Lighted roundhouse by Jim Fox

I asked Jim to send me the information on his interesting project of lighting his roundhouse. He told me he had gotten tired of laying track and adding bus wires on his home layout. So for a change he thought he would switch to a little detailing project. Below is the information he sent me.

I used 3mm 9-12 volt led lights (pictured above) for the pit , I put 5 lights down each side of the pit and ran it to a switch so you can turn them on or off each pit buy its self

Then I powered them with a LM 2596 buck DC to DC step down converter switching regulator 

They have a input of 3.2 volts -35volts dc

Out put of 1.25volts - 35volts dc adjustable with read out display 

Out put current of 3A. Max 

You can get them on line (Wish) for about 5 bucks each, pictured below.

 A number 1206 led light was used for the hanging lights.

Larry gave me some top hats he had made out of ear ring studs see Julys post on Homemade gooseneck lights. 

I then drilled a hole in the middle of the top hats, fed the light through it then put a stiff piece of wire and a heat shrink on the light wire coming out of the top hat to make it straight and stiff 

Holes were drilled through the beams to put the lights wires through. Brass tubbing was put down the posts to feed the wire down through the round house, as in the picture below.

Then I wired it all up under the round house.

Great job Sparky. Can't wait to see the next little project.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

The train orders were ran with no problems. Although there is a learning curve with all the new trackwork.

I can just hear Don saying "that tracks been moved!".
Below is the switching ladder which completes all the track in the Ortona yard, but 1 turnout is out of gauge and will have to be replaced. Its the first turnout in the ladder.

Above picture shows the track from Lincoln to Lakeview with 1 siding. Larry added 1 x 3's around the front of the bench work and a triangle corner to the entrance of the sawmill area.

From Jutland to Lakeview. The Sawmill still needs to be worked on, but we need to remove the structures to add scenery to the upper mainline area behind it.

Monday morning surprise.

"Monday morning, sometimes it just turns out that way". On the way home from a small DIY  job, I stopped at the club to count some cars. Specifically how many tank cars, and gravel hoppers, we have. We could use a couple extra tank cars. Checking the gondolas I found that only 1 had crates, so our cards will read containers, the 1 coil car will also be changed to hold containers. Flat cars have pipes, 2 cars, poles, 2 cars, 1 with a crate will be changed to a lumber load, and the others have various lumber loads. The pipes will only go to the power plant. The ones with poles, lumber, and beams, will be referred to as lumber or wood, on our cards.
As I was about to start taking measurements on some areas of track work when in walked Glen. He had come in to paint the ceiling tiles a brown colour. This helps seal it to receive scenery.
Then a guy came in to check the fire extinguisher, all good. Another interesting day at the Huff and Puff.

Friday fun.

Jim set up the trains in Wellington and Elsewhere with the new cards finding out that 9 cars is a bit long, so we cut it down to 8, but 7 might be better.
Don came for a visit with a couple of maintenance sheds for the layout.
Glen continued sculpting rock walls and painting them.

Jim soldered in feeders completing Lincoln and the rest of the branchline in Lincoln, although it is not connected to the Quad unit as we still need to work on the Lakeview area.
More work was completed on the 6 track, Ortona yard that Mike had started. Working with reused track makes this job more challenging.

All the while discussions continued about how we operate and how to improve it. An idea that was kicked around was that the branchline trains should be only staged in Ortona, Glen is a proponent of this one and I'm sure Jim will be also, especially if they are Turns and come back to Ortona instead of Elsewhere.  The 2 tracks on the left are to run around the logging cars and an escape route from the turntable. The 1 on the left also has a turnout for the engine  house. This leaves 4 tracks to stage trains.
I also laid out turnouts where I thought we need them on the rest of the branchline. Two in the Miller area, 2 for the passing siding in Lakeview, 2 for the sawmill sidings, and 1 for a siding in Lakeview.  We only have 3 extras left. We will probably find a use for them too.

Train Order Cards

New Train Orders, white cards with black printing.

These cards have an east and west side and will be folded and glued. At the top they have the direction of travel, then the consist of the train, and the starting location. Listed in the body are the towns, industries and jobs to be completed at each location. As an example, the West bound card lists Heron Landing as the first town visited. A box car of appliances is set out at Jackson Transfer and a box car of lumber is picked up. After the last job, switching Gay Lea Foods in Lincoln, you continue on to Wellington where the train is staged. The card is flipped over, as instructed on the bottom of the card, and placed in the rack corresponding to the track it is staged on. The east bound side of the card still uses the same group of cars, but switches different locations. All the switching is done on trailing point switches in each direction, easing congestion delays.

The operator should check their train consist against the card when leaving each town, this ensures the jobs listed were done correctly. Any errors should be corrected immediately.

An effort was taken to have the moves concurrent and thus creat the illusion of a  a feasible movement of goods. A result of this creats instances where a certain car my not be switched and should therefore be treated as a through car.

There are 10 cards, each with a different consist, which means there is 20 different trains to be run before the first train is run again. Throw in our other 5 or so special trains and 6 more branchline trains that is over 30 jobs in all.

Our railroad runs on the pretext that if an industry requires, say 2 box cars, they also have 2 box cars to ship, and all our industries are staged to allow for this swapping operation.

There is no need to have each consists cards a different colour, now that the east and west cards are glued together and there are no 2 cards with the same consist.

A spread sheet was created to try and make sure each industry was visited. There was also an effort to ensure larger industries received more traffic.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

The new Train Order cards were used for the first time. So observations. East and West cards should be back to back. Only 1 set of each colour/consist can be used at a time as there are not enough of some types of rolling stock. If we only have 1 set of each colour of card stock we will not have enough different colours, however in some cases we can use different colours of ink e.g. red ink on white cards. Overall the cards seemed to work well.
Projects worked on. Gay Lea Foods and Esso Oil have new signs. The siding to Schell Industries was installed. All of the roadbed was installed on the branchline,  just the logging spur needs to be constructed.
The loop to Ortona was laid and the 6 track yard in Ortona was started.

As Peter and Jeff switch Lincoln, Mike and Rob work on the branchline. 

Don brought an Exchange student from Brazil to our layout. 

Glen and Larry work on another part of the branchline. 

Friday fun.

Glen, Larry, Jim, Jim, Rob and I were in attendance. Jim and I had several discussions about the Train Orders, including the fact that it would be better if the return run was on the back side so that the Train Order just needs to be flipped over, for its return trip.  He then set up trains to use the Train Orders on Tuesday. Glen continued adding scenery and helped install benchwork,  when he was needed.
The benchwork from Lincoln to the sawmill area was added, and some of the logging spur was laid out. We were trying to get all the remaining sawing completed, but we still need to add the 1x4 face along the front of the benchwork, and finish the logging spur.
Rob and Jim were busy adding feeders. Rob also levelled out the hump area on the mainline on the back side of Lincoln.