Just Call Me Sparky

Being crazy busy at work, while driving all over the state under cloudy skies has kept me from posting much lately. Even when there has been a bit of free time, being infected by the modeling bug once again has also cut into what was once internet time. Maybe that's a good thing.

So what's been keeping me so busy? The idea that I wanted to be able to let one train run on the loop around half the basement while switching with another at the same time led me to create this:


So what's that, you say? Well, all the REAL model railroaders have fancy control panels, and it seemed like I needed one as well. But I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time or money on it, so this panel is cobbled together from odds and ends. It allows you to select the main or siding for one throttle, and operate the yard with the either of the two throttles at your choosing. No fancy DCC system for this old timer (yet anyway). Applying my PhD level electrical knowledge, some old lamp cord, kindergarten-level soldering skills, and a handful of wire nuts along with some actual store bought SPST and DPDT switches, I came up with this:


That's the rear view of the panel shown above. I'm thinking this isn't the way you really want to do something like this. In fact, when I started trying to troubleshoot why things weren't working like they should have, it became crystal clear why people use many colors of wire, along with wire labels and terminal strips to connect up things like this.

But after a bit of troubleshooting, it worked, and that's what really counts. The first time an intermodal train drifted by the yard while I built a train to leave later, it was worth it. This model railroad bug bites hard and hangs on tight. One of the troubles with it, though, it that every time you accomplish some little thing like building a panel that allows you to control more than one train, you have to stop and play with it for a few minutes hours. And so once again progress comes to a screeching halt as a string of covered hoppers is assembled so the yard job can take them down to the local elevator for loading. And the paper mill needs 4 more clean box cars. Oh, and I almost forgot there are two kaolin tank cars to drop there as well. Those coal gons that were set out last night need to go to the RIP track. Sounds like this will be a full shift...

Disaster Prevention

A while back, I made a post describing how I built a drop bridge to span the entry door to my layout room.

At the end of that post, I mentioned the need for some type of interlock to prevent running trains into the canyon while the bridge was down. After some searching for the right switch, I finally got around to working on that project. While the solution is rough looking, I'm very happy with how it performs. Here's a short video showing the interlock at work:


The wiring is very simple. What I did was cut a gap in each rail far enough back from the bridge to allow any loco to come to a stop before plunging to destruction when it reaches the unpowered track section. Then I ran a feeder wire from one leg of the powered track section to the switch. It's a normally open switch, so the lip on the bridge has to depress it to allow power to flow to the bridge and each approach section. The switched leg feeds power to both approach sections and the bridge through three separate feeders-all attached to the switched leg. The power reaches the far side of the bridge by way of a wire fastened to the door frame.

I know there are more elegant solutions, especially to powering the far side approach. I may investigate that in the future, but for now, I have made my layout a safer place for the trains that operate there. That's a good thing. And on top of everything else, it was inexpensive-leaving more money for coal gondolas!

Jim