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 rapp posted:

I usually wait until the first week or so in November to start setting up the Christmas Layout.  I do some prep work a few weeks prior though.  Some of that prep work started as soon as the old Christmas layout was taken down.

My favorite part of the hobby is designing my layout for Christmas.  I sit in my recliner and draw away for months until I like what I see.  For me, it's pure enjoyment.  I have washers of different diameters that scale to 27", 42", and 54" track curves which allows for me to virtually guarantee that if I can draw it, everything will fit.

Here's my plans for my 2024 layout

This is the 11'x14' lower track plan.  That rectangle is where the 4'x8' "plateau" will be.  The large outer loop will be traditional.  The 2 inner tracks will by DCS command controlled.

This will be the elevated plateau area.  I wanted a LARGE (for me) winter scene and this entire 4'x8' area will be all winter stuff.  The T inside the circle is where the Christmas tree will be.  I have a conventional Lionel Christmas steamer that will run on this track.  I wanted the emphasis to be on the scenery not the train so just a simple loop.

I spend considerable time drawing up scenery ideas given the track plan that I want to use.  Sometimes I adjust the track plan when I hit of an idea that I want to use for scenery.  Not this year!

As this in gets closer to set up time in October, I take the Homasote pieces that will be needed from the garage and lay them out.  They stand on edge in the garage and tend to bow a little, so I lay them out for 2 or 3 weeks to flatten out.  It's one advantage to being single - notice there is zero furniture in my living room!

Wiring starts in a week.  UGH!

- walt

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!