Great Northern railway

Decoder lost its smoke!

The old and the new!

Replaced the decoder in a PRR Q-2 4-4-6-4 by Westside.  I was pulling an 14 car passenger train when the engine just stopped dead (pun intended)  with no lights or sound.  The decoder was placed in the engine about a year ago and has seen many runs on the mainline.

Used decoderpro via the programming track to make sure all wiring is still working properly.  Replacement is quick as there are two wiring harnesses/connectors. 

All existing data loaded back into decoder with no problems. 

Fast acting CB's in all districts to protect the decoders.  Filled out a Warranty for the TCS decoder which they always fix, free of charge, no matter how dumb the 'act'!  Filling out the warranty, I asked a few questions on possible preventions. 

Sam, with such a extensive layout, you would expect problems like that, Nice fix!

Mike,

I guess I can't complain: for a 40 year old layout and 1500' of track that I, alone, have to maintain, I guess she runs pretty well.

=====

Testing ACL passenger cars and PRR T-1 4-4-4-4.

I missed one car where I mounted the coupler pocket too close to the 3 axle trucks causing a derailment, once in awhile.  The shorter baggage cars have the trucks mounted closer to the ends.  

The PRR Q-2 was replaced with the T-1 and the train ran all the way on the mainline and back with no problems. 

After the run, the tender was disassembled to check on the decoder and it was normal room temperature. 

New delivery:

I sent in a picture of my defective Burma shave sign (showing the burned out contact) to Millers and they sent me a new one.  That was quick and nice of them.

Made a new shelf for the pending  purchasing of a new 20 amp power box and boosters.

Sam, no wonder 40 years and 1500' of track! That right there tells why everything you do looks and is so amazing!

Thanks, Mike.

===========

More testing.

Ran the BLI UP 4-6-6-4 and 17 passenger cars the entire mainline up and back.

Love the smoke, especially the smoking whistle. 

New passenger yard turnouts are working well. 

Trailing truck came off once.  Noticed the front of the truck was higher than the back.  Found the flat washer that separates the truck from the pressure spring was stuck a few turns into the spring.  Removal of washer from spring made truck lie horizontally. 

BLI added all the underside brake rigging: something not found on engines except high end brass.  First engine I've had where the gears are offset from the center.  Oiled all moving parts while on its back. 

Trailing observation car came off once: I had to reverse one of the trucks as the closed end of the truck was hitting the center sill of the frame.   This is the proper orientation as I put it on incorrectly when wiring the car for lights. 

Testing Nickle Plate Products NYC Niagara and 14 passenger cars.

Engine ran great with no problems.  Couldn't resolve the problem so I had to remove two baggage cars as they kept derailing at a couple spots on the mainline.  The two baggage were the IHC from the 70's.  Had one Walther's car derail at one spot but filed the truck hole to give it more vertical movement and that seemed to fix that problem.  Took five trips on the mainline to resolve everything which is 4,250 feet or 0.8 miles!

Had one car leaning, once in awhile, so removed the plastic lip around the truck mounting hole.

HAPPY NEW DECADE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXBPsXn6f3k

Swan River Logging railroad.

Haven't run the logging railroad is a couple decades. Cleaned up the track and did some testing.  The logging railroad interchanges with the GNRW mainline. There is a yard plus John Allen's time saver. To reach the valley, a double switch back is utilized. Grades are very steep at about 10%. The valley has a 'runaround' track plus a small yard.

Video: Ran engine at full speed to keep video time to a minimum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...amp;feature=youtu.be

Upper yard and 'time saver'.

Double switch back.

Valley with small town.

'run around' plus small yard.

Some older pictures:  A lot more vegetation has been added including trees.

 Valley with small town.

Used code 83.  I believe I made the turnouts as #6's.  As with the GNRW, all wooden ties and spiked rail. 

That's me coming out of the 'reading room'!

Logging roster.  Got some painting to do.  Presently, only plan on keeping them DC.  There's a 2-6-6-2, three shays, a Heisler, a Climax and a Vulcan (has side rods; not the start trek one!). 

Thank you for introducing us to the Swan River Logging Railroad!  Looks great!

Swan River Logging railroad:

More PM.  Ran a shay on all the upper tracks. Took about 2 hours to fix all the problems.

There were about 5 turnouts that needed 'under the layout' fixing.  One electrical wire to a rail needed re-soldering.  

All the points had to be cleaned.  I use a V shaped piece of track eraser to clean the points. 

All the track had to be cleaned plus I added Wahl oil to the rails for better electrical conductivity. 

