RobinofLoxley

When I returned to the hobby about 5 years ago I found out that DCC existed first off, something i had no idea about. But I didnt like the equipment much, so I decided to hold off and just a build a fairly complex DC layout to get to grips with the issues conventionally. So I had power sectors, reversing loops, etc. Now I have decided its time to go into DCC albeit slowly. I feel a lot more prepared being able to apply all my general layout building learning to give me a chance of building something good in DCC. I have been soaking up the advice as to what to do, what to leave well alone, and to identify the areas of the hobby that I find completely uninteresting, and therefore won't bother with. I would say that train operations interests me the most, which i only discovered when I was running 3 trains and a shunting operation by myself. So I am intending to run a layout that will feature automatic running in the future. Give yourself the time to make the decisions, no rush....

Fortunately I did say As far as I know. And as I have retired no update is pending. I worked (using the term loosely) in papermaking and paper conversion where you have large machinery driven by very large motors. Lots of steelwork. The requirement for reliability, especially in papermaking, is as high as in aerospace, although for different reasons, so everything tends to be belt and braces in that way, though not in machine design, if that makes sense.

I ve just started using Waygo 5's for my layout rebuild and so far they seem good. I was hoping to get 2 wires per port but with my choice of cable (cannibalised lighting) I can get about 7 total. Curiously, although there seem to be five individual connectors, internally there is some 'snuggling up' of adjacent cables. Its the quick release and positive feel to the connector that i like

I am test laying at the moment and the track is fixed by a combo of pretty coloured pins and the friction created by the droppers going through the holes in the baseboard. Underneath I have Waygo connectors so I can release any individual section of track while I check everything throughly. Yesterday I pulled one piece out as I wasnt happy with the motion of my test loco on it; remade the soldered dropper joints and its fine now. Painstaking work. So I won't be nailing anything down until I have a section that has been tested on every loco I have to make sure they can navigate it. I make individual boards in the garage and have prewired the buses. When I have enough sections done I will post up some photos for comment. BTW Im testing in DC will convert later, wiring is DCC style so one train on the whole layout at a time only.

in industry no-one is running any significant manufacturing or processes with Wifi as a main means of control, so far as I know. The opportunity to replace cabling in principle is massive. Still, everyone plugs in to do updates or troubleshooting. Use of wifi is restricted to receiving software updates for loading into the PLC's

You have a free choice about how to wire and power your layouts, its a hobby. Out in the real world, no-one has hard wired anything for decades, everything is controlled by a PLC. Wire that to all the control inuts and outputs, then the progamming switches them on and off. What you will have with your layout is less flexibility. A DCC layout can still be operated manually and depending on the command centre although i have no experience, multi operator is possible. Although I dont belong to a club, I can see that an automatic DCC layout style might not be the favourite in a club with a large layout where members want to put their own stock on and run it through their own controller. To be fair here in the original post the subject was the underboard wiring. I think the track was a work in progress, we could see it wasn't fixed down. Trouble is, if you put up a video like that, more or less saying this is how to do wiring, it had better be good.

A bit harsh about the second one. Ignoring your spat on a previous thread, mostly what has happened there are that he has put in some levels of redundancy, for example putting microswitches on the turnout motors increased the amount of underboard wiring a lot.

That really is a pretty bizarre approach to building a model railway. Im surprised he has any track at all really, why not just build a control system and as you love 20th century electrics so much, not bother with laying any track at all. In no way is it what we would think when some someone says second generation; in the modern iteration it is version 1.1 - just exapnded sideways from the original, and added an extra turnout

If you were to compare the price it would have to be against comparable high power systems.

I have been lurking on this thread with a great deal of inerest as my knowlede of signals is less than zero and at some point my new layout will get signalling. It will be a mission and is realistically years away. But whilst researching the mostly imaginary route my layout represents in the West Midlands I came across this oddity Ref: gwrbsh1743 Great Western Railway An electrically operated double dwarf ground signal at the north end of Snow Hill station.

Folks I don't know if bumping this topic will get anyone's attention, but as I'm doing a complete rebuild now I have a once only opportunity to 'Weather' the trackwork. Weathering generally isnt something that appeals to me that much but I will be looking at it for a long time....maybe I have to bit the bullet. The layout is a loft layout with terminus to terminus and continuous run elements, time 1960-all steam operating. So the main trackwork would see quite high usage levels. There will be the usual range of sidings, headshunts, etc. So its likely that the sidings trackwork would look different to the main running lines, has anyone represented that? I have never done any aerosol work so I would be more comfortable with brushing but there's so much track that aerosol work would I suppose be much faster? Finally, I wondered if anyone has a recommendation for a colour to paint on areas of turnouts that are black from the manufacturer, such as guard rails, and in my case some of the frog area, (IM re-using older points in some places), i.e nickel silver rail colour. Has anyone done this? Thanks in advance

I will be using current detection Michael.

