Fort Myers, Florida in the 90's - Its the layouts 30th birthday this year - Freemo South 2024

[roundhouse]

Have you got the part number for these ?

Colin

 

Not yet.

 

Ian

[alastairb]

The facility in Lunenburg looks very modellable. If anybody fancies a modelling a smaller cement transload they could try Eagle Leaf Transload in Lebanon New Hampshire. It is served by the Claremont and Concord RR on their very short line from White River Junction VT. I posted some photos in the recent thread on East Coast Short lines. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/83984-contemporary-shortline-operatons-usa-east-coast/

 

Here are a couple of pictures. It looks suspiciously like a Pikestuff kit! It appears that railcars unload in one side of the shed and bulk trailers are positioned in the other half, see http://www.theccrr.com/lebbulktrans.htm

[Glorious NSE]

Have you got the part number for these ?

 

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-4037

[alastairb]

Eagle Leaf Transload

 

For those interested it is at https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?expflags=enable_star_based_justifications:true&ie=UTF8&cid=12457282283000108999&q=Eagleleaf+Transload&iwloc=A&gl=GB&hl=en_uk

 

The unloading shed is directly opposite the junction of the two rivers.

[roundhouse]

Today I psent soem time working on the layout.

 

The first new siding is now in place and just needs wiring before balasting and other sceninc work around it.

 

I have now decoded that this will be the LPG unloaidng siding.

 

The cement unloading will go down near the trestle bridge as it will give me a bit more room for the silos etc.

 

I have put the LPG tank hlaves together and have two options as to where they will be sited.

 

First one is placing them end on to each other but not sure how prototypical that is.

 

The second option isro put them alongside each other but this will be more cramped between the ned of the siding and the bridge.

 

And just for a bit of fun, the loco I had been working on earlier this morning after giving the sound decoder a good test and reprogamming the loco address.

[Supaned]

When Model Railroader built an LPG terminal , there was a bit of a hoo-haa about how they oriented their tanks , with a firefighter writing in to tell them that they'd oriented them incorrectly ; I think the main issue was that they had them pointing towards a building which was a no-no in case they went up (quite literally) like a rocket and took the building with them, but I don't remember any comments about them being in line or side by side.

 

Some discussion and information here :

 

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/10067

 

Interestingly , in all the images , the tanks are side by side.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Supaned

[roundhouse]

When Model Railroader built an LPG terminal , there was a bit of a hoo-haa about how they oriented their tanks , with a firefighter writing in to tell them that they'd oriented them incorrectly ; I think the main issue was that they had them pointing towards a building which was a no-no in case they went up (quite literally) like a rocket and took the building with them, but I don't remember any comments about them being in line or side by side.

 

Some discussion and information here :

 

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/10067

 

Interestingly , in all the images , the tanks are side by side.

Thanks ofr the info.

 

Never htought about firebrigade situation but makes perfect sense.

 

I think that I will put the tanks side by side

 

Regards

 

Ian

[warbonnetuk]

Ian

 

This is an overhead of the LPG dealer on the Kimberly Spur, Fullerton for ref

 

Dan

 

 

[roundhouse]

Thats an option to put them at an angle although I would have to make the Walthers tanks shorter.

 

Will have another look tonight.

 

AIn

[long island jack]

Ian

 

You could always cut them in half(giving 4 tanks) and use them as you would a building flat on the edge of the baseboard,just a idea!

 

Ray

[roundhouse]

Ian

 

You could always cut them in half(giving 4 tanks) and use them as you would a building flat on the edge of the baseboard,just a idea!

 

Ray

Its the viewing side but yes could do them so that you can look in and see the gas in them!!

[long island jack]

obviously,there would be a plasticard end fixed on ,so the gas dosn't leak!!!!

[Talltim]

Its the viewing side but yes could do them so that you can look in and see the gas in them!!

with Freemo, both sides are the viewing side!

[roundhouse]

Very true although when used as stand alone it will just be one side.

 

Ian

[roundhouse]

I was planning on cutting the grass tonight hut it must have rained here during the day as there were puddles along the roads and the grass was too damp, so that gave me the excuse to do more work on the LPG tanks, alter some of the wiring on two of the boards and get some filler on the road embankment.

 

I have had another go at positioning the tanks, this time at a slight angle. Think it looks better than bring parallel with the board edge.

[roundhouse]

Nothing much to photo in last couple of days but the LPG tanks have now been samded to remove the tank half joints, primed grey and htis morning a couple of coats of white. Will need a few more coats to cover the grey. May sound odd doing this but I find just adding white paint to white styrene, it alomst becomes transluscent. The grey makes it all look a bit more solid.

 

The rails to the new siding have now been painted so wont be long before this is ballasted and the tanks fixed in place.

