Well, it's been a long, long time since my last posting! How time flies, when you're having fun!!!!
So what's been happening? Work, work, work and more work mostly! On top of that marshalling planning permission thorugh the local council for the loft, just a bit more work and just one teensy holiday to finish it off...
However in the background other things have gone on... I have managed to eliminate the router from the Z21 for one! This is it, for an Apple Airport Network connected via
For those who are interested, the ring network I'm using is described here:
http://www.wintergroundfairlands.com/2012/12/daisy-chaining-serial-connections.html
However, I've completely ignored something quite important!
In my model so far, the stations at the end of the single track section have seemingly endless capacity, when a train leaves the section and enters the station the last signal remains green... Not very good if your station has three tracks, one of which contains a tr
Back in September, I was thinking of implementing a single track signalling system using some PIC's, custome circuit boards and a lot of blood sweat and tears... Then one day, best mate pointed out that you can buy Arduino clones on ebay for stupid prices...
Just how stupid? Try £2.33! Each! Including P&P! From China.... It takes about two weeks for them to get here, but there's no rush, so that's fine...
So five were duly ordered, the correct driver was located and they arrived a bi
I like DCC, it's great! However sometimes it's overkill or simply too expensive and then sometimes something simple is all that's needed....
The storage loops are a case in point, I have previously explained how to do the reverse loop with using an expensive reverse loop module. This time I will take things a step further and explain how to auto-select a track in the storage sidings...
Each of the tracks in storage sidings has an occupancy detector, there is also a detector on entry to t
In part 1 I looked at the mainline services which cross at the main station. So this time it's time to look at how the branch can be fitted in...
Services on the branch should meet the mainline service in the reverse direction at the junction, so it needs to leave the main station in time to meet it!
At this stage we are not too concerned about steam trains on the branch, as I'll explain later...
So the branch train departs halfway between mainline trains from the main station and ma
Doing domestic chores can be a wonderful time to get some thinking in. So this morning I spent some time thinking about how the timetable for the Austrian part of Lofty should be arranged. First a quick recap of the track plan, from bottom to top:
1. The fiddle yard: 4 or so tracks representing the Landeck part of the world, arranged in reversing loop
2. The major intermediate station with steam loco shed, a carriage siding, and 3 or four loops
3. Junction station: Built on a ledge with on
Last weekend was Vienna, sadly I did spend almost all of it inside the exihibition halls, manning the Austrian Railway Group stand..
Originally, it was planned for me to spend Sunday travelling out to the Mariazeller Bahn, however due to an unexpected events we were short staffed, so this wasn't possible.
Nonetheless, a great time was had and some new stock was acquired! At some point I will produce a show report, ARG members first!
Discussing my app with best mate over the weekend, we came up with some further ideas where we could take it:
1. Both of us have similar locomotives fitted with the same chip, so it would be nice if the settings could be retrieved and then pushed out to another loco... I.e. A with X could be replicated to B with X...
2. Building a register of chips... This would give a graphical interface to the chips.. (This could be very complex...)
Support for MERG, RFID detection, at the moment this
Last night, after a nightmare journey thanks to SouthEastern/A Trespasser/Signal failure (take your pick), I managed to get a small application working on the Mac...
I'm using my old Mac on purpose, for starters it's 9 years old, so if it works on that, it should work on more recent Macs... Secondly, for anyone wanting to use it, picking up a nine year old Mac shouldn't cost too much... Thirdly, Apple include the developmemt environment for free. Lastly, Apple produce wireless keyboards and
I have an old (2006) computer that doesn't really get used very much... In fact it's an old Mac Mini, that no longer gets updates, so really shouldn't be connected to the internet anymore. This Firefox stopped working on it too...
However it's otherwise fine and at some point had its memory increased to the maximum it can take, so should be O.K. for offline work...
As you know Lofty will be quite big and controlling it will be a Z21. I can use the provided apps to control it, using the P
The RhB is well known for some of the engineering that was done in order to build its lines. On the Albula line there is the famous Landwasser viaduct, curved arches ending in a vertical cliff face and the Albula spiral.
On the Filisur to Davos line is the famous Wiessen viaduct, a wonderful stone built arched bridge over a large gorge. The section of the line between Davos and Klosters also features turnback tunnels as used on the Albula.
Both the Arosa and Bernina lines have on street
It's been a long time since my last post, for many varied reasons... More about that later!
The layout will have several single track sections... The Zillertalbahn doesn't use colour light signalling (it's all radio token stuff) but the RhB does, so to make it realistic I should add colour light signals!
To that end I'm thinking of building a PIC based single track signal control module. The simplest module will be to control a pair of back to back signals controlling a single section bo
I never got around to talking about the wires bit. Never mind, some days these things happen...
Anyway, so my idea is to have two DCC buses, one for each of the two gauges. A switch will allow joining both halves. In turn in each half there will be a point bus and a track bus.
A lot of this is future proofing, just in case my layout gets too big, I want to be able to include a booster should it become necessary. At the same time I also want to be able to operate one half without the othe
I realise it's been a while since the last post, however planning continues unabated.
There's been a bit of a snag however (well actually two). The first is that planning permission for the loft conversion is now around 6 weeks behind schedule. This is due to me not noticing that the architect had dropped the plans through the letterbox and the crisis in Greece making the Euro drop...
Anyway, hopefully everything will sort itself out in due course...
Meanwhile I've acquired some new
The lack of ABC on most of my HOe loco's got me thinking... So here's a thought:
1. An isolated section at the end of every storage track, the loco will stop dead when it hits that part of the track
2. A MERG DCC stationary decoder with a 30 second pulse, connected to a relay
3. The relay switches the DCC power to the isolated section, enabling the loco to move off
This means I can select the track and when the loco arrives, it will stop dead, then when it is to move off again the trac
As I think I've mentioned the layout will be DCC operated. I like driving locos, not the track, nor do I want to be tied down in one spot to flick switches all the time.
With DCC control you can automate reverse loops very easily, but just how easy I didn't realise at first!
the initial plan was to use a reverse loop module. This switches the polarity automatically when a train drives into reverse loop. The units do work well, but are not free. In addition to this I had questions if they mi
Historically the RhB was planning to extend the Inn valley line beyond Scuol/Tarasp all the way to Landeck. Unfortunately WW1 intervened (as it did with the extension into Italy from Sankt Moritz over the Maloja pass).
So the Austrian part represents an HOe version the railway bulit under post war austerity from Landeck to both a border crossing at Schalkl and the village of Nauders.
During the steam era a steam depot was at Prutz, but these days with diesel traction this is no longer re
As I mentioned on the last post on Gerlos, I would be starting a new blog for the new layout...
Even though construction on the loft conversion hasn't even started, I'm already planning what's going to go in it. The original plan had Gerlos moved up into the loft where I had envisaged to fix two problems it:
The ramp up to the upper level station on one side was a considerable 4%. This severely limited the length of train that most of my loco's can haul when going that way round.
The
