Granite Gorge and Northern - Ohio (cont'd)


Thanks for the ideas, otiscnj.
Yes, one drawback to this layout is the 18" radius curves, but I'll just learn to live with it. I constructed this layout way back when I was in my 20's. I didn't know anything (and still have lots to learn) about railroading or model railroading at the time, I just liked the way this layout looked. And it fit in the room I had available at the time. And now, it's about as big as I'm willing to go at the moment, when considering cost and having to maintain larger layouts.
I think today, if I knew what I know now, I would lean towards using a foam base. But I've got what I've got, and it's a little retro feeling to use old-school methods. I'll just try to avoid putting asbestos fiber in any of my plaster (which my old scenery booklet mentions as a method of strengthening modelling compound).
Jerry Hensler has some videos on YouTube of his layout. He started out with a 5'x9' GG&N layout but scratched that and went with a 6'x11', with a yard added on a small additional area. I'm not sure what radius he ended up using.
I've given the scenery a lot (too much) of thought and ended up following the herd with the mountain locations. Although all I've worked on are tunnels, I've got a lot of time invested in them and don't want to redo. I'll admit I've probably gone a little overboard with them, with the plaster and all, but they look like blasted holes. But they've taken a lot of time. One thing I'm trying to do is have a valley in one corner, so you'll get a glimpse of the trains leaving one portal and entering another. Which also means more tunnel portals. But these won't be as visible from the front of the layout, so I'm going to try a different construction process on these corner ones. I just didn't want the trains to be covered under a tunnel for 1/4 of the time.
I really struggle when it comes to the creative side of things. I've also come to realize that grand, tall mountains come with another issue, that of accessibility. If I were to make them as tall as I would like, I won't be able to reach them easily for any kind of landscape work, so I'm going to have to cut back on my visions of grandeur. I've tried to come up with a way to make sections removeable in order to make them accessible but can't wrap my head around that...still researching. Also thought about cutting a hole in the middle of the right-side section, but there's not enough room to make a hole that I can fit up through.
I can't really make too much headway on the scenery anyways just yet. I need to weather and ballast the track first. I ordered ballast from Arizona Rock and Mineral about 2 weeks ago, haven't heard anything about my order, which I understand is not unusual. I've just been trying to do some mock-ups so I can see how bad my mountains will look. I'm thinking about putting in a road to nowhere at the top of whatever hill/mountain I end up. I don't know how well that would look. In my mind the road is mostly hidden behind trees, but still obvious there is a road there. Then I thought it would be cool to make it look like cars were driving on the road, especially at night, so all you would see would be headlights or taillights flashing through the trees. I'm curious if that could be done with just very closely spaced LEDs that are sequenced to look like moving vehicle headlights (or taillights) (rather than having to physically make model cars move), controlled by an arduino. That's way on down the road.
The road may also present a place to model a bridge over the valley area. But all on a 5' wide area, so not sure how it would look.
Enough ramblin' for today.
 
Hi everyone. I see there was some recent interest in this project from another thread I had created way back when I began, so in order to try and keep the updates in one thread, here's where I am:

I'm still here! Yes, I haven't posted for a while. I'm trying to get my model railroading mojo back. I purchased and installed and wired some controls for my turnouts and had "completed" most of that work. I wasn't real happy with the end result though, but everything did work and I was able to run a train throughout the whole layout. I'm discovering that whenever I work on the layout, I wish I had an identical twin layout so I can practice on one, then do the final work on the other.
After getting the turnouts functioning, I decided to paint the trackwork. Since all my track is in place, I painted it all by hand using a brush (well, several brushes as they wear out pretty quickly). It took forever. I'd work 3-4 hours a day for probably 12-14 days (not consecutive) before it was done.
I finally finished that task. Then, when I powered everything up, after it had sat idle for probably 6 weeks, all the servos on my turnouts started to go whacky and were (are) uncontrollable. I have a small cardboard mockup I made for a control panel sitting on top of the layout, and the board that controls the turnouts sits in there, and I think what I did while painting the track is press on that board with my belly and I broke a trace on the board. You can see the board in the earlier pictures.
That just destroyed my motivation, because wiring and installing the servos was a big task, and now I'm looking at doing it again, which requires laying on my back on a concrete floor. I've just been a big baby about the whole thing.
I don't think the control board was faulty. It's from a small manufacturer and I don't want to blame them for something I'm pretty certain was my fault. I haven't made any effort yet to return the board for repair or replacement.
 
