Lakeview Alaska

[Chris Gilbert]

Having a number of one day shows and being rather pushed for time I purchased Lakeview off Roger Nicholls

Originally based in Oregon I've moved it to Alaska
(This is becoming a habit on mine)
It will give me somewhere to run my Alaskan stock and should not take anywhere near as long to set up and breakdown as Florida City does

It was built with DC in mind so yesterday i started adding extra feeds because there were only two and some of my locos were stalling over the point work.

 

After adding 6 extra feeds I still had the same problem, so after much thought I decided to replace the three live frog points
I found that all the fishplates had corroded, something I've never seen before!

Anyhow after replacing the points with dead frog and new fishplates I'm now back up and running

New ballast is down, not the same color as before but with a little weathering it should blend in.

 

While it is all drying I've got to put FC away !!!!!!

It will be at Northampton next Saturday if anyone is interested

[JWB]

Here's an unmistakeable Alaska lineside detail, a tripod telegraph pole for use in the tundra

Also, Alaska scenes in non-snowy seasons will take up every piece of model construction equipment you have.

Looking forward to what you come up with!

 

[Chris Gilbert]

How's this for starters

 

 

[JWB]

For whatever it's worth, Alaska doesn't seem to get quite as junky as the lower 48. Here's about the worst I've seen it. Note the barrels, trucks, etc are all fairly new

Other than the pine trees like black and white spruce, which stay darker green all year, the other vegetation is bright green, because the growing season is so short.

 

[trisonic]

 

 

 

After adding 6 extra feeds I still had the same problem, so after much thought I decided to replace the three live frog points

I found that all the fishplates had corroded, something I've never seen before!

 

Anyhow after replacing the points with dead frog and new fishplates I'm now back up and running

 

Chris, Sorry but I'm rather interested in this.

It's obvious that you prefer dead frog points which seems to go against the general trend on RMWeb. I think I know your rationale behind this but would be interested to hear it from you!

 

Cheers, Pete.

[Chris Gilbert]

Chris, Sorry but I'm rather interested in this.

It's obvious that you prefer dead frog points which seems to go against the general trend on RMWeb. I think I know your rationale behind this but would be interested to hear it from you!

 

Cheers, Pete.

Pete, there is no need to be sorry, i've been waiting for this, in fact Shortliner asked the same question yesterday on the phone. ("are you mad " I think were the words he used.) In fact I was told once that I should use live frog so the frog doesn't wear out....as my kids would say "yeah right"

 

In the last seven years I build six exhibition layouts, all using dead frog peco points. All my layouts have been DCC and all use Atlas 4 axle loco's.I can't remember a problem with any layout where points have caused shorts. If there were any then it was was more than lightly, due to ballast in the check rails.

 

I've always worked on the KISS principal (Keep it simple stupid) and there is nothing more simple than a dead frog peco point. I remember being told by some old guy when I first started building layouts that I should always fit, at least one feed per length of rail if you didn't want any problems.

 

I also learnt a long time ago that once the rails are painted the is a high chance of faulty contact, if I just rely on powering from the toe end of the point.

 

so now I just add feeds to all six rails so the switch blade is powered from both ends. 

 

My standard style of wiring now, is to solder the power feeds to the bottom of the fishplates, drill holes at the end of each rail in to the baseboard, fit the pre-soldered fishplates on to the point, push the feeds into the holes and pull the point down on to the baseboard, connect the feeds to the buzz wire and hey presto DONE.  Like i said KISS

 

Having spent six years as an explosion protection engineer, covering the UK, Europe, India and China and getting called out at stupid o'clock to go fault finding because things had been over complicated I did not want this in my hobby.

I'm not saying mine is the right way of doing it but I think its one of the simplest 

[Alcanman]

That's interesting, Chris. I use exactly the same method as you for wiring layouts using electrofog turnouts which require simply  the addition of  2 insulated rail joiners at the vee of the turnout.

 

 

Mal

[dave_long]

I've no issues with insulfrog points, but had always been warned off using fishplates to supply the feeds, (another old bloke I think) but I've seen your layouts run Chris, so I'm going to solder some fishplates when I get home from Cornwall next week.

 

Cheers everyone.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Yup, me too.

 

I am a fan of the feed every length of rail using feeds soldered to the bottom of fish plates.  Neat and tidy, no blobby feeds visible on the rails, and every things is sparky.

 

In the past I have sometimes added a simple on off switch to the feeds simply so some areas can be completely and properly isolated.

[roundhouse]

I tend to run solder into the fishplates and rail prior to ballasting. That way there is no continuity problems once the diluted PVA soaks into the ballast and everything else.

 

I do agree that if its worked for you for a number of years then why change, unless it improves things. 

 

Ian

[JWB]

I've often toyed with the idea of a small Alaska-based layout. One thing to keep in mind is that Alaska has few industries of the sort that normally appear on such layouts: the main products the Alaska RR  hauls are oil and other petroleum products, gravel, and coal, the oil and coal especially being mainly for export and thus not as susceptible to loose-car switching. However, on line coal also goes to a small power plant in Fairbanks, and in earlier years also to a retail distributor there. Also, there are several military bases that receive coal and other inbound traffic. If I were looking for a small-layout concept for an Alaska Railroad prototype, I'd probably incorporate an interchange with a military base railroad, especially now that Bachmann offers both a sound-equipped US Army S-2 and a US Army 45-ton diesel (there were several of these in Alaska). In addition, although there would be less of the usual retail-style traffic to small industries and team tracks, there would be correspondingly more movement of maintenance equipment, in recent years flat cars with MofW and construction vehicles on board. A gravel/aggregate distributor would be an option, too.

[trisonic]

Thanks, Chris.

So Insulfrog points or crossings require no insulated fishplates or indeed any other switching system? I did make an N layout about 1971 with insulfrogs but I can't for the life of me remember how I wired it up....

 

Best, Pete.

[Chris Gilbert]

ok change of plan I wasn't   happy with the weathering of the Alaskan locos, so we are now back in the lower 48 but this time using some new BN/BNSF units and stock.

 

They won't be weathered for this Saturday but hey ho....

 

[298]

It was good to see Lakeview at Northampton today, it is a nice layout and the photos don't do it justice. It'll be interesting to see which road Chris runs it with next, especially since Steve seemed interested in the weathering of one of he roads mentioned...