All turnouts are choke driven and several brass arms needed re-soldering to the linkage.  

More testing.

UP Big Boy by Key pulling vintage metal Athearn, Varney and wood Silver Streak freight cars: total 43 cars.

Had one tanker shorting: had to replace metal trucks with plastic trucks but using metal wheels.  I find, most of the time, that the Intermountain wheel sets sides touch the metal truck side frames and short out. A couple more freight cars derailed so those were removed. 

Videos:

At Tye:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWXZwukFsu8

At Hillyard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcMZHWabwYU

At Waverly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzn4aFd8_6U

West of Waverly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho_shV3A6ro

At Skykomish: Love the sound of metal wheels against the rails

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrhdeAdmw5k

Ran freight train full length of mainline, from Seattle to upper loop interchange and back down to Seattle.

Wheels just make it on the Walther's 130' turntable with pilot/tender overhang. 

Love the Walther's new indexed turntable.  So much better than my old turntable.

Taking on coal, water and sand.

The GN C-1 0-8-0 pulled all 41 (couple removed due to derailments) cars from the incoming tracks .....

to the storage tracks (lots of lead weight).

Neighborhood kids came over to run trains:

What a great neighbor those kids have!!!  Wouldn’t all of us have loved it when we were kids; not to mention now that we are old kids!  

Mark,

When I was growing up, I only remember my friends having Lionel train layouts.  There were, probably, adults in the city, that had scale layouts but the two age groups never mingled. 

============

Testing the Erie Triplex 2-8-8-8-2 by MTH.

Got this engine in September but, finally, got around to testing it on the layout.

Had a lot of problems with this engine derailing.  Found out that the wheel width is more scale (narrower) than a 'normal' wheel and, having 24 drivers, didn't help the situation.  I have a MTH N&W J that, also, has narrow width drivers but no problems with that engine.  I had 10 spots that needed track gauge adjustments.  One good thing about fixing all of them, it should help prevent other cars from derailing. 

Video:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKMZtKo2gp8

Had to add couplers to the engine but they were included in the box.

Also, included a working pilot coupler.

Another engine with detailed brake rigging that is normally only found on high end brass.

The driver retaining plates are plastic.  The engine and tender is die cast. 

The two sets of drivers under the boiler are powered but the tender drivers are not: They just roll freely.

I tried pulling about 25 freight cars but the engine had trouble pulling them up grade so I installed the provided rubber tired drivers on the engine. 

Here, the driver retaining plate has been removed.

I believe this is unusual for non-brass engines in that the drivers are sprung giving better traction on uneven track.

Had about 10 places where the gauge was too wide for narrow width drivers.  I've got a truck set that has narrow wheels that I use to check the gauge.  Amazing, been testing probably 30-40 trains over the mainline the last few weeks and, for the most part, no problems due to track.  Run this engine and 10 bad spots for narrow width driver tires. 

My track gauge says width is on the wide side but still within limits but not good enough for narrow driver tires. 

Most of the problems were due to too wide of a gauge.  This problem at a turnout took awhile to solve.  The engine only derailed going with the points (to the left) and not towards the points (going right) which is, usually, the opposite of problems.  Turns out the points were just a tad lower than the stock rails so the drivers would catch the stock rail and force the drivers off the track.   Fixed the problem by rounding over the inside corner of the stock rail with a file.

Had to use my topside creeper a few times.  Took about 3 hours to fix all the problems and that was only going East on the mainline.  Still need to test going West using all the passing sidings. 

So the Triplex found the small errors other engines and cars could handle.  Your track will be better for it!

New delivery 

As Tim Allen says: MORE POWER!

Ordered the Digitrax PS2012E power supply with 20 amps and 4 DB210 Boosters that handles 5 amps each plus loconet cables and power cables.

My original Digitrax DCS210 has 5 amps.  Initially, I thought this would suffice but having 1500' of track, some 120 engines and 700 freight cars and about 240 passenger cars, the 5 amp power has been showing signs of weaknesses.  

Initial setup.

The original DCS210 is to the left.  The 20 amp power supply is straddled by the 4 DB210 boosters.  I'm leaving the original 5 amps to the DCS210 and adding the 20 amps to make a total of 25 amps.  The large red/black cables are the power cables and they are a good 12 gauge wire, if not more.  Each side of the power supply puts out 10 amps so each DB210 booster will get 5 amps.  I was going to get the DB220 boosters but Mike at Yankee Dabbler said the amp output to each district is reduced using them.  

Each side puts out 10 amps.  Nice that I can also monitor the amperage meter.  You have a selection of HO, N or G gauge.

