if it's completed in time!

Famoso ballasting

The north end of Bakersfield ballasted

Ballasting brings out the scariest of critters.  I don't have a bug problem though!  These bug managers handle everything.

6.  I bought new paint to repaint the backdrop and fascia.  I also purchased a laminating machine to laminate the fascia labels and documentation.  Projects for the next 2-3 months.

7. The Facilities Department, Joel Morse, made a couple more permanent temporary buildings for Bakersfield, Chan Nuts and Bakersfield Produce.  They make the area look much better.

8.  The Signaling Department has purchased a bizzillion Digitrax SMBK's and begun the creation of the etched brass Signal Kits.  All this is being sent to my Assembly Department (Mike Stoner) for assembly.  The signaling department already has the SE8c's fortunately.

  

Completed signal.  Digitrax SMBK, etched brass Signal Kit, and paint!  Looks great, easy to make, easy to install, and cheap!

The Operating Department has planned the sessions for 2018.  Joel Morse and I will be alternating every month, with the first session on the CPRX scheduled for January 20th.  If you are interested in joining us or just visiting sometime throughout the year, please let me know.

I know there is more to report, however, my mind is blank.  Probably from inhaling too much rubbing alcohol with the track maintenance crews!  Well, I'd better get back to inhaling more or this project will never get finished!

Happy New Year,
Frank Kenny
CPRX President

Lots of Progress and an Op Session

I've managed to spend a considerable amount of time on the railroad.  I first started a list in Evernote, listing all the items I wanted to work on.  A sort of wish list of action items.  That worked out well and has allowed me to focus on specific projects.  In the past, I'd just stare at the railroad, wondering what I should work on now in the given time frame.  That wasn't too successful.

In addition to the wish list, once an activity is completed, I move it to the completed section of the list along with an estimated time it too to complete the project.  Now I can see progress!  Love it!

Recently I added a derailment guard on all six levels of the helix.  At the last op session, a couple of cars took a tumble and broke a coupler on each.  This doesn't happen often so I haven't bothered to install this.  The guard will prevent future damages but cleaning track in the helix will be more difficult.

On November 15th I had a client holiday party and a large number of people here so I had the railroad room open for viewing only.  Everyone had a great time, especially the kids.

The last op session was November 19th and it went really well.  There were 12 of us for the session and everyone seemed to have a good time so I'm happy for that.  Everything ran well, with a couple exceptions.  A few of the turnouts either decided to swap positions (thrown vs closed) or the dispatcher never noticed this in the past.  I also had a few locos that don't like to keep their speed match programming, and choose to have a max speed of about 5 mph.  More work on those to figure what that issue is.  In addition, we two turnouts in Bakersfield that needed work.  SW88 was a lose wire and SW102 needed emergency repairs during the session due to points becoming unsoldered.  All work well now.

I need to make a number of updates to the dispatcher's panel.  There has been some discussion about creating a new panel.  But the more I think about it, it may make sense to simply update the old one.  Nothing has been decided yet.  In any case, the old panel needs to be put onto the new computer and work properly.  It's not transferring to the new computer very easily, which was the reason a new panel was being considered...just start over.



I added 8 slide switches in the Bakersfield engine facility to activate the turnouts there.  I like that the turnouts work.  I just don't like the look of the slide switches.  Operation takes precedence over esthetics.




Dave Waterstreet is working on new panels for the Bakersfield yard throats.  The current control is via rotary switches.  We have a need to move about 6 turnouts in the yard, 3 on each end, to better facilitate switching the AD tracks, as suggested by Joel Morse.  We'll also add several turnouts to the panels for control so Dave volunteered to build the panel.  Installation was scheduled for the end of this month, however, due to everyone having a cold, we decided to put installation back a month or two.  Everything under the railroad in Bakersfield has been removed for that operation and placed in my bedroom!  I guess I just gotta live with boxes of trains in my room for a little longer.  And along with that, I'll be connecting several industry turnouts to be operable too.  So there is a lot of upgrades going on in Bakersfield!  More on the panels in future posts.  Below is the board for the north end of Bakersfield.  There will be a similar one for the south end too.  Lookin' good!

I fixed the locomotive sanding facility as it was falling apart.  Well, I thought I fixed it and it decided to come apart again.  I'll have to try that again!

