My dream/nightmare layout... July Update 7/31/19 Big Boy month!

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NYC 428 posted:

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FIXED

As year number three on the Twin Cities Central comes to a close, it is safe to say, it has been another fantastic one. In spite of taking almost two months off from mid April to mid June a number of milestones were achieved in 2015.

Sadly, my crew of helpers seemed to have evaporated. Patrick had 7 visits, and hasn't been over since the end of July. Matt and Jon had 12 visits each, but haven't been seen since the end of September. The last man standing is Joe, who started in July, and has become a wiring expert. Even though the hours worked by my helpers was considerably less that 2014, progress has continued at a similar pace, as I have tried to pick up the slack.

Before I do the year end review, let's take a look at what happened in December. Continuing where I left off in November, getting control of the mainline turnouts was a priority. As a result, both helixes became operational, connecting all levels of the railroad for the first time. In celebration, I shot a couple of new GoPro videos, and posted them mid month.

The Chestnut mini panel is the key to the route of the of the Amtrak Empire Builder. It is located at the foot of the Milwaukee Road Short Line Hill, and sends the Builder to the Midway Amtrak depot on top of the bookshelves.

The helix wye panel offers a variety of operational possibilities, as trains can go up or down from this point.

I rewired the small hidden yard panel, and added the Midway switch.

The Interstate West panel was mounted...

and made operational.

Then it was time to deal with the big helix by installing four Tortoises.

This is the panel that makes the railroad tick. From the hidden yard on the left, westbound trains enter the layout at "P" on the main level go all the way around then reenter the helix at "W", top out at the far right and do the upper deck coming back to the helix at "I", then all the way down and back to the hidden yard.

I had to get a little more creative installing two Tortoises in the small helix. I ended up using some 2-56 threaded rod and a pair of clevises to transfer the motion.

It was almost painful to rip out the Dayton's Bluff, but it had to be done.

On the workbench, I cut out most of the wires, and added another switch.

The end result, ready to go back into service.

So how do you throw a switch on a bridge, with no place to put the Tortoise? You use a really long push rod! The Tortoise is almost 4 feet away.

Tortoise number 124, the very last one!!!!

It wasn't just the one on the bridge, there was one on the mainland too which formed a crossover.

Here you can see just how far away they are. The one in the front is the close one.

Joe came over yesterday, and we wired the entire bookshelf section in 4 hours.

The last control panel!

The north relay panel is just 4 switches from being complete. It looks like a mess now, but when those four get done, I'll tie down all those wires and make it pretty.

Finally, the year in review.

Start with a progress report:

• Fascia 70% complete
• Manual turnout throws 70% complete
• Wiring 80% complete
• Track 97% complete
• Temporary control panels 100% compete
• Tortoises 100% complete
• Layout lighting 100% complete
• Two switch relay panels built
• Upper deck and full mainline operational
• Rail painting and ballasting started

I thought I would end with some before and after photos. The before shots were taken last year , and the afters were taken today. 

Backdrop, lighting and track are all new in 2015

The fascia and control panel are fairly obvious here, what is less so is the wiring and working turnouts.

Beside all the fascia, the knobs on the upper deck left throw all the yard switches.

Here's a scary one, the train on the outer track of the lower level hasn't moved all year.

Happy New Year!

Thanks for the update and the monthly updates Elliot. Happy New Year. 

WOW! I don't know where you get the patience and can only imagine where you'd be without all the help you've had. It's been wonderful following your progress and I look forward to another year of watching the layout continue to grow. Happy New Year to you. Empire Builder is certainly an appropriate moniker for both you and the layout.

Looking GREAT! I have been doing lots of wiring myself. Keep up the fantastic work.

That is clearly the most obscene layout I've ever seen for a personal layout!  The scope of it simply takes your breath away!  I always enjoy these updates, it lets you know what is possible with unlimited funds and a lot of hard work!

Well, a lot of time and hard work, and a little help from your friends certainly is paying off.  Congratulations on the progress.  I traipse through the twin cities area on occasion... do you still entertain visitors? 

