November Update

Progress in the month of November hasn't been terribly impressive from a 'what you can see' standpoint. A lot of wiring was completed for staging. The use of Arduino processors was developed and tested. Of course we celebrated Thanksgiving and I went Elk hunting the week after. Some track was laid in Ventura and the Valley and Harbor staging yards are complete.

I shared a portion of the Ventura the track plan in the last update, below is a more complete version including the leads to Coast Staging. 

To the right is the Ventura 101 bridge approach. The challenge is getting around the 90 degree wall corner and aligning with the corresponding side while maintaining a 39" radius. In the diagram above, the bridge is the rectangle near the wall corner with the 101 freeway going underneath. 

You can see the wall corner in the upper part of the picture. The roadbed is being installed for the main and the siding. 

At the opposite end of the wall is the transition to the staging yards. Coast Staging is comprised of two yards. One along the wall and the other above Taylor Yard. Each of which is five tracks. 

In the picture below, you can see the roadbed for the run around on Olive Street. This and the section to the right will have street running as per the prototype. 

Note the curved turnouts on the benchwork. I am choosing to maximize the length of the staging tracks to accept an increase in train length. To do so, I have compressed the ladder design. This requires the use of curved turnouts. 

The window on the right is the emergency exit onto the roof. The section of upper level benchwork in front of the window must be quickly and easily removable to access to the window in an emergency. I'm still working on the design for this pull out section. And I need to finalize it soon. Using curved turnouts will help keep the yard ladder turnouts off of the removable section.

More progress on the roadbed installation for turnouts to serve the industries, etc.

A late decision was to install a helper pocket. That is the roadbed to the right of the window. It goes back along the wall to the corner.

This track will store locomotives to be used for restaging. As the upper level 'Coast Staging' is stub ended, I'll need to have a way to move the trains for restaging. The locos stored in the helper pocket will pull the trains out of staging track less the road power. Once pulled back, the road power will be moved and the train pushed back onto the track by the helper pocket locos. The helper pocket will eventually be hidden behind the backdrop. 

With all the roadbed down, it was time to lay some track. 

A view of the end headed to the 101 bridge.

One thing I noticed is that I'll need more lighting over this section of Ventura. Ugh! I'll be working on a solution. I have no attic access as the room has a flat roof above. There is only a 2' gap above the ceiling and it's filled with insulation. I'll likely fish wires thru to make all connections. 

Track laying came to a halt shortly thereafter. I need to get the removable window section installed and had to purchase the curved turnouts. Unfortunately, when I did my original big order, I did not order any #7 right had curved turnouts. Oh well...

I wrapped up track laying for the Valley and Harbor staging yard ladders by finishing the ladders on the helix side. I also laid out the helix pieces in preparation for installation.

It was time to get the Tortoises mounted. I use hot glue to attach the them to the benchwork. This is especially effective for mounting them under the benchwork. It works very well expect for the inevitable glue strings.

To the right, the tools of the trade. The hot glue gun for Tortoise mounting and the ancient Throttlepack to test each Tortoise after installation. 

My goal is to ensure the Tortoises run smoothly and move the points with the appropriate amount of force.

To the right is the staging bypass track that will be used to move and turn trains in restaging. This is an auto-reversing section. The track is to the right of the post. All Tortoises are now glued in place.

And of course, more feeders!.

The tools of my feeder installation are the Weller soldering iron, small diameter solder (0.020), and the wire soldering iron tip cleaner. I started using that cleaner on the recommendation of Eric Hall and now use it 100% verses the wet sponge for tip cleaning.

 

 

There was plenty of wiring to do, and that was the next task. 

With all of my feeders installed, it was time to start running the buses. Each staging track will be electrically isolated. This will allow me to only power the track when a train arrives or departs. That means 20 wire runs: 

- 9 runs for Harbor Staging

- 9 runs for Valley Staging

- 1 run to power the Harbor Staging ladders

- 1 run to power the Valley Staging ladders

I will be using timer boards to provide the power management. The turnouts will be controlled via an Arduino processor. 

I will be using 14 gauge wire for the staging tracks. My standard for the main and upper level buses is 12 gauge as the wire runs will be significantly longer. Having decided to use 14 gauge, I had to buy more wire. I ordered two 1000' roles from my favorite supplier of stranded and tinned marine wire. I chose colors of yellow and purple which are different from the blue and white 12 gauge wire rolls. Despite having 9 tracks in each staging yard, I decided against having a different color for each track. Time will tell whether that was a good decision or not. 

First up was wiring the new staging yard. I always twist my bus wires at roughly one twist per foot. With two 1000' rolls of wire, that wasn't going to be an easy task. Fortunately, I have scrap metal and a welder. I thought 'I can build a apparatus!' And I did. 

As I pulled the wired under the railroad, Jason would spin the roll holder which resulted in a good twist. The apparatus isn't pretty, but is very functional. 

To aid in control of the wire as the reels are being spun for twisting, a piece of scrap PVC was clamped to a leg. The wire passes through the PVC and guides the twisted wire. 

To pull the wires around the underside of the peninsula I used my version of a 'Speeder', my trusty mechanic's creeper. 

20 runs were pulled and clamped up to the benchwork. Once the runs were pulled, I went back and attached the feeders to the bus wire. Another pass to solder all of the bus/feeder connections followed. 

In December I will do the wiring of the two East staging yards on the main peninsula. Those will be much easier to do as they are straight pulls versus a U shaped peninsula of the Harbor/Valley Staging. 

Next was to get the Tortoises wired. Two rolls of Cat6 cable were used. I chose Cat6 as it is 23 gauge solid wire versus the 24 gauge stranded of Cat5. Any extra will be spare feeder wire.

As each cable comes with four pairs of wire, I needed two cables for each yard. I have eight Tortoises at each end of the staging yards, so two cables were perfect. I bought two colors to make the distinction between Tortoises 1-4 and 5-8. 

I had a supply of connector boards for the Tortoises, so I opted to use them for the wire connections versus soldering directly to the Tortoise.

A panel was added under the benchwork to manage the Tortoise wiring on the end of the peninsula. All wiring is routed from the source to this board and from the board to the Tortoises. The terminal strips help to keep the wiring organized. Jason got everything connect up and tested. 

Next will be to finish the wire management. That will be accomplished when the wire management is done for the staging buses.

The few Tortoises needed for Taylor Yard were mounted under the benchwork. I really didn't want to use them as I prefer hand throws, but due to reach issues, that was my only option. 

You will notice that I still have more feeders to connect. 

On the list for December are the installation of the main level above Valley and Harbor Staging, completing the staging helix, and building more spline. Ventura will be finished as well. I'll also provide an update on the Arduino uses. 

There is still a lot to do, but I'm making good progress!