Help with My First Layout

I looked at my original package and I doubt that the PE locomotive is TMCC, but my local (semi, one hour away) store does carry the DCS.  I may have to shoot over there today to pick up a replacement switch if they have it in stock and will look for any good deals on an MTH locomotive.  Either way, figure I'll go that route either short or long term.  The broadcasting feature is simply too good to pass up for the 6 yr old (ok and me too )

The mountain is simply a 3x3 addition I had attached to one corner of the 6x8 at one time. I was going to add a 5x11 section to expand the layout to 11x13 to fit my dining room, but my wife and I decided to take the bedrooms once our daughter and granddaughter move out. I'll have the main layout in one room and a yard in the other, if I go through with the yard expansion at some point. I just took the 3x3 off and added some risers to fashion a mountain scene with a tunnel so I had more room for buildings.

For awhile, I simply ran the track through an empty soda carton to simulate a tunnel. Drape that with some quilt batting from Wal-Mart for an instant tunnel. But, a piece of 1/2 plywood on some risers makes a fine tunnel. If you add some 1" or 2" foam layers, you can sculpt a really nice removable tunnel. Cover that with some camouflage material, tack on some fake trees, instant mountain.

I'm probably going to use many of those buildings on my permanent layout, at least initially. We have a lot of money tired up in that collection and I'd like to get some use out of them. At Christmas time, I'd just sprinkle the whole layout with snow and then vacuum it up, or maybe just make it a year-round winter layout.

If you do, take your engine and manual along and ask them what it can do with a DCS remote. My local is 45 minutes away, so I feel your pain.

I must admit...I'm having as much fun w/ the broadcasting as my kid. Another feature that I like w/ DCS is the ability to pre-record sound sequences and play them through any MTH protosound 2 or above engine. So for example you could record various sounds such as passengers chattering at a station that you record from real life or that you find on youtube or the web, or other engine sounds and have them available as a custom sound that you can pick & have played out over any of the engines. Additionally like Dave said, you can plug in your iphone or other audio source and play say Christmas music that comes through the engine speakers, etc... Another neat thing is that DCS/MTH engines with protosound you're able to update any firmware for the train and more importantly you can download any other compatible MTH engine, passenger or freight sound sequences for other trains and upload them to your current one. So for example my train is the Christmas Express and has passenger sounds and music related to Christmas and Santa but if I wanted to change those I could download say the Hiawatha sound set and now the train would have a completely different sound sequence like announcing arrivals & departures from Milwaukee (where I live)... so that's pretty cool stuff for me. I wish Lionel engines could be customized like that!

Ok now I feel pretty lucky that my local train shop (and that's all they sell there) is about 15 minutes away. Stopping by today to check some things out!

Dang it! Now I'm going to have to look for a railroad sounds DVD so I can load those. I haven't played with loading custom sounds. I probably should rip some stuff from the "It's A Wonderful Life" DVD too.

Actually, that can be a curse, too easy to spend money.

Ok I think I got the layout done now... I can't believe I had a simple oval track less than a month ago and now this!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2wnk...wg/Xmas%20Layout.mpg

Congratulations! That should be a real hit during the holidays. I like how you added the tunnels and mountains, gives it that little extra bit of mystery and I'll bet your son enjoys watching it disappear and reappear. It's been a real pleasure working with you and thanks for letting us see the results.

Thanks Dave. All cause of your help. Very glad w/ the results. The scenery/mountain/tunnel gives it a whole different feeling that's for sure.

Now after all this I'm running into a problem though so I need to do a little research but perhaps you may know something that I could look into.

When the train is going slow (say 12smph) and going into one of my 2 switches it seems to sometimes stall & shutdown. The DCS remote tells me to check the track or engine not on track message. This seems to happen when the train is going to the same switch and the switch is needing to activate it's anti-derailing feature to line up the track to allow the train to move through it.

Any experience/ideas on what to look at w/ this?

One thing I learned yesterday is how important it is to check & clean the wheels & pickup roller of not only the engine/tender but passenger cars. I was having some lights flickering & weird things going on so I looked at the trains and the pickups looked dirty so I wiped them down w/ a napkin and got a lot of black stuff and made a big difference

Looking great!

If I may tag along again... Dave, while I wait to pick up more switches for your layout (thinking I may now do this sooner rather than later given the problems I'm having) I was trying to re-work one of Ace's layouts into SCARM which I downloaded per your advice.  Since I'm still new to the software I'm having a bear of a time figuring out how to make connections and junctions work.

If you have a moment could you take a look at this file?

I'm no expert, but here are some thoughts.

It sounds like the engine rollers are losing contact at some point on the turnout at that slow speed. There are 2 sets of rollers on your engine and they are designed so that one or the other has power through turnouts.

It looks to me like you have your power connected to a track next to the turnout on the left side of the layout. Many like to add a second power drop to the other side of a layout, even small ones, and they like to have power drops on both sides of turnouts. I think the directions might even mention this somewhere. I bought a 2nd power connector, but haven't used it because I haven't expanded beyond my simple oval.