The power boosters will each get 5 amps.   The booster also has a toggle to select HO, N or O/G.  Another toggle allows selection of 3,5,8 amps.  It seems if you have a high amp district and a low amp district, you could put 3 amps on one booster and 8 on the other booster.  The loconet cables are needed to connect the original DCS210 to all the boosters to send signals out to the decoders via each district.

The power supply is quite large.  The boosters are the same size as the DCS210.

Plenty of heat sinks on the boosters plus a fan on the power supply.  Being in the open, I should get lots of air flowing over all parts.   

Next is to connect all the boosters to the 10 PSX4 circuit breakers (CB) that lead to the 10 districts (blocks).  I'll have to distribute the 10 districts among the 4 boosters plus the DCS210.  I'm figuring districts with passing sidings will get single boosters while single track districts can 'double up' on boosters.   The CB's are set to 5 amps and are quick reacting to shorts so they should prevent any overload to any decoders. 

Scotty didn’t have that much power on the original Enterprise!!!

New power supply and booster implementation.

Good thing I read the instructions although it's against our 'better judgement'!

The first image said connect hot side to pin 7 and ground to pin 4 where another image says connect ground to pin 6.

So I moved ground over to pin 6.

Here's the schematic that says to pin 4 but that's the 'general' ground.  It turns out you need both grounds.

This picture shows power input: pin 7 (+), pin 6 (-) and pin 4 (ground).

Here's where I'm glad I, also, read the instructions.  One needs to connect the boosters to the command station.  The hand held throttle is used to do it and you can connect all 4 boosters at once while following the instructions. 

Here's the instructions to connect power input to pins 7/6. 

Here's where I connected all the 'general grounds' together on all the boosters, per the schematic. 

Next was to test that I did everything correctly!

I connected hot/ground (pin 1/2) wires to one booster.

and connected booster D4 to district D4 CB input terminals.  I got it to work but not sure why??

Connecting the hot and ground from booster D-4 into CB D-4 and the output LED did not light up even though I used my power checker on the tracks and 15 volts were going to the track.  I put an engine on that districts track and no response although the lights were on.  I tried, directly, connecting the ground (bottom wire) to the output ground but same results.

I then remove the ground input wire and the output LED came on and the engine in that district responded.  Not sure why this is working as I made sure all hot and ground wires are to their respective connections.  Will have to email Larry at DCC and Mike at Yankee Dabbler (digitrax expert) and see if they have an explanation.

As you can see in the picture, the ground wire is not connect to the input side.    Since the Command station has a ground and I have a common ground rail, I could see that the CB could be getting the ground via the command station but that doesn't explain why the output LED goes out and no signals are getting to the D-4 district when the input ground is connected to the CB's input side.   I tried reversing the wires but the CB didn't like that.  I did the 'quarter' test and the CB shorts out as it should.

Mark, Yup but he had warp drive!

 I see a new star trek: Pecard is coming out.  Just saw the latest Star Wars.

New power supply and booster implementation (cont).

The next booster was to districts D-2/3.  I ran 12 gauge solid red wire to both hot input sides.  I left the common ground inputs connected to all districts CB's and that works: This ground is from the DCS210 command station. 

I ran an engine from D-4 to D-2,3 with D-8 between them and the engine transitioned from all 3 districts with no problems so I'm guessing this installation is working OK.  I'll have to get several trains on the mainline and test after the remaining booster/districts are updated.  I left all existing wires 'in place' as 'backups'.

The 12 gauge wire was connected to the D-2,3 booster's hot side (pin 1, far right). 

This is the DCS210 command station connections.

Ran out of wire and had to get more from HD. Wire isn't cheap: $14 for the 12 gauge (50') and $31 for the 14/2 (100') speaker wire.

samparfitt posted:

Mark, Yup but he had warp drive!

 I see a new star trek: Pecard is coming out.  Just saw the latest Star Wars.

That will be the next thing on your power acquisition list.

 I saw that about the new Picard movie.  I haven’t seen the new Star Wars.  My good friend, who is a fanatic about both ‘series’, liked the new Star Wars 

New power supply and booster implementation (cont).

Connected all the boosters to their respective districts.

DCS210 command station: Districts D-1,6,9 (Seattle's freight yard, St. Paul's freight yard, Seattle's turntable)

DB210 booster: District D-3 (40' long double passing siding including electrics)

DB210 booster: District D-4 (20' Passing siding)

DB210 booster: District D-2,5,8 (Cascade tunnel, Willard and Whitefish single tracks)

DB210 booster: District D-7,11 (lower (passenger yard)/upper (3 track loop) interchanges.

