GP9u

A very nice design. Will be fun to operate. Couple of thoughts: You could extend the runaround track further to right as you only need the length of your engine(s) past the last switch. That way you could bring more cars to town and switch more of the spots with one train. You could gain even a bit more length in the runaround at the left end of the siding if you used a R/H switch coming off the curve in the top left corner as well. That would eliminate the S curve there. Also, if you made a pinwheel ladder into the staging/interchange yard you could almost double the siding lengths and eliminate the S curves. You'd have to get rid of the track going off to the left, but the track against the wall in the yard could be the interchange with the "rest of the world" instead. If you could double the yard capacity, looks like you'd have space for about 24 cars. And you have about 12 spots and you would be able to fit about 8-9 in the longer run around track. So you could switch up to 8-9 spots per train, and only have the same cars showing up at the industries after 2 trains instead of 1. That would be without having to manually replace any cars in staging between sessions. If you want to get fancy, you could run a switch lead from staging up the inside of the main. Then you'd have "live" interchange yard and could have two trains/crews working at once. One to swap cars from interchange and make up the train for town, the other to switch town. Nice! Pete

OK sounds like you have done all the right things known to Humankind for this setup! One last thing - clutching at straws a bit: I have a couple of older Atlas China drives where the pickups are sprung plungers, not the newer phosphor-bronze strip wipers. I found the weak link with the plungers is the springs. They were too fine a gauge to conduct enough current and would overheat and lose temper and stop making contact. Also some of them seemed too weak anyway from new to press fully against wheel backs under maximum side-loads. That would be running down my yard lead through multiple switches at medium + speed. If you do have the plungers/springs, you could try adding wipers or (maybe) stronger (conductive, obviously) springs. That's about it for me and my bright ideas... Pete

How did you connect the KA2? I had the same trouble with KA2s in Atlas GPs with Protocraft and regular Tsunamis until I read that the factory cap only buffers sound. So you have to connect the KA2 as below, not just parallel to supplied cap: http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/mainnorth/alive.htm (this site seems to need compatibility view mode in IE10+) Also, what track voltage do you have? I set my Digitrax to HO - 14.8V - after I read that the TCS caps are only 16V and not 25V as used by others, and so could be adversely affected by more than about 15V at the track. No idea if that's correct mind you... just seems to work for me. HTH Pete

I think this design has great potential. It might be a bit tight for switching, depending on the operating scheme and how you represent the connection(s) to the "rest of the world". It looks like the Worldwide (left) end of the layout is the end of track. So maybe cars arrive on the layout via the interchange track from the north, and from the lower right where the "main" line seems to head off the layout. It looks like you have about 24 spots on the layout. For realism, I suppose it's highly unlikely that all spots are full all the time, or that all would need to be switched out in a session. So let's say maybe there are 10-12 spots to be switched in a session. You have room for about 5-6 cars in the curved interchange track top left that were set out overnight by the interchanging railroad. Plus a local train of 6-7 cars can easily arrive from the bottom left on the "main". If there's no room for a staging cassette or extension to the south of that, then the session could start with the local tied up on the outer curved track top right. Maybe the crew outlawed, or they're in the café you'll model trackside. The session would consist of switching out cars for on-layout spots, swapping cars at the interchange track, and making up a departing train to leave bottom right. Some cars might need to be pulled and re-spotted also. I bet there's at least as couple of real hour's work here which is excellent considering the small layout footprint. However (you knew that was coming, right?!) I would highly recommend running some ops sessions in your head or on paper to make sure it's possible to make all the moves required. I suspect you might need to cut down a little on the number of spots, and give yourself a little more headroom to pull and spot cars at some of the industries. There's a recent thread on MRH that worked through a simialr process on a smaller shelf layout that might be helpful: http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/23125 I am keen to see how this evolves as I am a big fan of narrow-footprint, sectional, modern era shelf layouts. That's because I'm trying to do something similar in O scale and I seem to move house every 4-years... Pete

It was supposed to be a joke, sorry: I meant that you have the English version on one side of the sign and the (almost) French version on other side which is what you might see in parts of Canada. But it's not funny at all really now I re-read it. Need to lay off the sauce. Pete

If you switch locations to Quebec or New Brunswick your sign will be just fine! Pete

You may be able to find out more about the local shortlines' specific ops schedules on these Yahoo groups: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/BruceRys/info https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SouthernOntarioShortlines/info I find them great for reference for modelling and railfanning around Southern Ontario. I have seen ops schedules listed a few times. But some branch lines seem to operate on an "as needed" basis now and I think the Burford spur is down to only 1 or 2 customers, so maybe worth asking for a "local expert" update on the Bruce list in case the Tuesday thing's changed. Here's a taster from the end of the CN era: Cheers, Pete

Hi Chris, I think you can still get some live action on the street in Brantford. Here's some info from the Bruce Railways list: From: "steve@... [bruceRys]" <BruceRys@yahoogroups.com> Sender: BruceRys@yahoogroups.com Date: 14 Jan 2015 13:39:21 -0800 To: <BruceRys@yahoogroups.com> ReplyTo: BruceRys@yahoogroups.com Subject: [bruceRys] Photos - OSR's FP9A Trio & SOR in Brantford 'Afternoon. Here's a photo of OSR's 3 F units operating together - over two years in the making: http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=17676 And for those that don't know - Ingenia Polymers took over the Burford and TH&B spurs in Brantford as of January 1 2015. SOR has operated the train on Tuesday mornings so far - with a crew (SOR 496) ordered at 0400 in Hamilton, light power to Brantford yard. Train operates in push-pull configuration down the Burford in the early morning, and conventional on the return. Subject to change, of course. Here's a photo by James Gardiner from yesterdays SOR move: http://www.railpictures.ca/?attachment_id=17682 Cheers, - Steve HTH, Pete