The D&J Railroad -- From Scratch

[D&J RailRoad]

The track circuit is almost complete. Only about 20' left to lay down then the wiring will begin on this last section. The freight yard is still under construction and will be tied into the mainline right at the front of this picture. The industry sidings will be started then the scenery.

[D&J RailRoad]

The loop is complete. This is the first train to run the entire circuit around the basement, passing through three power districts and over 300 feet of track.
It was shortly after this that I was soldering more feeders from the buss wire under the benchwork to the track, right about where this train is now, when the soldering iron arched to the wire and killed two of my command stations.



This picture illustrates the power districts that I have setup on the layout. The heavy line is the double track mainline. The 3 heavy lines across the tracks are where the district divisions are.
CS is the command stations. CS 1 is the DCS100. After the soldering incident last night, I have one DB150 at the CS 1 position and jumpers connecting all the power districts. I was able to run a train the entire length of the layout today using the one DB150. It ran a little slower than normal at the furthest distance from the CS and still had sound but that is expected with the resistance of about 150' of wire.

[EHodges]

Ken,
Can't wait to get back from overseas and met up with you. I think if we can get the layout up and working we can make a sweet layout and possibly an awesome club there.

Eric

[D&J RailRoad]

Ken,
Can't wait to get back from overseas and met up with you. I think if we can get the layout up and working we can make a sweet layout and possibly an awesome club there.

Eric

I should have the two CSs repaired or figured out by then. I left a message with tech support of Digitrax and expect a call from them tomorrow. It's just a matter of money. 8-)

Ken,

[D&J RailRoad]

Took a little time to just run trains tonight. Here is a meet between a coal drag being pulled by a couple of BLI sound units in BNSF road colors and a string of autoracks being pulled by modern BNSF units with sound.

[EHodges]

Awesome job. Cant wait to see it all put together...

[D&J RailRoad]

The first powered cross over on the layout. The two Tortoise machines are activated by the slide switch. Constant power to them as they are stall machines.



The one command station DB150 that survived the lightning strike along with it's power supply and the turnout power supply sitting on top. I still have some work to do in untangling the spaghetti bowl look.



This is the right yard throat as the single yard lead feeds into the two arrival/departure tracks and the drill track that pulls back toward the camera on the left. The double track mainline passes on the right.



This is the left yard lead. Note the three way turnout that was worked into the ladder scheme. A #6 double slip is lurking in the pile of turnouts for the yard. Once again, the double track mainline passes on the right.

[Rico]

Looking good Ken!
That X over in the first pic looks like a #8?
If you're thinking of powering the switches with the NCE "switch8" I highly recomend it, vastly improves running!

[D&J RailRoad]

No, those are #10 turnouts.
I haven't heard of the NCE things, but then, what could be more reliable than the current setup. I used this type of control on the previous layout and it worked as planned for many years.

[D&J RailRoad]

Got the second cross over wired in with Tortiose machines and powered the frogs.
Referring to the layout diagram in post number 62 above, this crossover is on the right most peninsula on the left side of it half way up the isle.