So the electrics are pretty simple here but its still worth blogging about. I guess its an improvement on the how to drill a hole post. Anyway back to it, lets get on with it, so we have a stick with a length of track on it and a DCC bus to connect it into. The thing is removeable so our project needs to be removeable as well.
As I have said a hundred times due to our lockdown restrictions I am well down on materials and don’t have a spare power pole connector. ah! not a problem here is the poor mans solution. Take two male female hook up wires turn one around tape them together and you have a power pole connector. Lets look at how to do this.
Hook up cables as they come, you get them with Ardunio sets or from AmazonTurn them around and tape the ends together cut them in half and we have two plugs for pennies – perfect eh! drill a hole for your wires to goput the wires in from below bend and tin them then solder to the inside bottom of each rail there we go one plug fitted fit the other plug to the DCC bus and we are done
A quick test
All looks good to me 🙂 storage
This really is a low profile solution the plank neatly fits below my layout on a small shelf that also holds some stock and the controller when not in use.
Thats it we have a working switching stick. Next up is the connection to the PC and some remote op sessions.
Now we need to add alignment screws and actaually get some track down on the staging stick.
Alignment
This isn’t difficult and really needed only four screws. Two of the screws are used to allow adjustment up and down of the staging plank at the layout end. This allows for the vertical alignment to be altered and adjusted as required.
You can just see them in the above image below the structure of the staging plank. The two screws inboard of the vertical alignment screws are to ensure horizontal alignment.
Fitting the track
With the track placed on the staging plank I could test the vertical alignment before applying glue to the hold the track in place.
At this point it was vital to check alignment both on and off the staging plank to so this I just used a freight car and kept adjusting the vertical alignment screws until there was no derailment in either direction or noticable movement of the car.
With everything appearing to run well it was time to glue the track down. This is really very simple but the basic rules of track laying apply. first lay a bead of glue along the length of the flex track not side to side, I used Gorrila PVA glue for this. Then before laying the track smooth the bead out to a flat strip of PVA glue.
Then it was time to lay the track ensuring horizontal alignment of the track and then gently pushing the ties into the glue. I like Gorrila glue because its tacky enough to hold the track in place almost immediatley but allows you to re-position some cheaper PVA glues have water added which means track will move until the glue sets so be careful. Align the track horizontally and re test before the glue dries.
Thats pretty much it you should have something that looks like this. If we were using Power onboard we would be done at this point but we are not so we’ll look at some simple electronics in Part 3 of the staging plank.
We’ll get to that in the next few days as we prepare for remote ops on the switching layout.
Ripon Cement in the home office the entrance to staging is off the left hand end of the layout
Ripon Cement has to have a staging track extending off scene in order for the operator to run around the layout and access the spur to the cement plant itself with more than just the locomotive.
There is space at the left hand end of the layout for a staging track, however we have to cross the doorway. The door into the room opens inwards and so a staging track across the doorway is needed but the door will have to be open. The next challenge is that I can’t trash the door!!!
Ok so lets get the door open and measure, well we have 82cm between the end of the layout and the door. You’d think I had planned this eh! as thats a locomotive and about 3 cars which is the perfect max length of train for the two industries on this layout. There are 3 car spots and 2 off spots on the layout so if at capacity and you bring that upto 8 cars plus a locomotive things can get very busy really quickly. Of course every train doesn’t serve every industry so most trains are going to be smaller than this.
Layout Designer Iain Rice, designed a over door staging track for a vertical switching layout on Ikea bookshelves. Just like the home office layout which will at some point be re-united with its other cousins to form the industrial branchline I had at my previous home. however, for now we only need to concern ourselves with a single track that can be removed quickly and easily with minimal damage to the layout or door.
Right ok! first we need at least a plank to hold the track. This needs to be strong but lightweight, remember we don’t want to construct a monster support and strain the layout or door. You always have some stuff hanging around from other projects right, well I had some Balsa wood. Three lengths of 25mmx6mmx914mm and some 100mmx6mmx914 so that would make a really nice solid support for the length of flex. It wouldn’t be too deep either so when in place would just be a nod under to get out of the room.
I cut two of the smaller strips and the wide strip down to 81cm in length. Using Deluxe Materials Speed Bond I just glued these together and added cross pieces at each end and in the centre giving 4 in total. I squared up the little box and made sure it stayed in place with small clamps. Flipped it over and added some weight while it glued. Its called speed bond for a reason after only an hour this was solid enough for paint.