Excellent work!!

Eliot

Simply AMAZING !!!

Love the updates

Steve

Happy New Year to you and your family!  

Absolutely gorgeous!   You made great progress this year.

Simply great!  Seeing 100% beside things has to be a really good feeling. Do you have a separate category "bug fixes" or something similar? You have mentioned a few problem areas and assume that some are more critical than others and urgency determines when repaired.

Wish that I lived closer. Would love to help.

Thanks for continuing to include all of us in the progress reports.

Astounding, mind boggling and inspirational, Elliot.   It shows me that I can certainly run a few wires and throw down a couple of boxes of GG track if you can tackle that monumental task.  It appears that this year will hold tons of fun for both of us.  Good luck with your future endeavors and thanks for showcasing your fabulous layout.

Bruce

Elliot,

Thank you once again for the pictures! It's fun to follow your progress.

And have a Wonderful New Year!

Alex

Alexander Müller

The Like Reply X10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Outstanding Elliot, once again! I did not realize you had 3 decks on your layout,  thought it was only 2 decks served by the helix.

Where do you buy your wire from?

I noticed the photo with the Wye control panel. What is the purpose of the mini control panel? Do you shut off track power? When I see the mini contro panels it reminds me of DC layouts of yesterday year.

Thank you all for your great comments and continued support. As always, it is my pleasure to share my layout's progress with you.

I had a little trouble with my post last night. I had it done around 11:30, but when I hit post reply, none of the pictures showed up. I ended up having to start a new post with just the photos. Once I knew they were working, I copied all the text, and cut and pasted it all back together, then I deleted the original post. What a pain! I think the problem was that I took too long to complete the post, it was over 4 hours. Of course much of that time was spent watching the Wild beat the Blues.

Dave - Patience... personally I thought I had lost most of mine. Earlier in the year, I started a punch list using a spreadsheet program. I divided the layout into sections and listed them across the top, then listed the projects down the left side. This has allowed me to see at a glance what needs to be done. It is a giant set of "mini goals". After each session, I reward myself by updating the list. It really keeps me going and focused.

John - Funds are not unlimited, though it may come across that way. Keep in mind that I bought a lot of this stuff back in 1992 for the Mall of America layout, and am now recycling the salvage. I have not bought any new wire with the exception of a 1000' spool of Cat 5. Actually, I got that for free at Menards, with a $75 rebate check that I earned buying house paint. Yes, I have spent money on track and switches, but I have tried to be as economical as possible. I did get a half a ton of ballast for $150.

David - (and everyone else here on the forum) There has always been an open invitation to visit. All I ask is that you email me in advance when you know your schedule so we can find a time. I'm usually available.

Bill - The plan right now is to finish everything the way it was designed, especially the wiring. There will be a lot of things that will have to be debugged, the biggest of which will be the TMCC signal. I tend to do track repairs as I discover them. I know I'm going to have to keep a log book. We're not even looking at rolling stock yet. When I start having operating sessions, all of that stuff will become known.

Bruce - It makes me very happy to hear you say that. Consider that inspiration my ongoing contribution to the hobby.

Alex - When I returned to the forum in 2012, you were just finishing up your layout. I went back and read the whole thing. I miss seeing your topic on a regular basis. I guess in a way I'm returning the favor.

George - As I said earlier, I haven't bought wire in years. When I did, it came from a local electrical supply house, and I bought 500' spools. I have 10 different colors in 12 gauge and 16 gauge stranded. When I started this layout, I had more than 3 large trash cans full with 20 partial spools. Most of the spools are now empty, or fairly low, and there is about one can left. I may splice it back together, and re-spool the best pieces.

All of the control panels are temporary. Their only function is to hold the electrical switches used to throw the turnouts. Eventually, they will all be removed and replaced by a full CTC video dispatcher board located in a corner of the train room. Track power is just on or off, and controlled by a light switch at the entrance to the layout. There will probably be some engine tracks that will be able to be turned off. There may also be some local kill switches to allow for derailment cleanup without welding trains to the rails.

