A Few Simple Repairs

 Yesterday, for a brief shining instant, trains were running on the Nodaway Valley Railroad.

Yes, I finally got the final track wiring accomplished and then I ran some trains. I found a dead piece of track that needed feeders and a few turnouts that needed to be tuned up, but I was able to run a cleaning train around a few times.

I then broke out the Bachmann 4-8-4 locos. These are almost magical in their ability to find flaws in trackwork, and boy did they find them. A few of the issues were due to wheel guage, which was quickly fixed, but two (three) major issues were soon found to be a problem.

Due to my desire to have a turning Y for the narrow gauge, I created a stretch of dual gauge trackage approximately 5 feet long. This dual gauge trackage led eventually to the coal processing plant where it turned back into a standard gauge yard. Due to the placement, the main line was forced into a tighter curve, 12" where originally 15" was planned.

On the beginning of a hill.

So two model railroad no-no's in one short stretch of track.

I made the decision this morning to tear out the dual gauge and replace the Y with a narrow gauge turntable, which means I will have to purchase and modify another Peco N scale turntable for that end of the narrow gauge. This will allow me to broaden the standard gauge curve going into the coal plant (thus eliminating another future headache), which allows me to install the 15" curve on the main that I wanted in the first place.

Still on a hill, but at least the broader curve will be less of an issue.

In the process I will be eliminating a siding that I had installed for a joint train station for the standard and narrow gauge railroads, but I won't miss it. This gives me an additional opportunity to smooth the vertical transition more than it is, which eliminates another issue since the vertical transition was co-located with the beginning of the curve.

You can see why I had issues there.

While I'm at it, I am going to eliminate the two passing sidings on the hill. I had added them in as an afterthought, one on each incline, and the turnouts are problematic because of the vertical distance the throwbar actuator had to travel. 

The Northerns had problems with derailing their pony trucks on these turnouts, and since I don't really need them they can go away. This will also give me some room to put scenery on the wall next to the incline since there will only be one track instead of two.

I will re-test the mainline when these repairs are complete, and I'm expecting better results.

Starts and Stops

Thursday I was supposed to get a visit from the plumbers to do some major work. They had to beg off, so instead I tackled the wiring on the layout (which I was going to do regardless, since I wasn't going to irritate the professionals).

After eight hours of continuous labor, I was able to get blocks 1 through 4 and 6 through 11 wired from the track to what will become the control panel connector. In a real sense that means the main part of the standard gauge is done; all that is left is the mountain loop (block 12), the dual gauge section (blocks 5 and 14), and the coal washing plant yard (block 15).

The mountain loop is one continuous run with one siding (block 13). I will have to wire about three drops for the continuous section, but the drop for the siding is done. Two dual gauge turnouts have to be built and installed along with the rest of the dual gauge track before the coal plant standard gauge yard can be laid and wired. 

The common rail has continuity all the way around the standard gauge section, and the common rail for the coal plant yard will be wired into this continuous section. The common rail for the dual gauge section, however, will be wired through a switch so that it, along with the dual gauge approach block can be switched between standard and narrow gauge.

I haven't even begun to attempt the yard design. It occupies a blank section on my layout map labeled "Here Be Dragons" beyond the two turnouts that will lead to it. Whatever it ends up being, it will occupy a 28 inch by 8 foot section of bench work that has already been built. The narrow gauge portion at least has a solid plan, but it will have to wait until I complete the rest of the standard gauge section. Time will tell which of these sections (yard or narrow gauge) will be built first. 

One day I will take a picture of my doodles so that you can see what blocks are where and how they connect, but today is not that day.

Layout Build Progress Report 5/14/26

Work continues on the railroad today.

I was on vacation the first half of the month, but before I left I managed to get the last piece of track down on the Nodaway Valley (standard gauge portion) Railroad. All of the track work, turnouts and Tortoise switch machines are installed and tested. All that is left before scenery can be applied is wiring.

My goal today is to get all the common rail wiring complete, then get the block rails wired to terminal blocks. After that I'll have to build control panels so that the block rails can be wired to block switches and the Tortoise switch machines can be connected to their control switches. My plan is to be able to switch control systems from DC to DCC, the same as I could do on the last layout.

I am using Digitrax DCC on this layout because I have it, and if I program my locos on the Digitrax they will run the same at home as they do on the club layouts. I have a Cooler Crawler kit to put together that I will use for DC power. Along with the kit are throttles, and if I am seeing things correctly at least one of them is a radio throttle. I guess I will see when I build the circuit.

Once I can get the wiring complete I will run some trains for a while to verify everything is working the way I want it to, and then I will start on the narrow gauge Path Valley Railroad. I have turnouts to build and control systems to figure out. I want to use servos for the turnouts, controlled by Arduinos, so that I can set up an automatic continuous operations loop for when I want to run locomotives for break-in or just to run them around like fish in a bowl. 

That will take some figuring out because what I will have is a loop-to-loop on the Scenic Ridge layout with a branch line to the coal processing plant and dual gauge interchange. I want to be able to control them all individually for normal operations or switch to the automatic operation on the loop-to-loop and lock the branch line out for continuous operation.

And now the plans have been made, I need to get started. 

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.