hon30critterWe want the plywood sub roadbed to be 1/2" wider than the Homasote on either side.
Why?
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
Hi Carl425,
Extending the plywood beyond the Homasote gives us a more substantial surface to attach the scenery to, and it also provides support for the ditches which will be built along most of the trackage. The Homasote will eventually be cut at a 45 degree angle to form one side of the ditch. The exposed plywood sub roadbed gives us something to attach the other side of the ditch and the scenery beyond it to. At least, that's the theory!!
We debated just leaving the ditches at the depth of the cork roadbed, but we decided to make them deeper so they have more visual effect, and they will also be more prototypical, especially on the mainlines. The ditches don't have to be as deep as the Homasote. We can make them shallower simply by filling them in a bit.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
hon30critterExtending the plywood beyond the Homasote gives us a more substantial surface to attach the scenery to
I use cardboard web based hardshell. I stapled the strips of cardboard to the edges of the plywood and was able to make whatever contour I wanted for ditches.
I've always felt that keeping the subroadbed as narrow as possible allowed for the most flexibility in scenery construction. I've always done mountain railroads too so maybe the flexibility is more important to me than it is to you.
Hi again Carl:
I'm guessing that you are stapling the cardboard strips to the side of the plywood sub roadbed as opposed to on the top. Is that correct?
We haven't actually decided on the method(s) of scenery construction that we will use, but we decided to add the extra 1/2 inch for now so that we have lots of options.
However, I do appreciate your point about the narrower roadbed allowing for shallower slopes. Nothing has been installed yet so we can still change the width of the roadbed. I will bring the point up at the club. Thanks for your input.
hon30critter Actually we do have a club website.
Actually we do have a club website.
RobertSchuknechtI would also suggest a club facebook page.
Hi Robert:
We do have a facebook page but I don't think there is anything on it yet! We had a wee bit of a challenge setting up the facebook account because nobody, repeat nobody, in the club is a facebook user! (All dinosaurs and old farts eh!) The gentleman who runs our website (until recently nobody knew how to set up a website either so Peter had to learn that from scratch too) has volunteered to take on facebook as well, but because he is still learning how to do the website thing he hasn't had a chance to spent any real time on facebook.
The website is coming along nicely but it still has a ways to go. Facebook will come along eventually too. We have just had a fellow join the club who owns two website development companies. We have asked our original website manager to stay on and we have asked the new member to help him out a bit.
Just a brief update:
The layout is coming along nicely. Tuesday night we drilled the holes for the power bus and the Loconet bus. Actually, we had already drilled some holes for the buses but after re-reading Allan Gartner's advice on DCC wiring we realized that the advice that we had been given by one of our club members re DCC wiring was a recipe for disaster! Back to the drawing board! The phrase "It works on my layout" doesn't cut it!
After drilling the new bus holes we installed the first two of many sheets of plywood sub-roadbed. They were glued and screwed so heaven help us if something has to be changed! I didn't want to install the plywood until after we had pulled the main power bus wires at least, but Henk, the President, insisted that he will have no problem getting underneath the layout to pull wires. HA! We shall see how his back is feeling after squatting under the layout for a couple of hours! I have tried several times to get him to leave the plywood off until most of the wiring is in place but he is a Dutchman - as stubborn as they come!! Apologies to all good Netherlanders out there, I'm just kidding! Henk is a really great guy and he is totally devoted to the club and to getting the new layout up and running ASAP.
Stay tuned!
Hi, Dave
Thanks for the update! Sounds like you have a real cast of characters there
hon30critterHenk, the President, insisted that he will have no problem getting underneath the layout to pull wires.
When I was involved with "our" club, I built a roll-around scooter to access the underpinnings of the layout. When the club disbanded I graciously adopted the little guy, and am I glad I did!
Scooter_x1 by Edmund, on Flickr
I use it pretty frequently on my own layout. It is especially nice now that I have installed continuous carpeting and the little guy scoots around very nicely.