Also in Bakersfield I installed the engine facility for the San Joaquin Valley Railroad and it looks pretty good.  Just need to start ballasting and getting scenery in there but that's waiting on the turnout redesign, and that is waiting on the yard panels to be finished.  Everything is tied to everything else!  And while I'm working I get a little supervision too!  Must have been break time.

Of course with all this work going on the Bakersfield area was a disaster area!  But in a good way.

Right next door to the engine facility, Mammoth Brewery was in the process of being installed.  Well, at least the foot prints were being planned. And not only that, I glued and wired the track here and just to the right at the Kern Oil facility! Now, this area is just waiting for the new Bakersfield Yard panels for control.

We used to use homemade track warrants.  Early in November I redesigned them and had my printer print them in a pad format.  Much easier to work with and more professional looking.  The key is they fit in a smaller footprint than the homemade ones.

 Oh and I installed several plastic boxes at key areas around the layout for the lumber and pipe loads that go on and off the various cars.  Now we don't have to just leave them on the layout!

Hard to see in the photo to the right, but at Bakersfield there are two throat panels, one on each end.  They had been "temporary" for a couple of years so I managed to tuck the power cords behind the back drop in both areas, hiding the power cord from view.

And the gremlins never cease to show up.  Suddenly there was a short on the Traffic Center loop and after a while trying to find it, discovered there was a loose wire on one of the tortoises.  This has been installed for years with no trouble.  Why now?  Crazy stuff.  To hide these Tortoises from view there is a fascia that has been removed to perform the work. (sorry for the messy desk in the background)

More crazy stuff.  I had another short in the Traffic Center loop and could not figure it out.  About to tear everything out, I started moving trains with my hands and that revealed the issue.  In the photo below you'll notice a white thumb tack in front of the UP loco.  Well that's the marker for the rail gap, which the loco was straddling to wait for the BNSF train that was trying to cross over, but due to the short could not.  Anyway, backing the UP loco past the thumb tack solved the problem!  Big frustrating problem, but fortunately a simple fix!  And just the other day, near this same location, I think I have a failed Tortoise!  First one ever!

Well, off to do more work on the railroad.  Next op session is January 21.  If you want to join, please contact me at CPRXmodelRR@gmail.com.

Frank Kenny CPRX Railway

Updates Finally!!! August 2016

Well, like I always say, it's been a while since I last posted.  But then again, I'm not the only one who says that.  Guess we all get behind.

Since the last post in February, not much has happened.  But then again, lots has happened in the last 48 hours!  The op session in March was cancelled due to not enough bodies and then I got busy with work and now it's August!  Crazy how time flies and I haven't done a darn thing!

The end of July 2016 brought railroad guests.  Duncan Cabassi from Australia, Dave Waterstreet from Portland, and Phil Klein from Tuscon (ex Portland) as well as locals Joel Morse, Mark Lestico, Wayne Lawson, Lloyd Leher and Cyrus Nelson.  Together we worked on the railroad and held an op session.  Things went well after the wifi giving out to the dispatcher panel was dealt with.  I was happy with the session.  One of the reasons for having a session, other than Dunan's visit, was to test the new changes to JMRI ops.  Things went well there too and of course there are more changes and I now have a list of things to do on the railroad, including things in JMRI.  Just what I need...another list of things to do!  But that's all good.

A couple days after the guests left, I was off to Atlanta where Mark Bridgwater has moved from Seattle.  With a few other friends, we began to rebuild his layout.  In a week's time we got the whole lower level attached to walls so now Mark can begin to lay track and rebuild many of the modules.  Honestly, I expected we would get both levels up, but things just take a lot longer to do than what I expect.  Mark was happy though!  Keep in mind, this is a railroad that is about the size of two 50' boxcars side by side!  I can't imagine taking on that project.  My railroad is barely a measly 500sqft!

I just returned from Atlanta this past Saturday and promptly started work on my layout!  Below are some pictures and descriptions of what I've been working on.  Everything I'm doing is simply to make things better for the operators.

