Wordsmith

So I built myself a 5 ft x 2 ft 6" baseboard over Xmas and am now slowly laying track on it. I can get 14" radius curves, which is probably closer to what would go onto a more permanent layout. (9" radius curves were too tight for my Schools loco). I'm laying the track on 0.8 mm thick cork just to see what difference that makes. If I get all the track laid this month, the plan for February is to get an occupancy detector and try and figure out how that and JMRI work. Much head scratching in prospect. Couple of questions in the meantime if I may. How often do the major manufacturers redo production runs? for example, if a steam loco goes out of stock, how long before they run off another few hundred/thousand? How easy is it to renumber steam locos? There's only a limited range of RTR locos for the era I'm interested in, so if I buy several of the same model, they'll need renumbering. Is it practicable to do it yourself. (I note The Model Centre do it for £50, which is a cost I'd like to avoid if possible). Cheers, Wordsmith

Link wiring is essentially directly taking the power from one rail to another, rather than from a power bus. Not the best of diagrams, but you could essentially power a siding by wires from the mainline rails. But @KingEdwardII has given me the answer. If you use link wiring, occupancy detection won't work as it wouldn't detect if the train is on the main line or in the siding. Another lesson learned - thanks... Wordsmith

Thanks both - I've put trying out MTB MP1 point motors on my 'to do' list. Another question if I may... I've got the little Peco 'Wiring the Layout' booklet. And they have a section on using link wiring as an alternative to drop feeds. So I rewired the sidings on my little experimental layout in that manner. That resulted in less wiring under the baseboard because the sidings are no longer directly connected to the power bus; essentially they're getting their power from the head shunt drop feeds, and the link wiring is overcoming the self-isolating feature on the points. I can see that power transmission becoming more of an issue as you are more dependent on the rails conducting it (although I assume you could solder the metal rail joiners in place on a permanent layout to help improve the conductivity). Are there any pitfalls to using link wiring? Cheers, Wordsmith

Ah thanks - got them working. Remarkably simple when you know what to do. It's the figuring out what to do from a low starting point of knowledge that's more difficult. Only problem I now have is that Traintronics seen to have become a Covid 19 casualty and are no longer trading. Are there any other slow motion point motors with built in decoders? The obvious candidate from a bit of Googling would seem to be a Cobalt digital IP. My gut feel (and I stand to be corrected) is that built in decoders will mean marginally less wiring under the baseboard (and less embuggeration). Cheers, Wordsmith

Thanks all for the above comments - I wanted this to be a future retirement hobby that made me think. And it's certainly going to make me do that. I'm beginning to experience the gulf between what you can pick up from books/the Internet and what practical experience can teach you. As to stopping distances, etc., I've found out that you can program acceleration and deceleration rates, etc, into a loco, so that's also on my list of things to play with in the near future. The hobby has come on a long way since I built DC layouts as a teenager.... Wordsmith

My ignorance is showing - thanks for the info. So now I need to figure out how to get my DR5000 command station to talk to the point motors - which looks fairly simple. The other thing I wanted to use the DR4018 for was to turn sections of track on/off as an experiment. I figured if a loco was moving extremely slowly when it hit a dead section of track, it would stop in a fairly precise location - a step towards computer controlled shunting. One of the many things I want to try out - at first by using a manual on/off switch and seeing how reproducible the stopping point is. Wordsmith

Hi Mike, Yep - I'm using electrofrog points. I'm planning to model the SR in the 1930's. And as a lot of that was tank engine based, I didn't want the locos stalling on insulfrog points. And yep, insulating rail joiners over the place. One of the many lessons I've learned is to wire as you go along and then run an engine along the new section of track - that way you find problems early and avoid a lot of re-wiring/adding more insulating rail joiners. :o( I have Traintronics TT300 point motors that I'm planning to run via a Digikeijs DR4018 module, although I've yet to figure out how to use it. That's next on the list. Cheers, Wordsmith

So - made a little bit more progress and now have things running on my little 4 ft x 2 ft trial baseboard. Although the first thing I found was Dapol Schools locos don't like running round 9" radius curves. So I'll be building a slightly 5 ft x 2 ft 6 inch baseboard (and 12" radius curves) when I've exhausted the learning potential of this one. :o( But now understand how to wire the track correctly. (Bit of trial and error - mainly error). A couple more questions if I may. Is it worth pre-planning wiring runs and then putting in the feeder wire positions accordingly? For a small test layout like mine, I might have been better to run the power bus along the inside of the timber frame with spurs to the different feeder wire locations. Plus, I ended up taking the power feed from my command station and splitting it into two feeds: one to the oval of track/passing loops and one to the head shunt/sidings (which were isolated behind a pair of insulating rail joiners [facing points] to prevent a short circuit). Which, in turn, suggests on a larger layout, you're going to end up with 'sub-buses' going to different electrically isolated areas of the layout. Chuck in another power bus for points, signals, etc., and I can foresee rather complex wiring needed for a larger layout. Finally, is it worth laying think cork under the track bed to deaden the noise a little? I was slightly surprised how much of a sounding board MDF made. Again, thanks in advance for the answers. Wordsmith (Next stage is getting a few point motors working from the command station. More head-scratching in store...)