Ah thats the easy part done then. Now for the door support. Fortunatley when the baseboards arrived for the Waukesha Sub just before Christmas they came with a bit of packaging that held the screws and bolts for assemble of they modules. Whilst this was just scrap MDF nailed together to form a box with a centre divider, it was perfect for my plank to fit into. So it was quickly deconstructed it and the centre divider was adjusted to hold the plank at the perfect height when hung over the door. A wee bit of glue and 2 mins with the nail gun and we had a nice support with 100mm sides that would prevent anyone knocking the plank off its support and turning my loco & rolling stock back into kits.
For the hook to hold it over the door I attached a piece of 2×1 to the top of the box and using some metal strips I secured another piece of 2×1 to the rear that would touch the door on the otherside. At this point glue and nails isn’t going to cut it so this whole section was attached to the box with 3.5x30mm screws and some glue, every little helps right?
Plank and bracket ready for test fitting
Perfect now lets get this in place and see if it works.
With the plank in place I could measure where I would need to add the 2×1 support on the layout end in order to hold the other end of the plank when in place.
Looking great eh! I added a couple of screws to the top of the 2×1 to hold the plank in alignement and prevent it from being pushed off if hit. To remove it you have to lift vertical so care will be needed when you are nodding under the layout.
All that was left to do in the part 1 was paint. For this i decided to use Chalk board paint. It is a one coat and done deal, so super quick but is really thick when it applies. It dries quickly but I left if overnight to dry, in our next installment of the switching plank we’ll be adding the track and some wires with removeable connectors so we can start doing some operations.
yeah that really is just one coat of the treacle, sorry chalkboard paint on to the Balsa.
Rippon Cement, has been my layout to take to train shows for the past few years. Its a HO switching layout built by Chris Gilbert orignially as Florida Springs. It has a page on my website here if you want to see more information. https://gordy.uk/my-layouts/rippon-cement/
As the benchwork is now in place for the Waukesha Sub Division, my work benches have re-located below that layout. Freeing up the room that was my workshop to become my home office. Its quite a small room about 1775mm x 2800mm and currently has a desk for my paid job and my personal desk so quite a squeeze but its big enough for me and Dabber. His dog bed just slides beneath which ever desk I am not working at.
Its a squeeze in there but at 170cm high Rippon Cement clears the monitors of my personal computer.
As the whole train room is filled with the Waukesha Sub there was no room for Rippon Cement and if you look in some images of my benchwork posts its leaning on its end looking very sorry for itself. It had also sustained some damage during its move up to Orkney so I didn’t realy want to risk anymore. So what to do. Well as I am 183cm tall I knew a layout at eye level for me is about 170cm above the deck. A quick check with the tape measure showed that Ripon Cement would fit along the wall with the door into the room and at that height would clear my 4 monitors of my personal comupter and when I am not working from home – Covid cannot last forever!!
I can mount the other two levels of the multi deck switcher here at more sensible heights but for now I can at least run some trains when I get the urge whilst the Waukesha sub is under construction. Next to be overcome was lights, power and somewhere to store the stock when not in use on the layout. Ah well a quick replacement LED strip fixed the lights damaged during the last train show outing.I also found a spare but perfectly sized piece of oak worktop from the constrution of our house that I turned into a shelf fitted tightly below the layout at 160cm high. Remember I have to sit under this thing without knocking myself out!
You can just see the narrow stock shelf hiding here below the layout.
So layout up, power and lighting sorted. But erm Houston we have a problem there is no where for the trains to run so that will be the next project, Utilising the office door to support one end and the end of the layout to support the other. Its something Iain Rice suggested to do in one of his small track plan books. I’ll share how well that works out in another post.
In the meantime enjoy a few arty shots taken with my smart phone on Rippon Cement.I guess that train is ready to leave so I best crack on with giving it some place to go to.
The first part of my layout that I started with was the WSOR northern sub. There were a few reasons for this not least that I could get it started whilst I waited for materials for the waukesha sub and that it was small enough to get up and running quickly.
So far deck 1&2 have track installed and are operating ready for the final deck and scenery to commence.
The lower deck is Oshkosh WI with the yard on the left and then the industrial areas going away from that point to the end of the lower level.
The other visible deck is the middle deck and represents Fisk WI and Pickett WI between Oshkosh and Ripon.
