Christmas 2024 layout - slow but getting there

Walt….looking forward to seeing this year’s creation.

How many years now?  Looking forward to this year's creation too!

@walt rapp,

Walt,

I will be following your updates closely. I'm very impressed with the huge effort you make to put together a new layout every year. Your meticulous track and scenery planning are similar to what I've done on my two layouts - but I spent five years building each of them - not two months. I also liked your recent postings of family homes. Good luck and have fun.

MELGAR

Will be fun watching. Nothing like building a Christmas layout.

Walt......I look forward to this every year!

Peter

Impressive!  My Christmas layout is 2 ovals - Lionel O and American Flyer S.

Walt,

Your layouts are always impressive.   Looking forward to seeing this year’s layout.  

Thank you @Rich Wiemann, @eddiem, @MELGAR, @romiller49, @Putnam Division, @cbq9911a, and @PatapscoValleyRR for the kind words of encouragement!!

A couple of more comments as to why I can pull this off in 6 to 7 weeks time.  I plan EVERYTHING in detail.

I plan where lockon connections will be and for DCS, blocks.

Then after I plan all of the scenery stuff, I now know where all wires will be needed.  I try hard to hide them.  One of my best ways to do that is that for each piece of Homasote, I have a same-sized piece of blue insulation board that will go under each piece.  The blue board is 1/2" smaller on each side than its Homasote partner.  That allows for me to run wires in those blue-board gaps which will later be covered with the Homasote.  Here's a sample of the gap:

Knowing where I want those gaps to run wires thru influences how I lay out the Homasote pieces.  It won't be perfect in all cases but cover as many as I can.

It will take me about 2 weeks to finish laying down the wires.  If I still have a brain left I'll come back

- walt

Looking forward to this year's build Walt. Never knew the level of detail you put into the planning.

Good work.

"A couple of more comments as to why I can pull this off in 6 to 7 weeks time.  I plan EVERYTHING in detail."

The "I'm single" part helps too.......

Bob

That’s amazing Walt. It Takes a month for a team of about 12 club members to set up our Christmas Layout in the clubhouse. It’s a set of 3 levels of nodules that are basically prewired. Most days are 3-4 hours M- F. The truck will be here Monday. Our annual Pancake Breakfast with Santa is scheduled for December 7. I can’t get my head around that you do it alone.

Well there may not be a layout this year.

i’m having an issue with my TIU that’s killing everything. No power is going through any of my four ports. Obviously it worked perfectly when I put it away so I don’t know what’s going on. I did a read and it finds the TIU I actually programmed a few accessories and was able to activate them. Power is getting to the input side on all four I tested. No power on any of the output ports though.

I think I’m screwed

This is embarrassing. All of a sudden it’s working. I consulted with some of the experts and no one had encountered anything like this. So I gave up and turned the power back on and everything worked. I wish I could say well I did this little thing and apparently that made it mattered but I did nothing.  By the way I recycled the power multiple times in the morning and it didn’t help

so I have to apologize to the people that I wasted their time.

Thank goodness it’s working and now I can go back to building🤙🤙🤙🤙🤙

I made WAY BETTER progress laying down the initial set of wires that i ever expected.  I am just happy that somehow it went faster than normal.  I'm only 1/4 done with wires but what I have is a great start because it addresses most of the harder things to pull off.

You may recall from a few posts earlier my explanation of the 'gaps' in blue board.  Here is a sample of that.  I planned ahead of time for a main passage of wires to the back to all run thru one gap.  The wires connected to terminal blocks where I will fan out wires from there.  I also ran a connection cable between the AIU under the trannies to the one under the plateau in the back.  The wires not going to the AIU, those going to the terminal blocks, are for track and switch power.

So here's a picture of those wires in that gap.

- walt

Here's the cluster of wires shown while placement was still going on

As I mentioned posts ago, once the wires are in place I can slide the Homasote back over that gap. Goal accomplished: wires are hidden from view.  BTW I tightened up that space between the 2 pieces of Homasote.

No need to feel embarrassed, Walt!  I have seen lots of times where something won't work, then it does!  Thank you for posting your plan and the start of construction!

Thanks @Mark Boyce - I was embarrassed because there was no logical explanation.  If there was a reason that was given that would have solved it I would have been fine, mentally speaking.  In my mind, I'm picturing at least "some" people saying "you're crazy, stuff like that doesn't just happen". 

But thanks to several knowledgeable train guys saying "don't be embarrassed", that helped a LOT.

Ok, back to more wiring. UGH.

- walt

Walt, you’re most welcome!!

In all my years working for power and telecom companies, it was often the case that we had to document “trouble cleared while testing”. It’s just the way it is with electronics sometimes, and that goes back to some very primitive equipment by today’s standards to the most sophisticated today.

@walt rapp posted:

Thanks @Mark Boyce - I was embarrassed because there was no logical explanation.  If there was a reason that was given that would have solved it I would have been fine, mentally speaking.  In my mind, I'm picturing at least "some" people saying "you're crazy, stuff like that doesn't just happen".

But thanks to several knowledgeable train guys saying "don't be embarrassed", that helped a LOT.

Ok, back to more wiring. UGH.

- walt

Stuff like that does happen….all the time….no worries!

Peter

I can't  believe how well things are falling in place so quickly.  I have the lower lever completely wired and tested by running a conventional engine.  I have all of the feeder wires for the accessories in place and tested too.  I don't think I've ever before moved along this quickly, not that I'm complaining mind you!!!

Here is the track in place.

Surprisingly to some extent is how perfectly my hand drawings worked so well.  For instance, look at this area in the front center and compare it to my diagram of that area.  almost perfect match

I won't put any accessories in place until I set up the 4'x8' plateau in the back left.  Once that's in place it's full steam ahead.

