New Acquisitions

 I have upped my NS Heritage Unit count by two. 

 Sort of. 

Let me explain.

The first is a Monongahela ES44AC. I wanted this one because the Monongahela ran through Waynesburg PA where it had a connection to the narrow gauge Washington and Waynesburg. All of the narrow gauge is gone now, with no sign of remains, but the Monongahela main is still used by the Norfolk Southern (and occasionally CSX) to access coal mines in the area.

The second is a fantasy paint PRR ES44AC in Brunswick Green. The actual PRR Heritage unit, number 8102, is Tuscan Red. This foobie unit carries the number 1846, which is actually carried by an SD70ACC on the Norfolk Southern. The number 1846 on this unit is likely - almost certainly - due to the establishment of the Pennsylvania Rail Road on April 13 of that year. As such, it really isn't an NS heritage unit at all.

At any rate, the first thing I did when I unboxed them was drop the Monongahela unit on the floor and bend a wheel. Unfortunately, since they are Fox Valley Models locomotives, there is no manufacturer support. Fortunately (but not really surprisingly) the Kato 6 axle diesel wheel sets are a drop-in replacement. In fact, the entire truck is a drop-in replacement, but I only have gray ones on hand and the ones on the locomotive are black.

At any rate the damage was quickly repaired using my stash of Kato spare parts and both locomotives were put through their paces. The PRR unit programmed with no issues, but the Monongahela unit is slow at the top speed, only able to achieve 118 SMPH. It is still faster than the Southern unit, which tops out at 105. I have programmed CV5 on both locomotives to achieve the same speeds at 5% increments up to their top speeds, so they will run with the other locomotives on my roster. If it bothered me overly much I would replace the motors with Kato units and make rocket ships out of them all. 

This brings my total number of NS Heritage units up to four (six if you count the Kato Erie and the foobie PRR): Erie, PRR, Monongahela and Southern. I want to find a Norfolk Southern (the original NS, not the current one) and a Norfolk and Western and then I think I may be done.

Progress

 We have had  winter storms for the past two consecutive weekends. The weekend of January 23rd we had an ice storm that dumped freezing rain and sleet on us, followed by a week of sub-freezing temperatures overnights that kept the ice around for a while.

All told it wasn't as bad as it could have been. We got about a quarter inch or less of ice, we never lost power, and I was able to clear the driveway and sidewalks during the daytime before it could re-freeze, so all the ice that was left was on the grass.

This past weekend we got powder snow. We were forecast to get between 5 and 7 inches, but all through the day we were in a snow-free corridor that stretched from South Hill VA south to the coast between Wilmington NC and Myrtle Beach SC. When the corridor finally closed, like a zipper from north to south, we ended up getting about 3 inches or so. Since it was powdery snow I was able to clear it from the driveway and sidewalks very easily.

What that means is I had a lot of time to spend on the railroad. The benchwork has been completed for a while now, but it was covered with construction materials and tools. Last weekend I got it cleaned off, so this past weekend I was able to get some track planning done and put some cork down.

My new layout is going to have four distinct sections. The yard will be along the north wall to the left as you walk in the door. The Nodaway Valley section is along the east wall and the track plan is basically what I have on my 2x8 layout right now. The coal washing plant will be on the south wall and will have standard, narrow, and dual gauge. Finally, the narrow gauge Path Valley section will be on a peninsula jutting out from the west wall. In its entirety the layout will be in a reversed G shape. 

I have almost all the track planning done.. The only thing left on the standard gauge is the yard which I still haven't decided what to do with. I got the cork entirely laid down on the Nodaway Valley section this weekend, including the turnouts to the yard at the north end and the coal washing plant on the south end. 

The lead to the coal washing plant will be dual gauged so that it can be used as one of the legs of the narrow gauge turning wye. This will require the building of five dual gauge turnouts, including a curved one that will have to be built on site. I'm thinking of building them all on-site so they can be code 55 rail instead of the code 40 that is used in the Fast Tracks dual gauge jig. I also have a handful of narrow gauge turnouts to build, but I can use the Fast Tracks jig for those since it is for code 55 rail. The rest of the track work will be Peco Code 55 for both standard and narrow gauge sections.

I have the narrow gauge Path Valley track plan almost all figured out as well. It is being built as a heavily modified Woodland Scenics Scenic Ridge layout. I have single-tracked the hill section between the loops and as such I have created two turnaround loops, which will require some special wiring. The only question left is where I am going to put the turntable and round house.

I have a Peco 6" turntable that I am going to modify to narrow gauge, and I have an old wooden kit for the Nevada Northern roundhouse. I have the kit for the two added on stalls as well, but I don't think I will have the room for them. I have just about decided that it will go in the lower right corner as you look at the plan on paper. There should be just enough room for the turntable and the four stall roundhouse.