The final deck above what can be seen today will represent Horicon Yard the divison point for the Northern WSOR Division. Trains here will be made up to serve the Oshkosh sub and also to run onto the Waukesha Sub Divison part of the layout to serve places south. There is room to add the Markesan Sub Divison at a later date above the Horicon Yard making this part of the layout 4 decks.
The Benchwork for the lower deck of the Waukesha Sub is constructed from MDF frames mounted on 2×1 legs. It sits approx 55″ from the floor.
Its so high for two reasons, first I wanted my workbenches below and secondly at 6ft tall I dont want to destroy my back working on the railroad.
Above the MDF frame will be added 20mm of foam topped with Cork and foam road bed. The legs will be hidden by a curtain of black fabric and finished with Plywood fascias after the scenery is constructed.
Having now moved into our new home in March 2020, construction of my new layout commenced in July of 2020. The construction of the Northern Divison of the Wisconsin Southern came first and there are now two levels of trackwork down with turnout motors and block detection. The third and final level of that section of the layout will be installed in 2021. That will connect to the Waukesha Sub Division deck 1, the construction of which started over the Christmas New Year Period of 2020/2021.
The Prototype
The Waukesha Sub Division is part of the Canadian National Railway (CN) in South Eastern Wisconsin. The route is over 150 miles long starting in Chicago and ending in Fond-Du-Lac Wisconsin. It sees over 40 trains per day, incorporates the steepest grade in Wisconsin, Byron Hill. Byron Hill is a 0.9% Grade south of Fond-Du-Lac that was double tracked following the take over of the Wisconsin Central (WC) by CN.
It also incoporates a section of trackage rights for the Wisconsin Southern (WSOR) a WATCO owned shortline in South Eastern Wisconsin. This gives the WSOR acces to its Northern and Southern Division. There is a daily transfer run in both directions to connect these two divisions. The trackage rights extends from Slinger WI at milepost 122.6 and runs south to Grand Avenue, Waukesha at milepost 97.2.
There is a further interchange with the WSOR at Ackerville WI which also allows the CN to access their trackage around Milwaukee exercising their trackage rights over the WSOR Milwaukee Sub Division.
With the inclusion of the Northern Sub Division of the WSOR in the same layout room as the Waukesha Sub Divison it makes sense that we include part of the sub divison with WSOR trackage rights.
Deck one will include Ackerville, Rugby Junction and Waukesha Yard. Waukesha yard will be on scene staging, however hidden staging may be added at a later date.
Trains from the WSOR will arrive on the Wauksha sub behind the Helix between Deck 1 & 2 at Ackerville. This allows trains to run over a removeable section from the WSOR Northern Sub Division yard at Horicon. The Milwaukee Sub Division of the WSOR will be included as far as Rugby Junction.
Waukesha will have a 7 track staging yard with a loco servicing facility. None of these exisited in real life. the yard at Waukesha being 5 tracks and in modern times the yard is gone and just one spur in front of the old depot remains. However this is staging and will enable us to change consists on trains and also add pushers for deck 2. Just beyond the southern end of the Waukesha Yard is Grand Avenue. The WSOR trains will take the Grand Avenue junction and will connect onto the Milwaukee Sub at Rugby Junction. Effectively reversing all WSOR trains to return to Horicon. The Milwaukee Sub division will come under the WSOR dispatcher who is also in control of the whole of the Northern WSOR Division including Horicon Yard and the Oshkosh Sub Division.
Deck 2 will be accessed from a Helix hidden inside the penisula, which could be the home of future hidden staging. Deck 2 is a very simple track plan that represents a section of Byron Hill. Whilst the deck will not be on a grade trains will leave Waukesha and need to navigate the Helix from Deck 1 to 2. Pushers will be used as per the prototype, but as the route is double tracked it will be easy for meets etc and may be broken into blocks to enable the Dispatcher to have multiple Northbound trains but the pushers will always be a choke on Southbound trains with the exception of the local which doesn’t use pushers.
Track Plans
Deck 1 Waukesha to Ackerville
Deck 2 Byron Hill
Wisconsin Southern Northern Division
The Wisconsin Southern Sub Division is in the lower left hand corner of the layout room. It is lower than the CN Waukesha Sub so that shortern operators can use it. The track is also KATO unitrack so its pretty indestructable for younger paws. Deck 1 & 2 are installed but the Horicon Yard is to be added and connected to the CN Waukesha Sub Division. Note deck 3 of the WSOR is at the same height about the ground as deck 1 of the CN Waukesha Sub.