Hopefully, this all works.  Tomorrow, will start testing by running lots of trains. 

Just noticed this:

The CB manual shows the red (hot) wire going to the bottom input connector....

and I've got the red wire going to the top connector!  Things seem to be working but I'll send this to Larry at DCC.

It's 2 AM, couldn't sleep, so I ran a train on the entire mainline:

Thinking about the hot/ground side, since the power is AC there is no hot/ground as long as all the 'hot' wires goes to one rail and the 'ground' to the other rail.  The test train ran through all the districts with no problems related to the new power districts. 

Test running trains.

Thinking about the hot/ground side, since the power is AC there is no hot/ground as long as all the 'hot' wires goes to one rail and the 'ground' to the other rail.  The test train ran through all the districts with no problems related to the new power districts. 

Had a few more gauges a little too wide.  One at a passing siding. 

The track around the roundhouse had a couple more wide gauges. 

A good 'smoker'.

Good smoker, good run, and very handsome engine to boot!

Thanks, Mark.

==========

Testing new DCC power supply and boosters.

This morning, ran two trains up and down the mainline with no problems.

More train and DCC testing.

Video:

SP AC-5 custom painted Sacromento grey by Key pulling passenger train out of Seattle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ilq8m7tZNc

Meter is only around a half amp while running trains.

SP AC-5 with passenger cars.

NP A-5 4-8-4 custom painted grey boiler with full complementary of lights imported by Oriental limited pulling passenger cars at Skykomish.

Found this piece of glue stuck to the inside next to the rail.

The glob of glue was under this scenery so not easy to find.  Once in awhile, a car or engine lead truck would derail under the scenery.  Finally, I was able to feel the glob of glue and used a small screwdriver to remove it.  

Going to have to clean the track: trains that used to go up the grade are, now, slowing down.  

Nice N&W steam video from the 50's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...drtAk_7F8&t=130s

Cleaned the track and more testing.

Used some 50 year old technology!  

Engines were starting to loose their 'pulling power' so the track was cleaned.  

A couple Ulrich  track cleaning cars from the 70's to clean the track.  One leading and one trailing a very heavy GN electric. 

Each car has a black fibrous material that I dip in lacquer thinner about every 20' on the mainline.   There are heavy metal tanks on top that is suppose to allow the fluid to flow by adjusting the cap but I could never get that to work well.  Some of the new track cleaners with the large heavy roller look like they would do a good job.

Junk removed going east on  the mainline. 

Junk removed going west on the mainline (covering westbound sidings).

The electric back in its stall.

More testing both of the track and the new DCC power system.

D&RGW L-131 2-8-8-2 and Zephyr passenger cars.

Adjusted the chuffing to 4 per revolution plus about 4 other engines.  Pretty easy to do with the TCS 1517 decoder as voice commands walk you through the menu. 

Only drawing 1 amp...

and that's with 3 passenger trains powered up although one train has passenger cars with no lights.  Will get about 5 or 6 on the mainline and try some intentional shorts in districts to check the new power distribution system. 

Tried playing with the telephoto lens. 

Tried some ground pictures.

The kadee uncoupler magnets takes away from the scale look!

So far, new power system working well.

Ulrich!  That's a name I haven't seen in a long, long time!  It still does the job!  All the testing photographs look great!!

Thanks, Mark.

=======

More testing of new DCC power plus one engine short found.

Ran N&W J 4-8-4 with smoke and 6 lighted passenger cars, all from MTH.

Taking on water.

B&O EM-1 2-8-8-4 (westside) and 12 passenger cars (only 2 has lights).

This engine short at two locations and took awhile to find the problem.

Along 450' of mainline and the engine would short at two locations, both on curves with no derailments.  Finally found that the lead truck would touch the frame and caused the short.  Some electrical tape fixed it. 

DCC only drawing about 1.5 amps with 5 passenger trains on the mainline (two trains have no lights in the cars save the observation car).  Also, did the quarter test on different districts and only that district shorted.  Both trains ran with no derailments. 

More power/train testing.

Had 5 trains sitting on sidings and brought out the 6th, the Erie Triplex that is super sensitive to track gauge. 

The triplex was a freight drag.

Passing the N&W J.

Passing the B&O EM-1.

The triplex ran the entire main line east and west with one derailment where the back set of drivers under the tender picked the frog guard rail.  Filed it and all's good. 

SP AC-5 heading west.

D&RGW L-131 heading west.