I am going to automate some of it using an Arduino to control the loop turnouts. To further complicate things, I am also going to automate the turnout leading into the turning Y at the coal washing plant. There will be a sensor on each loop and one on the wye that will cause all three turnouts to change as the polarity on the main is switched. I will be able to run it as a point-to-point from the coal mine on the upper loop to the coal washing station wye and back, or as a continuous run around the upper and lower loops.

I am waiting on insulated rail joiners for the Electrofrog turnouts, and then I will be able to lay some track. That might be a while though because I have the show in New Bern coming up this month on the 21st and I have a couple of modules that need attention before then.

I don't know how much I will be able to get done during the month of February, but my workplace will have a shut-down in March, so (depending on whatever plans The Management has) I should be able to get some more done then. I would like to get some track laid this month, and maybe build some turnouts as well.

If it all works the way I have imagined it, it should be awesome.

Watch Your Speed

 I have been busy speed-matching locomotives.

First, I speed matched everything on my NCE system and found that they didn't perform the same on the club Digitrax setups. This is because the two systems put different voltages on the tracks, which is irritating but not unrecoverable.

Second I noticed that locos I thought were speed matched were, in fact, not. Generally speaking I try to match them at 50% and 99% (Digitrax doesn't go to 100%) at 65 SMPH and 120 SMPH* respectively, and set CV2 to zero and live with the results. This works well with most of my locomotives, but I found that some locos I thought were programmed to these speeds at these throttle settings were way off. Locos that I thought were set to 65/120 ended up being set at 40/75 instead.

The only thing I can figure is I had the speedometer set to K PH instead of M PH, which would throw the readings off to the degree I am experiencing (roughly 1.6 kilometers per mile). So I have a bit of Unitrack set up on the new layout (I have the benchwork complete and am working on track plans) and I have verified the speedometer is set to MPH instead of KPH, and I have started from the beginning.

So far everything is going pretty well. Kato and Atlas locos were very easy to verify and program where needed. The Fox Valley Models locos are somewhat slow, and one of them tops out at 105, so I just programmed it to keep up through the speed ranges until its top speed was met. Much to my surprise, though, the LifeLike GP18 and GP20 locos were difficult. 

The Life Like GP20 is one of my favorite locomotives, and I have eight of them. I have three GP18's, only one that I run regularly in consist with a triple set of N&W GP20s. They were all set to 40/75 when I put them on the track, and at first I couldn't get them to reset when I changed CV's 5 and 6. 

I finally had to program CV6 to about where I wanted it and then step CV5 up by increments in order to get any effect. I finally did get the GP20's all done (with the exception of two holiday locomotives that will be done later) and the one Southern GP18, but it was more trouble than I expected.

TCS decoders continue to have hesitation issues on my Digitrax system, something that no one has been able to explain, and the GP18's and 20's are all TCS equipped, which may have been a contributing factor. I love the slow speed control of the TCS decoders, but the hesitation to respond to throttle changes and the occasional refusal to play nice with Digitrax DCC systems is an irritant..

I have a couple of Life Like GP18's and 20's left, a quartet of FA and FBs that I will likely not bother with (they run really slow but they are a set), a bunch of old Atlas/Kato RS locos, one each Atlas SD7 and 9, an Atlas/Kato SW1500 cow/calf set that I may not bother with, and a pair of Bachmann sound equipped SD9 locos left to go. 

The Bachmanns run slow so I will only program them to keep up with the others to the top of their speed range. This is somewhat surprising as well since their non-sound equipped locos are rocket ships, and since CVs 5 and 6 are non-programmable on the non-sound Bachmanns there is nothing short of changing out decoders (that would have to be wired in because there are no drop-in decoders for Bachmann GP7's that I know of) that you can do about it.

And after that... we will start in on the steam. 

*Yes, I know prototypical top speeds for diesels are generally in the 65-70 MPH range, and yes I could program everything to 35/70, but running scale speeds on show layouts for the public seems really slow, so the public loses interest in watching them run. I have been considering setting them to 50/99 to match the Digitrax throttle percentages.

Layout Build Progress Report: 12/7/25

 Work has progressed on the layout, even though I haven't been documenting it as I should.

I have all the benchwork done. The framing is done out of 1x2 L girders, topped by 1/8" Masonite, topped by 1/2" foam board. The Woodland Scenics kit that I am building the narrow gauge on is likewise mounted on a 1x2 frame topped by 1/8" Masonite to give it a bit of strength. I tried it without the Masonite, but it was very flimsy in the middle.

I initially set the height for the layout at 54", but I have determined that the layout is just to tall to be accessible at that height. I lowered it to 45" at the base, so with the framing, Masonite and foam the top of the tables are right at 48". This is just about perfect, I can get to everything and it is still tall enough to give a good viewing angle and provide plenty of storage space underneath, as well as being at a good height for me to work on the wiring side while sitting on my roll-around stool.

