July Update: Has there been any progress?

In my last blog update, I laid the last piece of track and put in the Golden Spike. That was 'noticeable' progress. Much of my time since the last update has been spent soldering and soldering and soldering. However, I do have some updates.

Once the track was complete, I had to finish installing feeders. As noted before, every piece of track gets a pair of feeders. Even if it is 1" long, that section of track will get a pair of feeders. I'm estimating that I have over 5000 feeders that have been installed to date. 

Next is to connect the feeders to the sub-bus. The sub-bus is 14g bare copper wire that all the feeders are connected to. The sub-bus is then connected to the 12g track bus. This method helps in wire management. However, with steel benchwork, I am very careful not to allow the sub-bus to touch the steel. As pictured, the wiring has yet to be anchored in place. This image shows the feeder connections to the sub-bus and the sub-bus connection to the track bus.

Helix wiring was quite the task as well. Developing collection points for the feeders and routing of the bus was challenging. Overall, I'm happy with the results. For the single track helix, all of feeder connections were brought inside. For the double track helix, connections were made inside and outside. The inside bus was for the inside track and the outside bus is for the outside track. 

I'll admit, after the push for the Golden Spike, I was a bit burnt out. It's been a bit of a challenge to go upstairs and do work. I have also had other demands for my time. In the mean time, the Exeter Branch keeps going strong. We finished up the July operating sessions with session #365. 

In July, I chose to clean the wheels of every car on the Exeter Branch. My process is to not only clean the wheels, but shop every car too. To date, I have never cleaned the track on the Exeter Branch. I have cleaned the wheels on every car multiple times. Funny how time flies though, the last time I cleaned car wheels was over three years ago. Surprisingly, that gunk on the wheels has not been that bad. Many cars have no buildup. I always find it curious that I can pull a car off the railroad to clean wheels and only one of the eight have a buildup of gunk. I use an X-acto knife to scrape off the gunk. Next I use a Q-tip dipped in isopropyl alcohol to wipe the wheels clean. The last step is to dry the wheel with the other end of the Q-tip. Yes, I use a lot of Q-tips. Thanks to Costco, I'm well supplied.

Before taking the cars back to the railroad, I check the coupler heights, rolling qualities, coupler centering, etc. I also update the shop date in my inventory spreadsheet. And finally, I put a maintenance mark on the back of the car card. That mark makes it very easy to pull car cards and check which cars have had recent maintenance or not. 

I do about 16 cars at a time. I load them in a coke flat (the cardboard box that four 6 packs come in), grab the car cards and carry them up to my work desk for maintenance. The coke flat is also used to return the cars to the railroad.  

In May, we did add LED light strands under the upper level. They provide great light to the main level. I'm a big fan of bright lighting so the car numbers are easier to read. The strands I used were found on Amazon. The light is pretty consistent across the strand. The strands are 16' long. 

I thought it important that the strands would be mounted on a 45 degree angle projecting from the front. This avoids a top lighting effect which casts more shadows. I checked online and found brackets that I could 3D print. After some testing, I downsized them to 85%, and they work perfectly. The brackets were hot glued into place and the light strings were threaded into the brackets. Thanks to Jason for coordinating all of the installation. They look great!

We also installed temporary panels for all of the staging switches, the Taylor engine facility and turnouts, and the turnouts and electromagnets for Violet alley. Is is a mix of illuminated latching pushbuttons, non-latching pushbuttons, and color coded buttons. These are all temporary until testing is completed and the fascia is mounted.  Please note that these are temporary panels. The final panels will be more exact in alignment, level, etc. The one missing panel was not photographed.

The panel pictured to the right is waiting for the push buttons to be installed. They will be used for the electromagnets. The buttons are on order.

Based on encouragement from friends and blog readers, I'm including some of the other things distracting from work on the LA Division.

Beyond burnout, life impacted layout progress as well. In June, Jennifer and I went on an Alaskan cruise. We had a great time and celebrated our anniversary on board. Our cruise went from Vancouver to Anchorage. The itinerary included cruising the Hubbard Glacier. The morning that we would be cruising the glacier, I woke up hearing the ship's fog horn. Needless to say, we never saw the Hubbard Glacier. Regardless, I truly enjoy cruising vacations.

At the end of June, we had to put down our 13+ year old dog Mira. We rescued her from a shelter in Benson AZ twelve years ago. We never knew her actual age as she was a stray. I won't go into the details, but we made the right decision on the timing and that decision was validated. 

After a few weeks, we began the search to find Dennis a new friend. We didn't have much luck finding another Rhodesian Ridgeback. We ended up adopting a German Shorthaired Pointer from the local shelter. He was a stray picked up July 5th. He likely bolted as a result of the fireworks. We checked the support groups and nobody had claimed him missing. 

He has integrated quickly. I've now learned that he's like velcro to me, that they are called GSPs (yep another TLA) by those in the know, and they are messy, messy, drinkers. We've had to buy mats to catch all the water within 5' of the water dish. His name is Mike. 

Wiring should wrap up in early August. Then there is a lot of cleaning to be done. After that, we will begin populating the railroad. My plan is to populate the industries by using trains to move the rolling stock out to the industries. That should help to expose any problems. Once complete, we will start test sessions using switch lists. The car cards won't hit the railroad until the fascia is installed and the card boxes mounted. 

One last thing. Jason bought a new multi-color 3D printer. He surprised me with a coaster he had created. Looks very cool. Now I just need another seven.

Well, Jason decided to deliver another eight, so now I have nine coasters. I just need to add felt or cork to the back. These are really cool!

That's it for this update. A lot of work is still ahead, but it's getting closer to running trains.