Once again, thank you all and Happy New Year!!!

Elliot,

    Thanks again for the great update, looks like you are finally scaring the help off, lots of work engineering and building a layout of this magnitude, no doubt about it, congrats on another fine building year, the layout is really starting to take shape.

Merry Christmas & Happy New year Elliot!

PCRR/Dave

Thanks for posting the updates every month. Love to see the progress that is being made. Have a great evening.

David

A number of years ago my wife found a tee shirt online. It said, "I don't have ADD... Oh look, a chicken!" She would have gotten it for me, but it didn't come in my size.

When I run down the list of projects I touched this month, you'll see why I mentioned the ADD thing. In the end, it all needs to be done. Some of these projects are nearing completion, and new ones are just getting started.

Much of what got done this month involved wire of various types and purposes. Unfortunately wire isn't very exciting to look at, but it is what makes a model railroad go.

Joe was over to help twice in January. The first visit was spent working on detection wiring under Hoffman. The second visit was spent de-wiring part of the big hidden yard. The de-wiring goes back to a design change that I decided to make a couple years ago, after a nasty mishap with runaway trains down there.

Originally the plan was to have a separate detector for every 3' section of GarGraves. The computer would have been able to determine the length of of each train by the number of sections it occupied, and then pack the trains onto each of the five tracks, leaving a one section buffer.

After the runaway incident, I felt it would be better to just have five dedicated stopping zones per 120' track. This meant 25 fixed "parking places". It also meant that all that extra detection wiring was unnecessary. So, instead of 200 detectors, the entire yard will now have just 25. We've taken out a lot of wire, but much of it is getting reused elsewhere. Joe should be over on Wednesday, and we will complete that project once and for all.

After Joe got the ball rolling inside the small helix, I took over and spent the better part of the first week finishing up.

The north turnout relay panel is nearly complete. There are just 4 Tortoises that have yet to be connected. This will be done for the next update in February.

I started cleaning up the spaghetti mess along the edge. When those last 4 are done, everything will get tied down.

This is my GoPro camera car, just a cheap MPC gondola. I put plastic wheels in it to help keep the noise down. The last videos I shot were kind of wobbly. Part of the problem was the way the trucks were attached to the car, with a plastic retaining rivet. I put in an 8-32 bolt with a nylon lock nut. Much better ride.

Here's the finished small helix wiring, power, ground and detection.

I wasted an afternoon on this little project. As you may know, I have had a lot of TMCC signal issues. I'm desperate for solutions. The idea here is to shield the ground bus from extraneous earth ground which could deteriorate the track signal.

I took this plastic tubing, wrapped it with foil tape, and sliced it up the side.

I slid it over the wire bundle, allowing the feeders to come out through the slit.

Then I tied the foil to earth ground. However, there was no noticeable difference in the track signal.

On the other hand, this next project was very successful. I strung a single earth ground wire all the way from bottom to top on the big helix, and the difference was remarkable.

I converted a couple more of the original control panels to the new single wire 24 VDC  system.

The colored push pins along the roadbed are marking the gaps in the detection rail. These will come into play soon when we start the huge project of locating all the detectors and debugging the system. I put them there so helpers that don't understand (probably my wife) can easily move a car, while I do the real work connecting the wires to the panels down below. I can use my meter to check continuity via the ground and detector with a car on the track.

Another ground plane wire extending down the south wall from the big helix. This track will be behind the backdrop when all is said and done, so it needs to work perfectly every time.

What you're looking at in this shot is the Masonite edge on the big hidden yard. Originally, it was twice as tall, which made it very difficult to get back in there to fix a derailment.

I got the first two new cameras installed. These two will monitor the hidden trackage along the east and south walls.

I installed some pipes under the raised walkways. All the wires you see next to it, are now going through it. This one is the fourth one. I may still need a couple more.

As GunrunnerJohn calls it, this is my "$300 doorstop" AKA unused Legacy base. This was the cause of the aforementioned runaway incident, and that is why it has remained dormant. I plan to mount it permanently to the layout, and give it another chance this coming week. This time I can isolate all the trains, and have just one in play for testing.