Thanks both - will experiment. I hadn't realised how slow, painstaking and a PITA laying track accurately was. One reason I'm happy to make any mistakes on a small test layout first... Wordsmith

Another question for the experts to answer. I'm using Peco code 55 flexible track. It's not very keen to be bent into curves of 9" or 12" radius. Or in staying (prior to pinning) in something approximating the Tracksetta curve. Is there a trick to making it more flexible - for example by cutting more gaps in the webbing underneath? Or is it a case of bending it to shape with a Tracksetta curve, putting some panel pins outside of the track to keep it roughly in place, and then pinning it? Advice welcome.... Wordsmith

Thanks both - I got some of the Peco track pins; they were smaller diameter than what I had. Which, with a small hand drill, enables me to get the track down neatly without splitting the sleepers. I've also found I can solder the dropper wires on neatly using crocodile clips to hold the wire in the required position on the track first That leaves me one hand for the soldering iron and one for the solder wire. I get on better using flux-less solder and painting on the rosin flux by hand. I hadn't realised how painstaking tracklaying would prove to be - it's slow motion work that requires a lot of patience. Which, in a way, makes me glad I'm building a test layout first. I can make my mistakes on that before I try and build a real layout. Every day's a school day... Wordsmith

Hi both - the problem is that the width of a sleeper is not enough to accept a track pin. The baseboard isn't a problem - it's MDF. Having thought about it, I think I'll try drilling a tiny pilot hole in the sleeper first. It'll split when I hammer the pin in, but hopefully the pin will still fix the track in place. I'm planning to glue track down on any permanent layout I construct, but the current baseboard is just for experiments. Cheers, Wordsmith

So, another question I hope someone can give some help on. Is there any practical alternative to gluing Peco code 55 down? I've tried pinning it with track pins, but that doesn't look to be a roaring success. I was hoping not to have to glue it down, because I wanted to experiment a bit with with different types of points, introducing gradients, etc, as time goes by. But pinning is not particularly successful, particularly on the 9" radius curves I'm trying to put in just to get something running on my 4 ft x 2 ft baseboard. Thanks.... Wordsmith

Got it thanks, plus one or two books on railway electrics downloaded onto my Kindle. To learn, I really need to start playing with stuff... Wordsmith

Firstly thanks to @jamespetts for the detailed reply. Very helpful.... This will be a bit of a slow motion reply as I'm not planning to build much until I retire, to it's really learn the techniques and gradually stock-up with the rolling stock, track and points. Having not tried this for over 40 years, the initial impression is how much the technology has changed. In terms of the logic of wiring, it was relatively easy to wire up an old DC type layout. Lots of wires, but conceptually fairly straightforward to do. DCC is rather different. I downloaded some books from Kindle to refresh my memory, gradually accumulated enough rolling stock, track and points to build the test layout and am now starting to learn how to so do. The first thing I've learned is that the manufacturer's instructions (locos, command stations, etc) are pretty basic - so rummaging around on the web, reading the Kindle books etc., let me find out some more. So, for instance, I've found you can program some of the running characteristics of the locos; speed with which they'll accelerate and brake, maximum speed and so on. So, when time permits in a day or so, I'll have a play on my programming track and find out how to do that. I've also found out that the Digikeijs DR4018 is actually quite a complicated little beast and can be programmed to do quite a lot. So I need to get it to pre-set 6 (slow motion point motors), and get it operating my point motors via the command station and my PC. (Theoretically I can get it to run a combination of point motors, signals and whatever, but I'll learn to do that further down the road). [The Digikeijs DR4024 is on my metal roadmap for the future - I'm assuming the programming logic for servos will be broadly similar to the 4018] When I've sussed out how to control the point motors, it's then a case of getting some track and points down onto my baseboard to construct a test layout. Objective one is just to get manually controlled trains running round the track with manually controlled point motors. And with track that doesn't cause a derailment every 5 minutes; which means I have to find out how to lay N gauge track neatly - and wire it correctly. (It'll be wired in such a way that I can try occupancy detection next - nothing fancy - just see what's where). As to jamespetts' comments about the difficulties of python programming for JMRI; I work with a load of computer nerds. Providing Covid 19 lets me get back into the office, I can probably get them to critique my scripting - they write a lot of stuff in python and other scripting languages. My laptop is Linux (Ubuntu) anyway. One of the reasons I'd like to play with JMRI is it'll make me learn Python - I find just following exercises in a textbook boring. Working out how to do things for a real world purpose gives purpose to the learning. To be honest, it's the problem solving that interests me most - I like puzzling things out. And there's a lot to work out. You can obviously do a lot with DCC/computer control - but at the moment, I'm at the very bottom of the learning curve. Wordsmith