Now that the tables are done I can start my track planning. So far I have drawn the turnaround loop at the narrow gauge junction end of the layout and cut the hole in the middle for access when I get the tunnel put into place. I will sit down later and draw it all out in SCARM so that I can attempt to plan the rest of the trackage. I don't know if my coal cleaning plant is going to work out or not, but I'm certainly going to try my best to get it in.

I still don't quite know what to do with the yard, either. I have two possibilities, a single yard that will have a Y connection or a side-by-side double yard that will only be connected at the turntable. The second method will be much easier to wire, seems to make better use of the space, and will give me a point-to-point operational option, so I'm leaning that way. The only problem is working the back yard will mean reaching over the front yard, which isn't really ideal.

I'll have to mock up my roundhouses and turntable to see what will work best. I have two "new" (as in un-built) Walthers/Heljan/ConCor Union City roundhouse kits, along with a Wathers/Heljan/ConCor 130' non-powered turntable and scratch-built roundhouse from my old 4x8 layout. The railings on the bridge of the turntable need to be rebuilt because they got broken during storage, and I don't know if I will use the scratch-built roundhouse or not. I'm leaning towards it because it has two stalls long enough for a J class or a 4-8-4 Northern locomotive, but it doesn't have anything like the same footprint as the kits.

If I do use it I'll have to build some doors, because most of the ones I had on it are missing. I can't remember if I had doors on all the stalls or not, I don't think I did. If I use it I'll have to squeeze it in, but it is closer to the turntable than the kits end up being so I think I can get it to fit OK. When I can get the construction materials cleared off of the benchwork I'll start laying things out.

Between now and Christmas I'll be going through all my kits and such, determining what I'm going to use and what I'm not going to use. I also want to organize everything so I can get my workroom laid out, then I can put some shelving in and I will finally have storage space for my modules as well as a place to work on them. I know The Management will be happy to see me get my "junk" out of the common areas.

It's been a long time coming to get to this point, mostly delayed by inertia, but now that I have a head of steam on I plan to get some things done this winter. I'll be back to work tomorrow so I will only have my days off to work on it for the next two weeks, but then I'll have two weeks of vacation from Christmas to New Year, so I plan on getting some things done then. 

We will see how well the plan resembles reality. 

Blunami! Pt 3

I said I was going to show the installation on a Bachmann J class, but I got into a bind and didn't have the time to take any pictures. I also installed one in another ATSF 4-8-4, and the only thing different about it from the previous installations that I have already shown is the size of the decoder, which I will show later in this post.

I had one of the old type Bachmann J classes that I was trying to get running for a friend, and he was considering putting a decoder in it if I could get it to run decently. It had the dreaded split gears, and I had found some 3D printed gears, but the old chassis just doesn't run well. I told him that I could put a decoder in the old crappy B-Mann chassis J, but it would never be a great runner. I might possibly get it to be an adequate runner, but given the limitations of that chassis that was about as good as it was going to get.

However, there was a guy selling one for a really really good price, and I bought it. I told my friend that I would pass it on to him for the same price as I paid for it, and I could try to work with the old one but the new one is miles and miles superior to the old one and for the price he would be an idiot not to go that route instead. Of course he agreed with me.

It was supposed to have an ESU decoder, and it did, but when it got to me I found the tender top had a hole cut in it for the cube speaker and the speaker sounded like garbage. So, I ordered a new tender shell and some speakers of the correct round type for the loco and traded him that one for one that I had on hand that had a Tsunami 2 TSU-1100 installed in it. 

This was a loco that I had picked up really cheap at a train show (cheaper than the "new" one that had just arrived, in fact) because it didn't run (a bit of Kapton tape on the chassis fixed it right up). I traded shells on the locos (my old one was 601 and the new one was 611, which is the one he wanted) and waited for my parts to come in.

When the tender shell and speakers arrived it was quick work to swap them out. Bachmann really hit it out of the park with the Spectrum J class locos built after 2005, and installing a sound decoder consists of removing the tender shell, removing the PC board just enough to slip the 15mm round speaker into the pocket made for it, reinstalling the PC board, and soldering the decoder in to the tabs built on the PC board for just that purpose.

Of course for this one I had to remove the old speaker and ECU decoder first, but once that was done and the old solder removed from the board the new installation went as expected. As I mentioned before, while I was at it I installed a Blunami BLU-1100 in the last of the three 4-8-4's I have, too, so now I have four 4-8-4 locos (three ATSF and one J class) equipped with Blunami decoders.

I do have a photo of the two decoders side-by-side to show their relative size. As you can see, the 1100 is about the same size as the TSU-1100 so if the TSU will fit the BLU will fit, too. As you can imagine, there is much more room in that 54 foot 4-8-4 tender for the speakers as well when using the 1100 rather than the 2200.