I put in my early buy order with Charlie Ro, but a couple of items were already in stock and a package showed up last Friday. One item was the LC+ BN NW-2. I haven't had a chance to put it on the rails yet, but I'm worried that if I do, I won't get any work done. The other item was 33 bumpers, the other 39 are on backorder.

I will need to paint them, but they are starting to add something to the layout.

Finally, on Friday I opened a new can of worms when I decided to rewire the south power panel. With the wires neatly in both pipes, and my power district list on my clipboard, I started reorganizing the wires into their final configuration. The goal is to have contiguous districts on the same supply with a minimum number of transitions between supplies. This shot was taken this morning.

This is what it looked like when I wrapped up for the day 4 hours later. There are still a few left to reconnect. Again, another project to be done this week.

You have gotten a great deal done this month. The spreadsheet must have quite a few additional things checked off.

Thanks for keeping us informed. Always look forward to it.

Bill

Massive update, it's nice to see steady progress.  You really just need 20 or 30 people working on this one.

FWIW, the foil around the wires connected to earth ground is probably a bad idea.  You're providing a lot of coupling between the track signal and the earth ground signal, that's a bad thing.

Elliot,

Great Progress! Thank you for the update.

The single ground wire also worked wonders for my one trouble spot with Legacy. Out of maybe 60-80 feet of the double mains stacked on two levels, I had about 10 feet where the signal was bad. Added a ground wire (connected to ground at one end only) attached to the bottom of the top level, and no more problems.

• What camera system are you using to see the hidden tracks?

Thank you and keep up the excellent work with your challenging and monumental undertaking.

Alex

Alexander Müller

Staggering... Boggles my brain every time I look at this thread!     A massive undertaking to describe this layout would be an understatement.

Elliot,

  The best I can say is "inspirational" and I am certain that stands for many who follow your progress.  I hope to have more done on mine this year, pending the storms stay at bay and I have a drastic reduction of storm related cleanup to perform on my property.  Friends ask why I don't have it done for me, pay someone else to do so.  But, to me, that would be cutting into my train purchase funds.   Besides, the exercise and good hard work is always good and healthy for my "getting along in years" body.  Just the time taken away from working on the layout is the part distained.  Again, great progress and inspirational work, Elliot.  Thanks for the progress reports and ideas we all receive from your efforts.

Jesse

WHOA!!!!!!

Another great update. Hope you get your signal problems resolved easily. Looking forward to the next update already.  

Elliot, amazing as usual! Your layout is a true inspiration and always interesting to view. Your wiring looks like something out of the Space Shuttle! LOL. 

All I can say is wow. Every month it just gets better.  I don't how you manage to keep track of all the wiring with out pulling your hair out.  I get a headache just looking at your panels, let alone the thought of tracing a short. I take it you plan to eventually control everything from a laptop? Or did I just open another can of worms? Anyway look forward to next month.

..and I can't even finish up a simple 4x10 layout. I can't imagine tackling something like this.

Again, my favorite thread and always look forward to the end of the month updates.

Thanks guys!!! I haven't said this in a while, but you are the ones who keep me going. While the vision and goals are mine, sharing it with you makes it all worthwhile.

Bill - I'm actually working with five different pages of spreadsheets:

1. Mainline turnouts (nearly complete)
2. Power districts (nearly complete)
3. Detection (just getting started)
4. Punch list (projects by location)
5. Project list (a general to do list)

Those lists keep me organized. Not sure where I'd be without them. And yes, I've checked off some items, but I keep adding more to the project list.

GR John - As nice as having an army of helpers sounds, I found everyone that I have had help me, is more productive when I work with them one on one. It's not easy trying to run a crew. I did disconnect that earth ground, but as I was rewiring the power panel, I noticed that a number of ground wires were draped over the conduit. I lengthened the wires and got them out of contact, then put a foil wrapped piece of pipe insulation on the conduit. I still need to turn the power on to try it.