I added a small video to Youtube of the sub baseboard construction for the Waukesha Sub Division it can be found here:
NMRAx: Digital Opportunities to grow the hobby, by Gordy Robinson
Personally, I have never been so engaged and busy with my hobby than I have in 2020. With lockdowns and stay in place orders beginning to take effect across the globe the world as we knew it has changed. A popular manufacturer recently said that the past 6 months have felt like the Christmas rush and the virtual & physical shelves of hobby stores have been emptied quicker than the toilet paper aisle at the grocery store.
However Model Railroaders enjoy one of the few hobbies you can do when locked in your home, suddenly finding the time to catch up on all those projects we had been putting off. As members of the NMRA we know how important it is for us to socialise and share our knowhow with each other. Unless you are lucky enough to live with a family of model railroaders it’s still simply impossible to meet face to face indoors without restrictions.
So, it has been encouraging to see the digital transformation that has changed how we interact in the workplace and at home, hands up who actually spoke so frequently with none local model railroaders or distant friends and family before March? Nevermind doing that on Zoom or some other virtual medium.
Just as in our “real lives” the NMRA has seen a growing number of Regions and Divisions move their events online. In fact the new catch phrases of the world and the NMRA truly are “can you see my screen yet?” and “I can hear you, can you hear me?”. Just like when we do anything for the first time, we have all picked up some skills I think 6 months ago we might have said were beyond us.
Although those in the LSR were fortunate enough to hold their 2020 Regional Convention, a number of local and national NMRA conventions elsewhere have been cancelled due to the impact of the pandemic, so I decided it was time to launch NMRAx. The program was conceived a few years ago following the Orlando 2017 NMRA convention. Being primarily designed to support the digital transformation of the organisation at local and national levels. A small team of NMRA members including Speed from the LSR, Brad & Martyn from the Australasian Region and myself, Gordy Robinson from the British Region have provided a number of virtual conventions to replace those lost throughout the spring and early summer.
These events were streamed live to Facebook and YouTube with the videos available after the event for on-demand viewing. Over 200 hours of clinics, layout tours and live Q&As with MMR®s have been added to the NMRA YouTube channel since April 2020. We have also had members of the LSR provide clinics to these events and I’d like to thank all of those who have given their time to the project and I hope their participation encourages more of you to have a go in future. Highlights of this program being the week long GatewayX during what would have been National Convention week in St Louis and SERx which feature 3 simultaneous live streams over an 8 hour period replacing the South Eastern Regions cancelled 2020 convention.
All NMRAx events have been free and open to all including non-members, not one cent of NMRA money has been spent to provide these events either. With regions globally showing an increase in membership despite the loss of so many recruitment opportunities this year has really shown the success of NMRAx and moving local meetings online. NMRAx will continue but now on a less frequent basis as we adjust to a new normal in our lives, however the team are committed to monthly content with longer events taking place once per quarter. The team are also actively in discussions with NMRA Regions and Divisions to support digitising other face-2-face events that would have taken place in 2020.
I just looked and its 2 years since I updated this blog and I am really sad about it but as with most of us life has just got in the way of modelling. Here are the Highlights of the past two years if you want the full tale of whats been happening read below.
Awarded Presidents Award by NMRA President Charlie Getz (July 2018)
Birth of our daughter Annabel (November 2018)
Attended the MWR/TLR Regional Convention (May 2019) where I got to meet Tom Gasior MMR and Spoon
Attended the NMRA National in Salt Lake City UT (July 2019)
Chaired British Region NMRA Convention in Aberdeen Scotland (September 2019)
Built our own house and Re-located to Orkney (Nov 2019)
Moved into our new house (March 2020)
Launched NMRAx Virtual Model Railroad Conventions (April 2020)
Completed my Civil AP Certificate (May 2020)
Awarded Meritous Service Award (June 2020)
Back in 2018 not long after my last post on here me and my parter Alix decided to build our own home in Orkney, Scotland. Alix grew up in Orkney and had always planned on moving home, the move allowed me to have the train room I always wanted and a better life for our daughter. That unfortunatley meant that 2019 was a drought of a year for modelling at home as I packed away my models and workshop ready for the move.
However thats now unpacked and my workshop is set back up and the new layout is started so you’ll hopefully start to see some more posts from me and regular updates as the new home layout takes shape.
Gordy's | Model Railroads 