You see I made a little trough in front to hold wire ties, tools and such. Really comes in handy. I rarely use the adjuster in back as it is best when leaned back all the way but maybe someone of smaller stature might want the back a little more upright.
Scooter X2 by Edmund, on Flickr
As far as the Loconet cable goes, I was really concerned when I ran mine over fifteen years ago. I have lots of parallel runs with the Loconet running alongside the power buss and even some 115 VAC mains in a few places.
Never a problem (insert knock-on-wood emoji here) Just sayin, you don't have to get over-concerned about it.
Cheers! Ed
Hey Ed!
That is a nice little under-layout 'scooter'. I will share it with the club members. I don't know if anyone has any welding equipment but I will certainly bring the concept up before the Layout Committee. By the looks of it, it could be made out of wood fairly easily, especially if we were to do away with the adjustable back. For now we have a little stool on wheels which is about 12" high. It works great for our portable layout, but the portable layout is about 10 1/2" taller than the new layout, so it might not work as well under the new layout.
Thanks again Ed for your support! You are a great model railroader in all aspects of the hobby including sharing your expertise!
Cheers!!
Hey, Dave.
Thanks for the compliments I'm just passing on "pearls of wisdom" that I've picked up along the road to... where are we headed, anyway?
I just made the back support out of welded angle since that was my stock-in-trade for so many years. I'm sure a good quality wood would work every bit as well. I angled the seat part a bit and, in hindsight, I probably could have made it a little shorter. The rest of it is just 1 x 4 and plywood.
Another scooter I have is made out of a fishing boat seat. Something like this:
http://www.basspro.com/shop/en/bass-pro-shops-tourney-special-pro-butt-seat
(Butt seat? Um, what else would go there?) Again, mine is welded but a good quality wood would work too.
https://www.amazon.com/Pro-Lift-C-3001-Pneumatic-Chair-Capacity/dp/B0009EUA0M/ref=lp_15707971_1_5?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1511952972&sr=1-5
Even Something like this, maybe?
http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=117117646&clickid=body_rv_img
Ya' gotta get comfortable on the job! First thing I learned at GE
Regards, Ed
gmpullmanSounds like you have a real cast of characters there
We certainly have a group of individuals! Henk said to me after last Tuesday's meeting that he felt like we were herding cats! Henk and I are both retired managers and we are both glad to be out of it, but we now find ourselves right back in the thick of having to massage a bunch of peoples' egos all at the same time. I keep asking him if we are having fun yet? I won't go into the details, except to say that we look each other in the eye every so often and ask ourselves why we are doing this?!? The answer, of course, is that we are having a lot of fun bringing a previously somewhat decaying club back up to snuff.
On Tuesday night we ran into a problem which we had tried to address before, and that is how to keep everyone who shows up at the meetings engaged in the construction process. Henk and I concluded that we will have to spend some additional time preparing lists of things to do so that we can say at the beginning of the regular Tuesday night meetings that "this is what we have to do tonight" and then line up people to do the work. Many of the members don't seem to be able to identify what needs to be done, which I guess is a natural human condition. Last night Henk ended up on the end of a vaccuum hose because apparently none of the members who were sitting around the lounge table shooting the breeze could see that the carpeted floor needed to be cleaned. It was covered in sawdust. I have to say that I was rather disappointed. Henk is spending many hours per week working on club business including building the layout, but since nobody else volunteered to vacuum the floor, Henk is going to go to the club house today to do it himself. I'd go there too, except I don't have a vehicle during the day. OK, I signed up to lead the herd! Now I will have to put my 'Nice Guy' cap on and then grab a few guys by their boot laces and tell them to get their rear ends in gear, in the nicest possible way of course!
Thanks for letting me vent my spleen! I feel much better now!!
As always, Cheers guys!!
gmpullmanhttps://www.amazon.com/Pro-Lift-C-3001-Pneumatic-Chair-Capacity/dp/B0009EUA0M/ref=lp_15707971_1_5?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1511952972&sr=1-5
That's kind of like what we have already, but without the pneumatic lift.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Another way to get a scooter cheap is go to a junk yard and get a seat out of a car, bolt it to plywood with caster bolted on. No welding needed.