Alex - I remember you posting about your bad spot, it's been a few years now. Glad it was such an easy fix. The camera system is just something I picked up at Sam's club, as was the first one. I think it's a Samsung. The first one has 8 cameras, six in the big hidden yard, and two in the small hidden yard. The idea was to use the new 16 camera system to add 8 new cameras and the 8 old ones on one hub. But now I'm thinking of leaving the original 8 just the way they are. The new 8 will cover hidden trackage around the rest of the layout, including inside both helixes. That still leaves 8 more possible cameras. Maybe they could be mounted two in each aisle to cover the entire layout! My wheels never stop turning.

Rockey Mountaineer - It is big, but maybe I've just gotten used to it. It doesn't seem that bad working on it. Just seeing it in photos may make it seem worse than it really is. It becomes disjointed and perhaps more complicated. Hang in there, the real fun is still to come.

Jesse - I guess I'm lucky in many ways, not the least of which is not having to fight with mother nature's wrath. We don't run into a lot of damaging storms around here, just some serious cold once in a while. It is very rewarding to hear that you find inspiration in my work.

John - But you are worthy! Seriously, I know that panel looks intimidating, but it is actually rather simple. Each relay just reverses the polarity of 12 VDC to power a Tortoise. An SPST switch on a control panel fires the relay for now. Eventually, those switches will be replaced by a computer.

RTR12 - Me too, this signal battle has been going on since day one. I had a little conversation with Tommy Z over on Youtube. He went through the whole signal trouble business and finally caved and went to DCS. DCS is not an option for me. I have to make this work, even if I have to shave my head, to keep from pulling my hair out.

George - Maybe there's a reason why my wiring looks that way. I learned it from an electrical engineer, though he was even more meticulous. I'm a little sloppy by comparison.

Suzukovich - I touched on this over on another topic this week. I use 10 colors of wire and 10 colors of electrical tape. That combined with the spreadsheet keeps me out of trouble. The real trick is to do the track connections correctly the first time. I just ran into a situation where a section of track had no power. I discovered that all the feeders were connected to the bus, but that the bus was connected to nothing! Oops. I fixed that today. As for the computer, it won't be a laptop, it was going to be my full sized using two serial ports, one for TMCC / Legacy and the other for CMRI to run detection, turnouts and signals using JMRI for software. The plot thickens.

Roman - I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you will finish your layout before I finish mine. On the other hand we may both be in trouble, because the first rule of model railroading is a layout is never finished. There is always something else to do. Let's just keep plugging along.

Well, I think I've at least finished my wiring!

Roman posted:

Well, I think I've at least finished my wiring! ��

Well, you've got me there, but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it's the oncoming train.

Well this year I am going to York - an item on my bucket list I can scratch off, however an item I must add to my  list is to visit Elliot.

John, the longer you wait, the better it will get. As always, everyone is invited, just drop me an email to set up a visit.

All I can say is......WOW!

peter

All I can say is Wow

David, you have certainly put forth a great effort so far, and it shows.  If I may, I would like to ask about the lighting.  As you are still in the construction phase, my question may be premature.  For my eyes, I find the location of the lighting fixtures above the second level distracting.  Viewing the layout as one would stand in front of a particular section, it seems the glare from each bulb would draw one's eyes upward toward the light.    Are you planning shielding in front of those lights ?   

DP posted:

David, you have certainly put forth a great effort so far, and it shows.  If I may, I would like to ask about the lighting.  As you are still in the construction phase, my question may be premature.  For my eyes, I find the location of the lighting fixtures above the second level distracting.  Viewing the layout as one would stand in front of a particular section, it seems the glare from each bulb would draw one's eyes upward toward the light.    Are you planning shielding in front of those lights ?   

Yes, the plan does call for a valance up there, but it will have to wait until the scenery and backdrops are done. I have hard enough time getting in there. The lower deck looks much better, as the upper deck fascia is extra deep to double as the valance for it.

Elliot, just wanted to express my gratitude for your monthly updates on your mega-layout.  The photos and explanations to this thread that you provide are one of the regular content that continues to draw my interest to OGR.