Image above captured on the upper deck of the layout where scenery has progressed to some extent...
Shot with Olympus C-750

Welcome to the SP Oregon Division!

An N Scale RR depicting the good old days along "The Friendly".

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

CTC system now completed

Looking forward to the first Ops of the newly configured layout under CTC.  The signaling system held back progress for numerous weeks.  Quite a hurdle with the discontinuance of the LEDs we had been using, and the reverse in wiring methods used on the ribbon cables from the TC64 vs the SE8C cards....  and some additional labor hours that had not been anticipated for "Murphy".  Got a layout signal head project update right on the heels of this post....
Its getting close to six months again since the last run, but currently running trains to verify all systems for stability so I can send out Crew calls.
So the latest projects were, installing Hampton sky backboards, upper deck fascia install, and some painting.  All the shelving and throttle racks at the Yard Offices are painted black now, as well as all the latest fascia sections.  Fascias have all but one of the repeaters installed including signal icons and track diagrams.  Missing the Egyptian font station names until I get more decal paper to get those printed up (on this weeks to-do list).  Sky backboards were painted dark blue for the higher elevations, and a lighter blue for lower elevations.  Basically the upper deck will be all dark blue (Klamath Falls thru Oakridge), then the middle and lower decks will be the lighter blue (Hampton down thru Portland). 
Here is an overview shot of the latest stage of layout completion:

The porthole on the left is to monitor trains in the helix, and the one to its right will have more Conifer Tree Trickery to obscure the opening, but still allow visual contact with the Home signal at W Hampton (on the opposite side).  Still a few loose ends, but materials for the expansion's curtains have been secured, sky backboards still missing from the staging yard entrances, and still have a short uncompleted section on the backside (adjacent to the helix).... but happy with the progress as of late.

5 comments:

  1. Oh man. That looks great. You sure are thorough Jeff and I do hope I can help break it all in.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice work Jeff layout is coming along very nicely.
    I've got my crew coming over tonight for the regular last Friday of the month ops session, should be a lot of fun.
    Can you please tell me about your voice communications system that you are using and how it is set up. There are several of us that are ready to try a system and still not convinced which is the better way to proceed.
    Thanks
    Rod.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks John,
    Working on that!

    Rod,
    It is a Voice over IP system running on Teamspeak 3, from the computer via Imic tied to a base radio set toVox.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great going Jeff! It looks like we are building in parallel, as I just had another round of backdrop painting (through Oakridge) and am about to call on significant experts to help with signaling. Keep up the good work (and posts)!

    Bill Decker

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Jeff
    Keep having fun. I had 10 of my operators over for one of my last Friday of the month Friday night ops sessions last night. It usually starts at 7.00pm with a show and tell session then lots of trains and finally we finished the night at 11.30pm.The CTC system is working well just need the engineers to remember to watch for the signals as we ran for so long without them wired in.
    Regards
    Rod.

    ReplyDelete