Ditto for the NP A-5.

Testing new power system and new vintage metal Athearn, Varney and wood Silver Streak freight cars.  Over the last 2-3 weeks, have run 40-50 trains, passenger and freight, to get all 'bugs' out of the layout.       

Video of GN R-2 2-8-8-2 (Tenshodo with TCS 1517 decoder) and 41 cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoV3ySHo4Hg

The company photographer went on the 'road' to take pictures.

GN R-2 freight drag leaving Seattle.

At Skykomish.

At Hillyard.

Great Northern got their ballast from a mine that had red ballast for one division.

 Tumwater Canyon trestle.

Glacier.

West of Wilmar.

 One kink in rail butt ends that needed fixing where back drivers picked it.  

This is needed when the track is about 5' high and 4' in!

 Marias pass.

At the watering hole.

Whitefish.

 One tree repair: left branch broke.

'Ears' on Kadee coupler pockets needing trimming as wheels were hitting them on curves. 

Marias Pass.

Approaching Tye.

More testing.       

New lower interchange passenger yard:

Been having trouble with the 3-way turnouts making good contact with the points and stock rail.   Another railroader said the short pieces of rail joiner connecting the points to the closure rail come loose.  This was one of the other problems so I soldered some #30 decoder wire between the two rails.  Initially, I tried just soldering the rail joiner but that didn't work as these points need a hinge point where they can rotate. 

After soldering the jumper wire, I still had trouble with some points making good contact with the stock rail.  These turnouts have small brass contacts on the outside of the points which allows the points and stock rail to make good contact.  One set of points had no brass contacts and no amount of adjusting the ground throw was going to fix it.  Since I couldn't increase the ground throw distance, I soldered an additional piece of brass between the existing metal throw bar and the points making the points farther apart from each other and, thus, closer to the stock rails.  That fixed it.  Using switch machines or contact switches would, also, eliminate this problem. 

One passenger car was picking this turnout in the upper interchange staging yard.   The outside guard rail needed to be re-soldered closer to the stock rail.  A hack saw blade was used to clean out the excess solder and final trim using the NMRA gauge.  

One car's coupler needed lowering. 

Once in awhile a train would 'grind' going by one spot on the layout.  Had an outside spike that wasn't seating correctly and was above the outside rail head and would rub on the truck frames.  Easy fix. 

Testing the GG-1's (Bachmann) and the passenger cars.

video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFlGP9dWnfo

Put the pantograph up for a more realistic look. 

The two GG-1's and 14 passenger cars drew 1 amp.

For some reason I'm not seeing the pics from the post two days ago, and only that post.

I really enjoy following your work.

Radcam,

I just reposted the pictures.  This is the first time I've posted so many (42) in one post and, maybe, I'm exceeded the web's limit.  If it happens again on the same post, I'll break up the pictures into two posts.

More testing this morning.

Two passenger trains needed a few 'tweeks'.

GN S-2 4-8-4 (BLI) and passenger cars.

Leaving Seattle.

At Skykomish.

Chumstick canyon trestle.

This is the bypass: left goes to St. Paul's yard and right to the upper interchange/staging yard loops. 

The engine's nose was skewing to the left and would, once in awhile, pick points and rail joints so I put a Kadee spacer on one side of the lead drivers and opposite side of the trailing driver.  Cut a pie shape arc out of washer so would, easily, fit over driver axle.  These contemporary engines have a lot of side play in the drivers so they can negotiate sharp curves so the washers eliminate it.   The rubber tires really helps though so this northern can pull a 14 car passenger train. 

Next test.

UP 4-6-6-4 2-tone challenger (also BLI) and passenger cars.

Bypassing Seattle's freight yard along the passenger track.

At Hillyard.

Chumstick canyon trestle.

Glasgow.

Passing through St. Paul in route to upper interchange/staging loops.

One couple was drooping.  Took the large coupler cover off....

and inserted a thin piece of gray plastic to raise the coupler shank. 

At Hillyard.

Marias pass.

I see them now.  

Thanks

Samparfitt, I haven’t posted on your thread for a long time, and to be honest, I thought your pictures were on the post, “What did you do on your layout today”, but, it’s right here on the HONGZ forum, and Wow, I Really like your layout. The beautiful passenger trains, the smoking steamers, the scenery, it’s fantastic and thank you for posting your progress and work projects. Very Interesting. Your track work, long straightaways, trestles to die for,  wide radius curves, a fun to watch model railroad. Keep up the great work. Happy new year. Happy Railroading. (Are you a Seattle Sea Hawks fan).