...Then, when I powered everything up, after it had sat idle for probably 6 weeks, all the servos on my turnouts started to go whacky and were (are) uncontrollable. I have a small cardboard mockup I made for a control panel sitting on top of the layout, and the board that controls the turnouts sits in there, and I think what I did while painting the track is press on that board with my belly and I broke a trace on the board. You can see the board in the earlier pictures.
Just went back and looked at the pictures of the servos and control panel.
Do these work by one touch. That is push the button and it changes direction. Push it again and it changes back?

And you have replaced all the Atlas twin coil machines with these servos, correct?

What is the whacky sympton. Push a button and get seemingly random turnouts changing?
 
Just went back and looked at the pictures of the servos and control panel.
Do these work by one touch. That is push the button and it changes direction. Push it again and it changes back?

And you have replaced all the Atlas twin coil machines with these servos, correct?

What is the whacky sympton. Push a button and get seemingly random turnouts changing?
Hey Iron,
Yes, that is how they are supposed to work, and did for several weeks. Only after I completed painting the track (acrylic paints) did the problem arrive.
The led lights indicate which path is active. My intent is to replace this cardboard panel with a real setup.
I've never had the Atlas twin coil machines on this layout. These servos are the first "machines" I've had, and these controls are the first ones I've installed.
The whacky symptom is the servos jump when I apply power, then random ones will randomly move on their own and not respond to button presses. You can hear them chatter while everything is resting. Why I think a trace is broken or shorted on the servo control board is when I apply pressure to the board, and remove pressure, servos will randomly move.
I've disconnected everything to the servo board, then re-connected servos one by one, then test one by one, and still happens, so I'm pretty sure the servo board is the cause of the issue (by my leaning on it).
 
I'm still here! Yes, I haven't posted for a while. I'm trying to get my model railroading mojo back.
Yep, know about this problem myself. Sometimes too much going on in life or with the trains, to face the layout and the concept I'm trying to model.
...... when I powered everything up, after it had sat idle for probably 6 weeks, all the servos on my turnouts started to go whacky and were (are) uncontrollable. I have a small cardboard mockup I made for a control panel sitting on top of the layout, and the board that controls the turnouts sits in there, and I think what I did while painting the track is press on that board with my belly and I broke a trace on the board. You can see the board in the earlier pictures.
That just destroyed my motivation, because wiring and installing the servos was a big task, and now I'm looking at doing it again, which requires laying on my back on a concrete floor. I've just been a big baby about the whole thing.
I don't think the control board was faulty. It's from a small manufacturer and I don't want to blame them for something I'm pretty certain was my fault. I haven't made any effort yet to return the board for repair or replacement.
Just another thought on this, maybe the paint you used could conduct electricity some. If you painted the track, even where the rail gaps or insulated rail joiners are located, you might have made a path for the electrons to follow, which ended up causing some of your control problems. I have no experience painting track, so don't know whether this sort of thing is possible or not, with the various paints out there.
 
Thanks for the ideas, otiscnj.
you're welcome! No problem. Ideas are cheap; implementing them is another story.....
Yes, one drawback to this layout is the 18" radius curves, but I'll just learn to live with it. I constructed this layout way back when I was in my 20's. I didn't know anything (and still have lots to learn) about railroading or model railroading at the time, I just liked the way this layout looked. And it fit in the room I had available at the time. And now, it's about as big as I'm willing to go at the moment, when considering cost and having to maintain larger layouts.
I think today, if I knew what I know now, I would lean towards using a foam base. But I've got what I've got, and it's a little retro feeling to use old-school methods. I'll just try to avoid putting asbestos fiber in any of my plaster (which my old scenery booklet mentions as a method of strengthening modelling compound).
Jerry Hensler has some videos on YouTube of his layout. He started out with a 5'x9' GG&N layout but scratched that and went with a 6'x11', with a yard added on a small additional area. I'm not sure what radius he ended up using.
6x11' isn't much bigger, but would add a lot of possibilities for scenery, etc. I'll have to check out his video. over the last year or two, I've seen someone that was selling a sceniced version of this layout, which was very nicely done, with mountains on both sides. I think they had something like a coal mine, where the 'yard' is located in the book.

I've also thought about where some people put a turntable, turning that into a more of a junction, which leads to either another track, that loops around the back to the rear track with the grade, sort of completing another 'loop route,' but also with the possibility of adding a yard, either along side of the left side of the plan, instead of inside the loop, which you could use for a few other industries, and a town, instead of the yard that's listed on the plan, as published.
 
The whacky symptom is the servos jump when I apply power, then random ones will randomly move on their own and not respond to button presses. You can hear them chatter while everything is resting. Why I think a trace is broken or shorted on the servo control board is when I apply pressure to the board, and remove pressure, servos will randomly move.
poltergeist in the controller.

Sounds like your diagnosis process of re-connecting one at a time was sound. To bad about the result.
 



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