The best thing about having the Blunami decoders installed came about this past weekend when we had a train show. All of a sudden, about an hour before the show was to end, the wifi went wonky and the Engine Driver app that everyone uses on their cell phones stopped working. What that meant was, if you didn't have a Digitrax radio throttle you were done running trains. Unfortunately we were contracted, as it were, to run trains right up until closing time.

I killed the Engine Driver app and pulled up the Blunami app and right away had a pair of trains running. A couple of our other guys had radio throttles, so all four of our NTrak layout tracks were occupied until the end of the show. The 1100 runs just as good as the 2200, sounds just as good, and fits a lot better into smaller spaces.

To say I am pleased with these decoders is an understatement. I have four of these 1100's, two of them have been installed and I plan to replace the two 2200 decoders in the 4-8-4's that have them with 1100's instead.

And then I will have a grand total of four steam 2200's... and I have four HO scale steam locomotives...

I also just purchased a BLU-2200 for EMD diesels, since I have an HO scale GP7.

It looks like my HO scale layout will be DC powered with no blocks. I'll probably use a dedicated 15VDC power supply for it rather than hook any sort of throttle up to it, so it won't even have a control panel, just an on-off switch. I will manually throw turnouts so I won't need power for them, either. That should make things really easy.

And now all I need to do is build some benchwork...
 

Blunami! PT 2.5

 Once upon a time I told you about installing Blunami BLU-2200 decoders into a Bachmann 4-8-4 steamer. As you may recall, I picked the Bachmann 4-8-4 because it has a big tender, big enough to fit this HO scale decoder and the two speakers required for the 2W output power rating of said decoder. At the end of that post, I expressed a hope that they could be downsized for N scale.

Well... someone at Soundtraxx must have been listening, because the BLU-1100 has now been released! 

As soon as I knew they existed, I jumped online and ordered some. Unfortunately they were back-ordered, and even now at the time of this writing they are listed as "out of stock" on Soundtraxx's website.

BUT! I just got an email saying they have been shipped! I should have them in my sweaty paws very soon, and as soon as I do we will have a comparison and another installation post, this time on a Bachmann Class J. 

Rises And Elevations

The first part of the benchwork has begun.

I made some L girders out of 1x2 and fastened them to the wall at 30 and 51 inch heights. The 51 inch was necessary to clear the light switch of all things, but that's about where I wanted it anyway, and the 30 inch is perfect for a table-top height HO gauge layout.

Or so I thought.

The first real bit of benchwork I built was a 3x6 foot platform for the Scenic Ridge layout that I am going to build as Nn3. It, too, is built from 1x2 strip wood, and with the foam on it measures right at 2 3/4". At 51 inches from the bottom, the top of the platform with the Styrofoam sheets attached is just under 54". That should be fine as long as I don't have any problems at the back of the layout, assuming I will have the long edge against the wall. 

Which you know I am going to, for no other reason than it will be difficult to reach at that height.

 Added to that is the fact that the entire layout isn't built at foam level, oh no. There is a 2" riser that goes on the top of the base board that sets track height, and then a 4% incline that adds another 2" before it's done. Because I'm building this in Nn3 I may be able to get by with substituting the 4% incline with a 2.5 or 3%, which will only raise the track another inch and a half. Still, that would be a 3 1/2" maximum track height, added to the 51" bottom height, added to the 2 3/4" base height, which puts the highest track elevation at 57 1/4" from the floor and almost 3 feet from the front edge.

Yep, I'm going to need a ladder to get to the back of the Nn3 layout. But it will look spectacular at that height.

Due to this, I'm considering putting the HO layout on the adjacent and opposite walls, which will put it under the widest part of the standard gauge layout instead of under the narrow gauge, where it would impede access to the back of the Nn3. I'm also considering a 3" difference in height between the standard gauge and narrow gauge sections, which would be about a 2.5% grade along the 10 foot wall, which is completely possible and would add a little interest besides.

I'm also considering sticking the Nn3 out from the wall, which will extend it six feet from the wall. At a 10 foot 10 inch room width, that would leave 4 foot 10 inches for the main section of the standard gauge and an aisle. Figuring at least 24" for the aisle leaves a 2 foot 10 inch bench depth for the standard gauge. This does give me enough room for a 15" radius turnaround loop for the standard gauge, especially if I consider curving the front of that section towards the wall. 

That would also allow me to put the grade along the same wall as the Nn3 layout will stick out from, which will not interfere with the turnaround loop on that end, and would also give me a nice level spot for the interchange yard on the layout spur going to the narrow gauge (which will be standard gauge... maybe... or maybe it will be a coal washing plant with the narrow gauge climbing down the grade to get to it.).

So many possibilities... but that's why I built the base for the Scenic Ridge layout first.