I've been doing a lot of scenery now that the tracks work correctly. I'm learning a lot fast as I do it too. Even with hundreds of hours of video about how watched, it's still a practice issue. The more you practice, the better you get. I added a new locomotive depot/shed with a parking lot and lighting which I think turned out nicely. The shed was the first model I built for my first attempt at a layout 3 years ago, and it's finally in place, albeit, without one of the little ...
I finally got there. Two trains running together and not requiring any user intervention. The outer loop was easy, but the inner loop is two independent reverse loops tied together. To make this work without my activating turnouts, I used the DCCConcepts LM-iD to sense when a train is getting close to the turnout, which then toggles the Cobalt IP Digital which is the turnout point motor. This was the magic sauce. It works great too, and didn't take too long to wire up. I got the idea ...
So, before the holidays, I took a lot of time to reconsider the layout. I was having a lot of trouble running trains and for the space, it felt very complicated. It's 4x8, but there were lots of ways for trains to go. I found it was hard to enjoy. So, I stepped back, redesigned it a bit, and ended up ripping up a lot of track and scenery. I'm still doing a LOT of work on scenery, and haven't gotten the reversing loops tested yet. But the outer loop works great now. I felt so good about it, I staged ...
Well, sort of. I spent the last week cleaning track and fixing some wiring issues to make sure I could run this weekend, and I got an early Friday evening treat. Trains run normally, though some cleaning is still in the cards it seems. And it's only the outer loop right now, the inner loop still needs testing and some work. But it's fun, and reliable, and I'm pretty happy about the changes now. It looks good. Plus, you can see the caboose I wired up using the Model Train Tech caboose kit. It loos ...
So, after some time off to work on the house, and some trips that had to be taken, I'm ready to dig back in. One of the problems with my first layout design is that it's complicated for the space. And the two parallel tracks at the top can't really ever be used. For this reason, and because I want to continuous run this, I'm going to make some changes. Instead of the top parallel, I'm going to make that part of the larger loop with more room for scenery and a small passing lane with a siding to ...
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