Pulling the wire isn't too difficult if you use stranded waire and you make a spool rack - some sort of support where you cna put a pipe through the spools of wire and hold them in place, while someone pulls the far end through all the holes. Stranded even easily makes it around curves, even in heavy sizes like #12.
You don;t want low voltage and high voltage lines in parallel over long distances, but there is also a distance factor. One line at the rear of a 2 foot wide section of benchwork and another parellel to it but at the front edge won't be a problem. Both of them running through the same set of holes is bad. When lines need to cross - as close to a 90 degree angle is optimal.There is very little induced signal when they cross at 90
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Hi Randy,
Great advice as usual!
I was aware of the minimal impact of crossing wires at 90 degrees, but I want to better understand what you mean by not running low voltage and higher voltage wires through the same holes. We have separated our Loconet communication wires from our main power bus wires by 12" in all but a couple of situations where they may be 10" apart for a foot or so. We still need to run our accessory buses for the signals, layout lighting and the tortoises. I take it that we should not run those close to the main power bus or the Loconet bus. Correct? Can we run all three of those accessory buses through the same holes assuming that the holes will be distanced from the main power bus and the Loconet bus? If so, how far away from the other buses do they need to be?
Thanks Randy,
P.S. You may not be aware, but I am suffering from hair loss as do many seniors. However, I never associated it with being a railway modeller until I got elected as the V.P. of the club!
hon30critter .....could see that the carpeted floor needed to be cleaned. It was covered in sawdust. Dave
.....could see that the carpeted floor needed to be cleaned. It was covered in sawdust. Dave
If you have carpeted floor you had better utilize large size casters on that under-layout cart
Brian
My Layout Plan
Interesting new Plan Consideration
railandsailIf you have carpeted floor you had better utilize large size casters on that under-layout cart
Hi Brian,
Good point. The carpet isn't exactly plush but the ease of rolling around under the layout is still something that needs to be taken into account.
Thanks,
SO I wrote a really long explanation of induced voltage in parallel wire runs and all sorts of interesting stuff and - it got eaten. I'm not going to retype all that now.
Bottom line - it's something to think about, but no so critical that you need to plan every wire run with millimeter precicions.
rrinker SO I wrote a really long explanation of induced voltage in parallel wire runs and all sorts of interesting stuff and - it got eaten. I'm not going to retype all that now.
Been there, done that! I don't blame you for not wanting to rewrite your post.
A couple of simple questions: How far should the accessory bus wires be from the main power bus and the Loconet bus? Can we run all three of the various accessory buses (i.e. lighting, signals, and tortoise power) through the same hole(s)?
If the accessory busses are all just power, it's probbaly ok to have them close. But if any of those is actualy a control signal, it should be a few inches away from any power carrying lines. Same with track power vs Loconet.
No matter how you lay it out, track feeders from the bus will at some point have to cross the Loconet cable, and/or the other lines. But as those wires come out from the track bus under the layout, they will cross the other lines at close to 90 degrees so it won't be a problem. More so if one of those things is attached up tight against the underside and the other hangs down slightly - note that any sort of power bus where you will need to take taps off should be attached tight up against the underside, unless it's some easily released and reused method., but something like feeders that likely will never change once in place can be attached semi-permanently with things like cable staples and kept away from the bus lines. So not only do things cross at 90, they also have a couple of inches of air gap - it would take signals far beyond what we use for model trains to cause interference issues with that sort of arrangement.
Also, on the club sections, the DCC busses and the aux power actually are all bundled up, at least near the ends were the Power Poles are attached. There haven't been any issues.At the end of each section, all the various wire runs come together for about a foot long pigtail. A cup hook secures each one for transport, and they are long enough to easily plug them together without crawling around on the floor. The Loconet cables are NOT part of this bundle, in fact very few sections have permanent Loconet cables, those get wrapped up and stored in a plastic tote for travel, and get hooked up as needed for each show, since some places use a short setup and others we can set up all the sections. Some sections have no Loconet devices of any type on them, while others will have a block detector or an SE8C. There are a couple where we actually have to connect the 10 pin flat cables from the RR-CirKits detectors or drivers to the Tower Controllers because the controller is mounted on one section and there are some signals or detected blocks on the next section that run from that controller.