 

I can then move onto the next two boards to add the team track / timber unloading siding.

 

The wiring is being greatly simplified at the same time. However there is allowance ot add separate power districts so when a short occurs then the hwole layout doesnt stop working. I will need to work out how this will work when the layout is set up as a module using different DCC systems.

 

When stand alone the layout is controlled by a Digitrax system.

 

Ian

Edited April 30, 2014 by roundhouse

[DanielB]

I know exactly what you mean Ian, I always prime everything before repainting it myself. I hate the look of paint applied directly over coloured plastic - it just looks... well... plastic-y, even if you spray it with matt sealer.

 

Layout is coming on really nicely, I'm following this with interest.

[roundhouse]

Thanks Daniel.

 

I will have to work on it evenings and early mornings now as very few weekends that I can work on it now.

 

Luckily there is only one completely new board but that should be fairly easy to lay the track and wire.

 

ian

Edited April 30, 2014 by roundhouse

[DanielB]

It's all about stealing 30 minutes here and there - any progress is better than no progress.

[AndrewC]

Ian, as far as splitting the layout into power districts, the simplest solution when running as a module would be to have a jumper bridge between all the zones. When running at home plug in each zone as normal. When modular, attach the banana plug from the previous and next modules as you would, then have a set of jumper wires that bridge each zone effectively creating a single live power district. As far as wiring goes, you just need one pair of banana sockets for each district and a set of sockets that are wired directly to the incoming power from the other modules. That has the added advantage of isolating modular power from your layout if you need to troubleshoot separately.

[Glorious NSE]

The wiring is being greatly simplified at the same time. However there is allowance ot add separate power districts so when a short occurs then the hwole layout doesnt stop working. I will need to work out how this will work when the layout is set up as a module using different DCC systems.

 

Probably depends how you're doing the districts Ian, if you'd normally be linking each to a digitrax booster then leaving the boosters off but having a way to jumper all the blocks together to your (normally unconnected, straight through) modular bus would get it working simply as Andrew says. We can split blocks via the module joints when it's a module.

 

If you were thinking of using something like the tam valley boosters though, they should happily sit "above" such a through modular bus all the time and just retransmit whatever dcc signal they are getting fed, so just feed in your digitrax, lenz, whatever...

[roundhouse]

What I am trying to do is have just one power district, ie from the command station etc. when used as a module as theres normally only going to be one movement on it but when set up as a separate layout we will have numerous locos moving hence the need for separate power districts, using a PM42 or more likely a PSX 2 or 4 board. This htne stops the layout going ' quiet' as we will have a fair few sound fitted locos when not used as a module.

 

Andrew

 

I might be able to do something similar as I was already thinking of running the feeds from the banana plugs at each end of the layout  / module to a swtich so that I can change from track power from the Fremo set up to that from my Command station and thus never the two can be powering the track togehter should my command station track power plug be connected, so I could use this to also bypass the the power districts when set up as a module.

 

Ian

[AndrewC]

What I am trying to do is have just one power district, ie from the command station etc. when used as a module as theres normally only going to be one movement on it but when set up as a separate layout we will have numerous locos moving hence the need for separate power districts, using a PM42 or more likely a PSX 2 or 4 board. This htne stops the layout going ' quiet' as we will have a fair few sound fitted locos when not used as a module.

 

Andrew

 

I might be able to do something similar as I was already thinking of running the feeds from the banana plugs at each end of the layout  / module to a swtich so that I can change from track power from the Fremo set up to that from my Command station and thus never the two can be powering the track togehter should my command station track power plug be connected, so I could use this to also bypass the the power districts when set up as a module.

 

Ian

That would work but you'd need a switch for every district to feed from either the "communal" Fremo modular source or from the PSX. Biggest risk would be if you were running your power to one district and had the Fremo power to the rest of the layout and a loco bridged the 2 districts. Make the switch centre off and you'd have a good troubleshooting tool. On the other hand you could just retain the districts with the PSX and just switch the master incoming power between your booster and the fremo booster. That way the Fremo booster runs through your PSX and you've got local short protection.

[roundhouse]

As long as the Freemo set up doesnt mind powering PSX's or similar then yes that would work.

 

The switch is more of a secondary failsafe as in theory the track power won't get plugged into the layout anyway when in Freemo mode.

 

However, the DIgitrax loconet will run to the accessory decoders with a separate transformer for powering these decoders so I can still use JMRI PanlePro on a touch screen for turnout control etc.

 

Ian

Edited April 30, 2014 by roundhouse

[AndrewC]

Ian, one more thing to consider is you either feed in the Fremo power via the PSX or you will have to isolate them from the track power when running as a module. Otherwise the outputs of the PSX would be getting the input voltage from the Fremo power. Very likely to damage the PSX.