I had been thinking what my approach would be to train operations on my new layout. I have about 25 coaches in all of which 10 are lit pullmans (Hornby, R44xx), all of which were divided up into 5/6 coach rakes depending on platform length. I will have the same train length on the new layout and I can't see much reason why I would want to play with the train composition. In which case, what is the most straightforward way of organising a rake that will be left connected? Would you simply put a resistor (or rear light) on the last coach? I know the Pullmans are a special case. Eventually I would need more coaches as the layout will be capable of having more trains in motion than the 4 I manged on the old DC layout. Given the era (1960) what would anyone suggest as a policy for buying coaches to be easily compatible. I am thinking for a iTrain controlled layout, what 'Ready to run' really means.

Mate, the subject of the poster was the wiring under the layout. You werent supposed to look at the track

iTrain is the same, at least thats my understanding. I have a few places where I will have a sequence of points, as you have on your layout, and i did wonder about the possibility of losing the trains position, even if the software might be able to calculate where it is "In theory". My era is 1960 and mostly tender locos but as they are today the number of pickups varies and so the "Footprint" will too.

Thanks, I was clear on 95% of that. What I meant was Im not planning to put occupancy detection on turnouts. As you didnt say, the software relies on the turnouts being in the correct positions as set. I have been wondering where I might need to put Railcom detection, if anywhere, on my layout. Mynormal approach is to have all my rolling stock on display although I will be converting locos one at a time - Im actually building the new layout with DC power for testing and will swop over when I'm ready.

I was of the same mind but I am intending to buy iTrain. I think the situation is the same, but Im not sure. Im not planning to identify turnouts although they will all be individually wired and therefore capable of being identified if necessary. It also wasnt clear to me that the LN was Railcom enabled - its clearly marked on the front of the 5088CS.

If I can just referee this, it seems to me that there is no contradiction between the SIG group head having different equipment and software on his layout compared to presumably most other people in the group he heads up. Like having windows at work and apple at home. So all the statements can be true. I enjoyed the video. Even someone with no prior experience (not referring to me) they could make some sense of it. I notice that you have some different current detection units on different parts of the layout, and got that you had the DR5088RC's with Railcom only for the places where you might place stock onto the layout, otherwise 4088LN's. Apart from anything else did you have to use longer cable runs anywhere due to using 2 types of detector? I had wondered about using both types as the DR5088's are around double the price of the 4088's. But I understood they might have different sensitivities (possible false occupation issues) for example. On a more modellers aspect, you seem to have mixed concrete and wooden sleeper track. Just saying...

It might be obvious to some but can you tell us what you actually mean by flashing?

Following scale that makes the path area a bit less than 1cm wide, which would be normal to do, but the build-up height is well above what I am working with is just 2mm thick so I will be a bit short there. Ballasting to sleeper top, also normal.

I think that look, both the real railway and the effect above, are worth aiming for. I assume, Michael, you used something as a ballast retainer while waiting for the PVA to dry. I guess that the black stuff might actually be ground clinker from coke manufacture, would have been a good place to hide it and also making an underbed for the ballast platform. The pictures give you a spec for how wide the ballast bed should be - looks like the ballast sits out the same distance as the sleeper from the rails. IMHO ballasting is one of the most important aspects of overall model building, and when you have a lot of track consistency of appearance over the entire layout is worth striving for.

You wouldnt have a picture of the black path and ballast edge at all would you David?

Leaving aside my own very mixed experiences handling ballast, if you look carefully you will see individual pieces of ballast have infiltrated the gaps between adjacent rails, getting into the fishplate runway. This is a tricky area as if you need to leave expansion gaps its hard to stop this happening. I will face this when I reach the point in my new layout, I plan to insert small spacers from plasticard into the gap between adjacent rails just during ballasting. That way I will always have the same gap. I mention it because I know its only a trial but your visible joints have these dodgy gaps.

Was the demo version of trainplayer adequate for a decent sized loft layout? Just being lazy, wondered how capable it is without trying it myself.

Not to rain on anyones parade but it would have beeb helpful to mention which kind of point was displayed in the pictures Then it could have been helpful to point out that Electrofrog points are actually cut on the blue lines, at least newer ones are. Sorry I needed something to do whilst waiting in a helpline queue