Only time we've ever had issues is when someone forgets to plug in one of the cables.
rrinker If the accessory busses are all just power, it's probbaly ok to have them close. But if any of those is actualy a control signal, it should be a few inches away from any power carrying lines. Same with track power vs Loconet.
At this point we don't forsee any signals being transmitted along the accessory buses, but I will keep that in mind.
rrinker note that any sort of power bus where you will need to take taps off should be attached tight up against the underside,
I think you meant "should not be attached tight up against the underside...". We are going to use a few removable clips while we are pulling the wires just to prevent any deliberately slack spots from being pulled up tight. The Loconet bus and the main power bus will be about 12" apart.
Thanks as always Randy,
Yes, exactly. My mind runs WAY faster than I can type.
OH how I love dealing with all of the characters in the club! We had a meeting on Monday night to finalize some details about the February Show and Sale. Things got a bit acrimonious. Suffice it to say that I kept my mouth shut and waited until the black clouds of egomania had passed! I can laugh now, but at the time I was asking myself why am I here? Don't worry, that was a momentary weakness!!
We also had a Layout Committee meeting, and there we actually managed to accomplish some important things IMHO. We recognized that Henk and I have become a bottleneck in terms of making progress on the new layout. On our regular Tuesday night meetings everyone is coming to us asking "What can I do? What can I do?", which is great except that we end up trying to assign 10 different people to 10 different tasks all at once, and then in many cases we have to teach those tasks to the people who want to do them. Trying to delegate a bunch of different work projects to a bunch of different people, and explain how to do the work, all at the same time, is impossible!
I proposed a solution tonight which I hope will address that problem. I suggested that we ask a few knowledgeable individuals to form teams that will focus on the individual tasks. We will have a track laying team, a wiring team, a team for plotting track and turnout positions on the Homasote and plywood and a cutting team for the remaining roadbed sections. The theory is that the various team leaders will be able to take our basic instructions re what needs to be done next and proceed to do that work without needing intimate oversight. Henk and I would then be free to observe and support the work, and hopefully to catch any mistakes that are being made along the way, and more importantly, we would have some time to plan ahead. Heaven help us, but we might actually be able to sit down for a minute or two as well!
Thanks for your support everyone! Really, I am having fun!!
Dave, remind me. How many club members?
Rich
Alton Junction
22 as it stands now, I believe. Our beloved secretary, who is getting on in age as it were, isn't quite up to date on the membership list. He is a longstanding member of the club and he has done a lot of work supporting the club and organizing the February Show, so I choose to be patient with him.
hon30critter 22 as it stands now, I believe. Our beloved secretary, who is getting on in age as it were, isn't quite up to date on the membership list. He is a longstanding member of the club and he has done a lot of work supporting the club and organizing the February Show, so I choose to be patient with him. Dave
Good luck with the project. You clearly need a project manager in addition to team leaders which is a good idea by the way.
Hey Dave,...something like this 'herding cats'.....HA...HAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8
Hey Brian:
Funny ad! I'll send it to the team leaders and Henk.
richhotrainYou clearly need a project manager in addition to team leaders
We have chosen our project manager! It is me!! Heaven help us!!!
l'état c'est moi
richhotrainl'état c'est moi
Pardon? (spoken with a French accent). No, not quite. I still choose to be a team player.
I managed to avoid French class from grade 10 on. Stupid move on my part, but of course, at the time, by getting out of French class I thought I had pulled off a major coup d'etat! Now all I can manage are a few swear words!
I have a nephew who is just about to graduate from a French Immersion high school in Mississauga, Ontario. He has travelled to Quebec several times with his family and each time he has been able to communicate quite easily with the locals. I guess they aren't teaching Parisian French in the schools anymore. Now the kids just might actually get something out of it!