Does it happen mostly in one direction through the turnout? Which turnout. My guess would be the turnout furthest away from your power connection, but it could also be the side opposite the connection.

The other problem might be the power draw by the lighted passenger cars. You can take the cars off the layout and see if that makes a difference at the same speed. If it still stops, you can turn off the power and tilt the engine/tender to see where the rollers are and maybe see a problem with the switch itself. Either way, I think adding another power drop might fix the problem.

Since it doesn't do this on both switches and appears that you can repeat it, that again points to a power problem that a 2nd drop might fix.

As far as cleaning goes, yes, you'll need to stay on top of that. There are several threads here discussing the topic, but it seems that there are many methods that work from regular alcohol to denatured alcohol to Goo Gone and other fluids to various types of cleaning pads. I'm staying away from pads because I think paper towels and plain old cloth towels work well and aren't abrasive.

There are also cleaning cars ranging from about $60 to over $200 and there are some DIY versions out there. I've decided to hold off making/buying a car until I have a larger layout, but they are almost required when you have tunnels and other hidden track that is not easy to get to. The quilt batting covering my tunnels lift up so I can get to the track for cleaning, but a car is definitely in my future.

And as you've found, you have to clean the car wheels too or they'll just transfer grime back to the track, especially our lighted cars. Unfortunately, cleaning is a tedious job that has to be done and can be messy. If you use a cleaning car, it should minimize how often you have to manually clean wheels. Search "cleaning car" and read through some of the threads that come up. And don't forget to check for a You Tube video.

Oh man, you're really putting me to the test, aren't you?

I don't know SCARM very well, but after a half hour or so I was able to get it down to one joint that I couldn't reconcile. Unfortunately, given the number of small pieces I had to use to get that far, I'd never build this plan as it is. If you have a link to Ace's plan, I'll take a further look at it to see if I can figure things out a little better. I remember seeing the plan when he posted it, but I don't remember what thread it was in. I used the Atlas track library and I don't know what he used. IF he used Atlas, I'm sure he'd share the SCARM file.

Ok, I remember that thread and remember reading your latest post there. I can see if I can work out something close in RR-Track using Atlas track and then give you the parts list I used. That way you can try to reproduce/change it in SCARM to match the track you have as much as possible. I'd do it in SCARM, but I find things a lot easier (for me anyway) using RR-Track. It'll take me awhile though because I have an ENT appointment to get to this afternoon.

Makes a big difference, so thanks for mentioning that before I get started.

Great! I look forward to seeing a photo/video.

Yes, you can use standard wire to extend. If you can find the same colors, it will help keep things straight.

If you can isolate one roller and get it to stop on a straight track, it sounds like something more than needing another power drop. I'm pretty sure the Z500 has enough power. I was told it should be able to power my 13x14 layout depending on how many trains I try to run.

Can you isolate either roller and get it to fail or just one specific roller? If you can get it to fail on a straight track, it would seem to be a problem with the engine, not the switches.

I know you said you cleaned things and it seems like speed wouldn't matter if it was dirt-related, but if you only wiped the rollers with a cloth, you might need to use something more, like alcohol, to really get them clean. I'd hate to see you wait until Tuesday only to have them ask you to clean the rollers/track and call back. Unless you've already done so, it can't hurt to clean things again. DCS can be a bit picky about clean tracks and rollers. My passenger car lights worked fine when my engine quit because of dirt. Like you, I was worried something was wrong with the engine.

Dave yes I was able to get the engine to shutdown on a straight track by putting a piece of paper on the center rail and moving the engine at 1smph over it and it shutdown but I couldn't isolate it to just one of the rollers. I'll try again but I think I got it to shutdown on either roller.

I only used a napkin to clean the rollers so I'll try using alcohol and a rag like you suggested and see if that helps.

Now bigger question is are "dead" spots on the track normal even if they are small?

I doubt if it pertains to your situation but yesterday the shop owner where I go was explaining to me that some of the small pieces I was buying (1 3/8) were wired with a little separator and that if I took out the wire(or if they came loose) that it would create a tiny dead spot on that section...

Also, here's a pic of the Xmas layout.  Wife is going to pick out some winter type stuff today with our son.

I'm getting my multimeter out to test voltage & resistance on the track and will clean the engine rollers w/ alcohol to see what happens.

Nice layout. I like the idea of having it up on a table to see.

Thanks!  Hopefully the wife will agree to moving it but keeping it up all year.  We were able to move the foam piece in one last season, so I'm thinking if she does that I'll change out the foam to one foot longer and use Dave's layout and perhaps screw down the track.  Of course that will mean complete re-decoration...

So how large is the foam base in that layout and do you just set it on a large table?

Dave I tested the track w/ an analog multimeter and get about 12V AC across the track at pretty much any spot and get a Signal Quality reading of 10 from the DCS remote I also tested for continuity and no issues anywhere I tested on any track (inner and outer ground tracks and center rail (hot) track so I don't think the issue is related to bad track connection or power.

