# Grasy Rail Lines



## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

Broken ground on the construction. Benchwork in progress.
Working version of track plan can be seen  here
 .


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

Good to see you back at it.
Very interesting track plan.
Will enjoy watching this build, good luck with it.

Magic


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

thank you Magic )

vinyl foam underlayment glued in lower staging area. should provide some sound isolation on the cheap (have a bunch leftover from flooring proj). 
mocking up metal supports for the upper level. tested reach and
tried arranging the yard ladder.










helix WIP.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

looks good, interested to see it come along ,


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## 89Suburban (Jan 4, 2017)

Nice.


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

Helix is taking shape. 
Debating on whether to install underlayment in the invisible portion or not.


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## 89Suburban (Jan 4, 2017)

Looking good.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

Anton, good to see you back at it! Enjoy the ride!

TJ


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## Xnats (Dec 5, 2010)

It would help with the sound echoing out using underlayment in the helix I think. Especially since the Ms would be on the other side of the sofa.
Are you going to make an engineering station like you did for your flight simulator?


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

thank you guys. Thanks TJ, I sure missed this 

bottom loop track is soldered and glued. Old Athearn BB GP-38 was able to pull 7 cars with some extra load on them without slipping. hopefully this means 9-10 car single engine train is possible.


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## 89Suburban (Jan 4, 2017)

tankist said:


> thank you guys. Thanks TJ, I sure missed this
> 
> bottom loop track is soldered and glued. Old Athearn BB GP-38 was able to pull 7 cars with some extra load on them without slipping. hopefully this means 9-10 car single engine train is possible.


Trains in the construction zone love it!


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

Wiring and electronics drawer fitted, staging yard is installed and wired, exposed engine yard is laid out. Second level cover is getting installed .

departure view.









Entry


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Looking good!


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

thanks Michael

Climb to the top level is complete. 
I need to do something with layout lighting.










Wiring and installing servo switch machines. It takes full range of motion of the motor to throw the switch, some springiness in the piano wire linkage holds the point to stock. 
Limit switch powers the electro-frog.


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

Unusually fruitful Easter weekend - assembled the peninsula surface, mounted insulation base, shaped abuttment areas for the bridge (slope of that span is under 2% as planned), laid out the rail to confirm fitment and started gluing roadbed.


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

finished building walthers bascule bridge kit. Normally I absolutely enjoy building kits, not this one though, was quite an agriveating experience for some reason. not removing parts from sprues early was really good idea. some lift mechanism parts were broken, managed to rebuild the axles and retain lifting functionality. now I need to overcome the disgust ant paint the damn thing.

bridge is on a side swing gate for entry, working on magnetic latch and contactors for power. 










overall view, basically a modest 10x8


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

a little side project - train shelf. 
made out of box spring mattress, amazingly enough 58" width allows to fit the blue DB train exactly with less then inch to spare


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

Peninsula upper surface is installed. cabinet below supports the weight, will be outfitted with drawers.


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

That's coming together nicely.


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## Jackets (Jan 24, 2020)

Very nice indeed, defiantly keeping and eye on this to see the updates

What is your elevation change you went with?

Cheers,
Joe


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

Whats the radius of the helix?


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

Thank you Michael and Joe )

Separation between levels ended up at 9.75 inches. I still have reasonable clearance for rolling stock handling on lower level as the top surface is only 2.5 inches thick including the foam. 

Lenonhawk, helix is R24. Tested to be sufficient to pull longest train I would want to store on bottom

Progress :
Mainline underlayment is glued. I'm still debating on exact location and shape of industry sidings to the north of the mainline.


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

peninsula rail is all installed. built some quick mockup buildings to help visualize the outcome. 










cardboard lattice , never built landform this way before. great not not have the mess of foam shavings. still working on layout of cement plant buildings


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## Spence (Oct 15, 2015)

Very nice looking layout. :appl:


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Cardboard lattice is time consuming to create, but it is strong and semi-rigid even before the outer terrain covering is affixed.


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## QueenoftheGN (Dec 10, 2019)

nice...


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

with most of the trackwork complete i'm focusing on wiring and electronics. desided to keep the digitrax decoder to drive the 4 peco coil switch motors I have in engine yard. decoder will only be used as capacitor discharge unit. rest of the turnouts use servo motors and are driven with 3 PCA9685 controllers connected to dedicated Arduino Nano as interface. Same Arduino will command the DS64 via opto-isolated circuit. created a quick sketch testing connectivity to JMRI via C/MRI - its a GO.

not so good on the detection side. as documented by other modelers ACS712 sensors are just not sensitive enough , current that typical HO engine pulls is barely above noise level of those devices (I did attempt noise filtering). not sure how I missed that fact while researching  already took the wires out but decided to take a picture before removing the devices. 
plan B is Current Transformers. Ordered, but it looks like there are significant delays getting stuff from corona-virus'ed China.










installed and stained most fascia boards and toned down that hot pink insulation some - now things look a bit more civilized. 
Installed Dell all-in-one PC on a pivot mount. will serve as decided JMRI PC, digital touchscreen control panel and makes for a very convenient workstation for everything programming. youtube music - bonus


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

That's coming along very nicely.

I made up those same type of buss bars for my B-727 cockpit build years ago. 

I had one pair each for 5VDC, 12VDC, 28VDC, and 115VAC.

They sure are handy.


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

TY Michael 



MichaelE said:


> I made up those same type of buss bars for my B-727 *cockpit *build years ago.
> .


cockpit?! i have to see it! do you have a thread on that in the off-topic section by a chance? 

my efforts on that front are below.


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Lufthansa Boeing 727-231 Most parts came from retired American 72's from the Airline Pilot's Historical Society in St. Charles, Illinois and from several regular sellers on e-bay. It was dismantled when I bought my current home and sold off. 

I had planned on rebuilding it, but flying it was what I really wanted to do. I wasn't really into building it. It was a means to an end. Although I seriously miss flying it, I don't miss building it. Took me seven years.

The flight model was Paul Golding's Greatest Airliners 727. Extremely accurate.


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

installed and stained the drawers. exterior is now complete, wife no longer complains that things look like construction site. 

still trying to figure out possible angles to take ok pictures of the entire thing.
lighting is quite bad. since I have a suspended ceilings i'm considering something like https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DF9N6YT but it looks like reliability is meh and CRI is unclear. any ideas on lighting?


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## nxn (Feb 4, 2020)

First thought on lighting is a recessed LED strip along the two long back edges about 2 feet above the layout and hidden under a lip so that the light only falls as far the front edge of the layout. However I see you have windows on the back wall on the right hand side so that wouldn't work there. Maybe light poles in scale like they have at car dealer back lots - really tall poles with about 5 or 6 floodlights that cover a wide area but on your layout they might be 2 ft tall with led strip lights under a hood at the top of the poles. The LEDs would shine down on the layout but wouldn't be seen directly by anyone sitting next to the layout. Those could cover the peninsula also.


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

I'm using a single fixture 200 watt LED cob bulb. It lights the room nicely, but it could be brighter if my ceilings weren't 9'

I thought about a hi-intensity work light overhead to simulate daylight, and I used a couple outside the simulator a few times to simulate sunlight. It worked well up close, but generated too much heat in an already warm environment with all of the computers and power supplies running while the simulator was up.

I may hang a second ceiling fixture for a second 200 watt LED cob type bulb.

These burn very cool and only consume 35 watts.


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## Bonz85 (Sep 16, 2019)

Looks good.


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