Enough parts finally arrived that I think we have a shot at building the track plan. I dropped the parts off at the office and DOP started assembling a small section of the switching yard. I was working from home that day waiting for an appliance repair person to show up. However, my daughters and I went in on Saturday and I started fiddling with the pieces and placed most of the loops, at least what I could with the parts that were on hand. This is how I left it. I didn't assemble the viaduct pieces.
DOP and I met up Sunday and completed the track plan in a couple hours. The picture below shows the point where we were wondering how the track plan was going to close.
Here is what we ended up with
The as-built track layout is a little different than the plan. As drawn by Kato it doesn't work out like the drawing shows it should. However, there is more play in the track than I had anticipated so with a few substitutions we were able to make it work. Then we discovered we had some extra track pieces so we expanded the layout to add some additional length to a couple of the spurs.
Feeling pretty good with the layout, we decided to commit to it and drilled holes for the turnout wires. We raised the table up on some scrap foam to keep us from drilling through the tabletop. Marked the locations, move the turnouts, drilled the holes and ran the wires through.
You can see the layout table sitting on the foam and the turnout wires hanging below. There is space in the layout benchwork to run the wires correctly and neatly so we can set the layout back down on the table once the wiring is all tucked away. But we need the control panel shelf to complete that step.
We took a guess at where to best connect the power feed, hooked the powerpack up and now it was time to RUN TRAINS! The first up was the Amtrak P42 but I couldn't help myself putting the CN GEVO on the layout at the same time. Man those Kato locomotives run smooooth.
Then I had to try the Electro-Motiv SD60. The initial run was fairly disappointing requiring the powerpack to be at 3/4 throttle before the loco would even move and even then it required a nudge. I suspect old grease and the fact that this unit is older and supposedly had never been run before. But after running it for about 5 minutes it became very smooth and would creep along at low throttle without a problem.
Running the trains uncovered a number of issues with the layout.
The curved viaduct pieces connecting directly to the bridge causes problems with the Amtrak passenger cars. The cars are long enough that the corner of the car gets caught up on the bridge support. The observation car is long enough that it rubs on the raised edges of the viaduct track. Kinda lame as the track, bridge, cars are all made by Kato. There are obviously some rules that need to be followed that I don't know.
The turnouts in the main loops cause a logic flip-flop with the power to the track. Based on my earlier testing of a turnout (there is video in an earlier posting), I knew there was going to be some challenges. The spot we chose to connect the power wasn't the best choice. Also you can apparently get power "switched" and "unswitched" versions of the turnout. We have "switched". I think we can work around the problems by adding more terminal feeds to the track. - need to sort this out.
We were able to pop the overload protector on the Kato power pack with the ge 44 tonner when sending it over one of the turnouts on the mainline. We could only reproduce it a couple times and it was likely due to having the turnouts set wrong.
The layout handled two trains with no issues under DC power but only engines of similar build. The single winding loop is a problem when the engines run at different rates. This makes having a couple separate interconnected loops desirable.
I decided I don't like the look of the Kato viaduct unitrack and piers. The piers and viaduct track work in an industrial setting but look out of place in a mountainous natural setting. I'm thinking we might want to cut our own incline pieces and use cork trackbed and code 80 flextrack or unscrew the track from the viaduct pieces and use that on our own incline parts.
Next steps
Here is what happens when you have multiple trains stationed on the layout and you aren't paying attention to how the turnouts are set. An errant turnout change allowed the Amtrak to energize and pull out of a spur while the SD-60 was coming around the inner loop. A collision resulted. Nobody was hurt. The locomotives were salvaged and put back into service.
More disaster. There was work happening on the bridge and incline that wasn't posted. An Amtrak passenger car ended up being pushed over the edge. Oh the inhumanity.
The 44 Tonner working on moving freight to a different spur. Why are there so many different types of couplers on everything?
The busy railroad. So much fun when it is all working right.
DOP and I met up Sunday and completed the track plan in a couple hours. The picture below shows the point where we were wondering how the track plan was going to close.
Here is what we ended up with
The as-built track layout is a little different than the plan. As drawn by Kato it doesn't work out like the drawing shows it should. However, there is more play in the track than I had anticipated so with a few substitutions we were able to make it work. Then we discovered we had some extra track pieces so we expanded the layout to add some additional length to a couple of the spurs.
Feeling pretty good with the layout, we decided to commit to it and drilled holes for the turnout wires. We raised the table up on some scrap foam to keep us from drilling through the tabletop. Marked the locations, move the turnouts, drilled the holes and ran the wires through.
We took a guess at where to best connect the power feed, hooked the powerpack up and now it was time to RUN TRAINS! The first up was the Amtrak P42 but I couldn't help myself putting the CN GEVO on the layout at the same time. Man those Kato locomotives run smooooth.
Running the trains uncovered a number of issues with the layout.
The curved viaduct pieces connecting directly to the bridge causes problems with the Amtrak passenger cars. The cars are long enough that the corner of the car gets caught up on the bridge support. The observation car is long enough that it rubs on the raised edges of the viaduct track. Kinda lame as the track, bridge, cars are all made by Kato. There are obviously some rules that need to be followed that I don't know.
The turnouts in the main loops cause a logic flip-flop with the power to the track. Based on my earlier testing of a turnout (there is video in an earlier posting), I knew there was going to be some challenges. The spot we chose to connect the power wasn't the best choice. Also you can apparently get power "switched" and "unswitched" versions of the turnout. We have "switched". I think we can work around the problems by adding more terminal feeds to the track. - need to sort this out.
We were able to pop the overload protector on the Kato power pack with the ge 44 tonner when sending it over one of the turnouts on the mainline. We could only reproduce it a couple times and it was likely due to having the turnouts set wrong.
The layout handled two trains with no issues under DC power but only engines of similar build. The single winding loop is a problem when the engines run at different rates. This makes having a couple separate interconnected loops desirable.
I decided I don't like the look of the Kato viaduct unitrack and piers. The piers and viaduct track work in an industrial setting but look out of place in a mountainous natural setting. I'm thinking we might want to cut our own incline pieces and use cork trackbed and code 80 flextrack or unscrew the track from the viaduct pieces and use that on our own incline parts.
Next steps
- Analyze power flow with an eye on removing the power flip/flop issue
- Look at implementing the power plan and verifying that it work with DC and DCC
- Think about turnout signal indicators - either lights by each turnout or a control board with lights indicating the state or both. I see now why layouts have control boards with the layout drawn on it and indicator lights at the turnout locations.
- Redo the incline with something else and to try and make the bridge work
- Figure out where roads, buildings and industry are going to be placed
- Lake and river placement
- Figure out how to normalize couplers
The busy railroad. So much fun when it is all working right.
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