Now I took some alcohol & started wiping the engine pickup rollers (they were not too dirty so only a little black stuff on the napkin) then I started w/ the larger wheels and I'm getting A LOT of black residue on the napkin and fingers so curious. How clean are the wheels supposed to be? Should I expect very little black residue and that's when I stop? I guess thinking about this if the pickup rollers are sort of clean but the outer rail wheels are not perhaps that could also cause the engine to loose power briefly and shutdown?

I bought two inch thick insulating foam from Lowe's in sheets 4x8.  This is 5x9 so I cut strips from a second sheet then simply glued and inserted some wooden dowel into the pieces.  I have 3 five foot folding tables supporting underneath, so each has about 7 inches in between tables with no support but I've not seen any bending since the foam is so thick.  Nice in that it's super light so we literally pick it up go out the back door and lean it up against a wall in the garage to store.  If it weren't for the dimensions it could easily be handled by one person (in fact I think my wife moved it last year, I figured if I simply were "unavailable" to help move it that it would stay up)

I plan to redo it to get to 5x10, I still have left overs from the last cut I think.

To be honest, I don't really know. I'll give you some of my thoughts and hope someone will correct any that are wrong.

Given that each rail is an individual piece of metal, my guess is any dead spots on individual tracks are dirt-related. Dead spots between tracks would be dirt or a bad connection. I suppose plated-track could have dead spots where the plating isn't holding right or something, but I don't have any experience with that.

Some dead spots may result from too many tracks on a single power drop and I suppose such a spot could be intermittent. Like I said, most folks I think like to have a power drop on both sides of turnouts. In your case, that would mean 3 drops; 1 at the end of each loop and 1 between the 2 loops.

That doesn't mean the drop has to be right at the turnout though. That's why I say at the ends of the loops so that the entire loop gets a similar dose of power. If you put the drop at the end of a loop. it has to support the entire loop. If you put it in the middle, it supports half if either direction. That's probably a very simplistic explanation, but that's all I've got. I think I have mine technically wrong because I have it near my turnout simply because both are close to the TIU. Mine should probably be at the other end of the oval, though I'm not having any problems.

One way to check the track is to use a tester between tracks to see if the connections are good. Being as we're looking at new FasTrack, I doubt you have any dead spots unless the track was "pushed" too far to make it fit the layout design and one or more connection is bad.

It could be that your engine has power, but the DCS signal drops. Like I said, my car lights were plenty bright, but the engine stopped because it lost the DCS signal due to dirty tracks/rollers. I often check the DCS signal with the remote (menu/system/track signal). However, I'm not sure what that really means. I assume that means the DCS signal is able to make it around the layout on the center rail, but that doesn't mean the engine can pick it up if there is dirt on the rail or the rollers. Right now my power is shut down and the remote still says the signal is a 10. I assume that's not really telling me anything about the track.

That said, the fact that you can run fine at higher speeds and reproduce the problem at will would normally tell me it's an engine problem. However, I don't know enough about DCS to really make a guess. Without looking at the track/rollers, it's hard to say that some of it isn't just dirty. That's why I recommended cleaning to make sure it's not dirt-related. I thought my engine was broke too. After all, it would startup, shutdown, blow the whistle, car lights stayed on, everything but move more than 1 track. There was plenty of power, but the DCS signal was not getting through. The part that bothers me about your problem is it only shows up at really low speeds.

I don't really know the relationship between rails/wheels when it comes to the DCS signal. I could be wrong, but I think the DCS signal is picked up by the rollers only from the center rail, so if that and the rollers are clean, then I don't think that's the problem.

When it comes to the wheels, the only thing I can tell you is that some have rubber "tires", so you may always get some black from them. It does sound like your wheels are really dirty though, so we'll have to see what happens after you clean them.

Robby, that looks great. Did you figure things out in SCARM or just when you played with the track itself? If in SCARM, how about posting or sending me the file. I played with RR-Track all evening last night and still couldn't make the last connection. It was hard because while Ace had some track sizes posted, I couldn't quite guess right at all the curves and turnouts. It got frustrating, so I went to bed.

Great idea, I had not thought of either digging for river, or installing handles, thanks!  I figure I have a few options when it comes to making the next layout.  I'd like to get to 6x10 frankly but don't want to overstretch the goodwill I've gotten from the spousal unit!

In the end, I used a mix of my Scarm that I sent you, and then smidging around with the track, so far I haven't seen any excess movement or separation, but definitely had to use more small pieces than I wanted (4 x 1 3/8, 3 x 1 3/4).  I really like the layout and think it will look great when decorated but of course that might be more of a challenge when I broach the idea of taking it down and starting from scratch (plus spending more money on two more switches, or one more if I can use the 072 within your layout)!

I can almost see the discussion now. Ralph and Alice come to mind. (We'll see if you get the connection.)

"Straight to the moon..."

Awesome, dude!