= walt

That's good progress, Walt!  You have gotten the hang of it after so many years.

Progress was slow lately due to an electrical issue that I, in 60 years of building a Christmas layout, have never encountered.  Really strange one that forced me to undo some of what was already up and tested.  Even though as I showed earlier here I run wires in gaps so as to not have weight on them (and to hide them), one wire, even though previously tested OK, had the insulation intact but the wire itself inside of it cracked and lost contact.   Has to be one of the weirdest problems ever.

But, some progress has been made.  I was able to complete the winter scene on the back 4'x8' plateau, and started to put up the tree.  As one can see in the diagrams, the tree is in the back so I have to finish it before I can do the front.  That area will also hold 5 of Miller's Christmas related animated signs, still to be wired in.

- walt

Walt:  Good progress on your amazing Christmas layouts!!  Can't wait to see it running.  Super !

Best Wishes

Don

Yesterday I started ballasting some of the track - I have to do things in a certain order (mostly that means front to back) so ballasting some of the track this early was required.

Even though it's only a temp Christmas layout with tubular track, I think ballast really improves the look.

Here's a comparison between ballasted track and track that I haven't gotten to yet.

Probably not a surprise to you permanent layout guys but, hey.

= walt

Looking good Walt. The ballast is a nice added touch. I assume you don't glue it in place for easy clean up later?

I don't mind spreading the ballast, the glue down process is time consuming.

Bob

@Mark Boyce posted:

Walt, you’re most welcome!!

In all my years working for power and telecom companies, it was often the case that we had to document “trouble cleared while testing”. It’s just the way it is with electronics sometimes, and that goes back to some very primitive equipment by today’s standards to the most sophisticated today.

I agree Mark. In NY Tel Central Offices we called it CAWT. Circuit Advanced While Testing.  If it was a piece of equipment that could be tested on a test frame the rule was 25 tests before being restored to service. I often use that rule on my layout or engines. It works!

@RSJB18 posted:

Looking good Walt. The ballast is a nice added touch. I assume you don't glue it in place for easy clean up later?

I don't mind spreading the ballast, the glue down process is time consuming.

Bob

@RSJB18 - correct, it's just laid in place.  I reuse EVERYTHING from year to year so everything has to remain removable.

thanks for asking

walt

Very impressive, Walt.

The problem you had with your TIU reminded me of a college electronics textbook book I used in class many years ago. In the chapter on Troubleshooting was this quote:

”The first thing one should do when a piece of electronic equipment fails to operate properly is to deliver a sharp blow with the heel of the hand to the top, front, back, and sides of the unit. Many times this will restore normal operation.”  Those two sentences grabbed my attention so well that I committed them to memory. So, the next time that TIU acts up, just get out the hammer!  😜

Just kidding, of course. This was back in the 60s, when most electronic gear used vacuum tubes. If a tiny bit of corrosion developed on one pin of a tube, a sharp “whack” would usually fix it.

@walt rapp posted:

I can't  believe how well things are falling in place so quickly.  I have the lower lever completely wired and tested by running a conventional engine.  I have all of the feeder wires for the accessories in place and tested too.  I don't think I've ever before moved along this quickly, not that I'm complaining mind you!!!

Here is the track in place.

Surprisingly to some extent is how perfectly my hand drawings worked so well.  For instance, look at this area in the front center and compare it to my diagram of that area.  almost perfect match

I won't put any accessories in place until I set up the 4'x8' plateau in the back left.  Once that's in place it's full steam ahead.

= walt

I wish I had your space and wisdom

One of the benefits I guess of being divorced

Walt, It’s looking good! Thanks for the updates.

I always look forward to your annual Christmas layouts and the many pictures that you post throughout the year. I love the “memories of” pics! It gets reminds me during the year to follow the Christmas spirit!

Like others, I always appreciate your Christmas layout posts. I like the low profile of the 027 track, I have added additional ties on the bottom to give a more high rail look.  Your ballast is a nice touch.

Your living room looks a lot better with a Christmas layout than most people's living rooms with furniture, furniture goes out of style, while a train layout is timeless.

Yes @bigtruckpete, I've used "A xxxx Christmas layout memory " for so many years it is kind of like my calling card.  Thanks for remembering it.

I agree @DL Brunette!!!

Hardly any progress the last 4-5 days - got hit with my seemingly always yearly bug.  Knocks me down.

- walt

Might not look a lot different but to me I got a lot of patience testing stuff done - there is a LOT of wiring in that town scene, which still needs more non-wiring work.

The plateau with the winter scene is now complete.  All wiring and accessory placement is done. Tree, by necessity, is done too.  Miller signs wired and working.

- walt

Santa is keeping a watchful eye to ensure smooth operations.

Looking good Walt. There's more on that platform than is on some whole layouts.

Bob

Walt,

It's always been enjoyable to see your completed layouts. Now, seeing your work in progress presentation makes your 2024 layout extra fun to watch as you build it!

Thanks for sharing!

Stan

I abhor wiring and at times put off the agony of doing it - even though I know I have to do it sooner or later.  Yesterday I wired everything on the plateau including all of the Miller animated signs, including the 2 on the buildings.

you know what, doesn't is always feel great after you complete something that you put off doing?

The worst of the wiring is my next project: wiring up the "town" (it's in the back right).  Lots of lights - in houses, and street lights, and even 3 more Miller signs.

I think I'll make this my last "in progress" update.  I need to save pictures to use for 52 weeks!!!! 

- walt

Walt, I agree, I don’t like wiring, but it does give satisfaction when the lights and devices work properly!