New Controls

Over the weekend I did some work and installed a new control box on my layout. It controls power to the two engine house sidings. Previously this was controlled by a ground throw switch I installed. The direction of the turnout determined which of the two spurs had power. The problem was that there were some times I wanted both turnouts to not have power (such as when I ran a transfer in from the interchange/staging area).



I made the box out of styrene and painted it with Testors Silver to match the shed. I mounted the the switches inside the box by dropping a few globs of hot glue over the backs of them once they were set in place. An important note: Be sure not to get the hot glue inside the switches.

I was able to reuse the wiring from the ground throw without much rewiring. I did have to hollow out a little bit of the foam to accommodate very bottom of the switches where the wires attached. I attached the matching wires and then tested it. Good thing I tested because I actually shorted the circuit the first time I tried it, but luckily I had not soldered. After getting the switches working correctly I attached the wires with solder and glued the box down to the layout.

After testing it out with some trains on the layout I was very happy with it. Later on I will have to rip out the switch ground throw and replace it with a plain one.

Another Layout Plan

Not much going on with the layout. I have been working on a few minor things since my last post.

• Refurbish one of the cars that I had mangled trying to make a cleaning car. This involved creating styrene panels to go over the holes in the side and upgrading to Micro Trains couplers.
• Minor layout work. Scenicing a few more areas and rearranging the buildings once more.

The other thing that has occupied my time is fantasizing about a new layout. About once a year it seems I get bored with my old layout and want to build a new one. Maybe this is a cue I should invest in Unitrack? I think it was sparked by the staging area being completed and being able to run multiple trains. So I have been fiddling around in XTrkCad a bit lately and my layouts seem to converge to something like this:
The idea was to focus more on just having the trains run then doing switching. It is extended to 8 ft. for longer trains (maybe passenger trains in the future). This means that I can double the length of my trains from 3 cars to 6. The area at the top is a passing siding (and possibly a station). The area at the bottom contains industrial sidings.

I was planning on having 3-4 industries along the bottom sidings. It would be nice to be able to squeeze in one more siding not attached to the large passing siding so I could feel like I wasn't doing all the switching in one place.

The big dilemma is where to put the staging. I included a unconnected interchange track at the top as a possiblilty for off layout staging but then that means the layout will be even larger. I thought about having under the layout staging, but that is tricky with getting the trains down to a lower level with enough clearance to pick up any accidental derailments. I guess that leaves up top by the passing siding. Oh well that is a problem for another day.