One of the things that was suggested is to get the turnouts all on the same type of control.  I've been testing with various control systems, so I get it that it's a pain in the ass with multiple options.  Working on it!  The next two photos below show the south end of Bakersfield yard and the north end of the yard, respectively.  The four tracks to the left in the photo below are main tracks, the next three are the A/D tracks.  As you can see, the connect to the main and not the yard lead.  Originally, when the layout was designed, these were to be intermodal tracks.  After installation, I decided to make them A/D tracks.  So, to make things better on both ends of the yard, I am going to redesign the A/D tracks to connect to the yard lead.  In the photo below, that new turnout would need to be just to the left of the second car.  I'll need to redesign the yard control system too and that's the next project.  More on that at the end of this post.

In the photo below, with the exception of the track the box car is on, the next three tracks are mains, and the next three are the A/D tracks that need to be tied into the yard lead on this end.  Same issues as above.

One more project...these two locos were purchased somewhere a while back and had oddball decoders.  So I swapped those out for Digitrax decoders, programmed them, and speed matched the locos.  This is the second set of yard job switchers.  Done!

Thanks to Mike Stoner from Sedona, AZ, I have several hand-made turnouts on the layout.  This one decided to become unsoldered at the points DURING the op session.  So after the session, I slapped it around, soldered the points, and fixed a gauge issue too.  Done!

As mentioned above, the wifi was causing problems.  So to fix it, I purchased new equipment only to find out that with FIOS service, whatever I buy won't solve the problem.  I also found out I need to switch to a different company if I want to use wifi effectively!  Seriously!!!  Ok fine...Time Warner is coming on Friday to install their internet service and I'll dump FIOS.  I am told, with the following 4 pieces of equipment (two photos), my wifi will be killer and no more issues.  I'll believe it when I see it so giving it a try.  This will set me back about 6 discounted locomotives worth!

I need one of these above, and three of these below.

Yet another project...Once upon a time, before the California drought and global warming, I replaced my wood shake roof with a composition roof.  I never considered that once I did that, the temperature in the train room would jump to 90-100 degrees on our sunny California days!  After several years of hotter and hotter weather, I'm doing something about it by installing fans to ventilate the heat and insulation to block the heat.  This will truly be a pain in the ass project!  Primarily for several reasons.  1. The railroad take up the whole room.  2. There is a drop ceiling attached to the roof.  3. The roof itself varies in height, from garage door level to a max height of 16'!  4. I hate heights!!!  So, I need to find a couple guys that will somehow manage to maneuver around the drop ceiling up the the 16' height and install the insulation.  We'll see how this goes!!

Back to railroad operations.  In Atlanta I operated on Diamond River Valley Railroad.  Owner Neil Thomas used some awesome track warrants, below, and I got some ideas from them.

Along the lines of track warrants, I was reading an article in the Ops Sig Dispatcher's Office magazine about track warrants.  Basically, the author said that once a crew has the warrant, there really wasn't any need for the crew to contact the dispatcher until the end of authority.  Yes, I know there may be times there needs to be contact, but ignore that fact for a moment.

So always considering improvements, it got me to thinking, why bother with each crew member having a radio?  Why not install a phone system, perhaps one (or two) phones in each isle that crews could use to contact the dispatcher?  This concept could be tested by just having a radio in each isle for now to see how that works out.  And if it works well, I could install a phone system.

The benefits of this would be, no more fussing with batteries, no more "How do I work this radio?", or "Am I on the right channel?", and no more "How do I carry everything?", and no more headset issues, among other things.

And honestly, I don't think the RR room is big enough to warrant everyone having a headset.

Am I missing a benefit of everyone having a radio and headset?

This leads me to my question for you.  What do you think of this idea?  Eliminate radios and go with a phone system contact method, one in each isle, that would allow crews to contact the dispatcher.  Please let me know your thoughts.

Lastly, I think, in the redesign of Bakersfield yard mentioned at the beginning of the post, I will need to redesign and re-build the control system for the yard.  Well, Dave Waterstreet has an idea with some electronic equipment.  This will make the yard easier to operate and so he's working on that as we speak, thus my fabulous drawings of the yard ends.  More on that redesign in another post.

Ok, well I think that pretty much wraps up this post.  I think I have enough to do for a few days.  LOL.  There was more input and more projects, but I'll save those for future posts just so you guys don't get bored!  Uh...maybe you already are.  Well happy railroading!

Frank Kenny, Central Pacific Railway, CPRX