The Layout
Power & Control
Very much on the advice of this forum, I’ve strived for “make it run, make it perfect” (in that order). The railway has been operating well but with definite areas of improvement. The layout was wired to be ready add a booster but my attempt last year before the Christmas Open Day kept resulting in a short and I didn’t have the time (or weather) to understand what was happening.
The Christmas Open Day was starting to stress the single central station (I use the Mxion MZSPro) - notable that we required a couple of hard-resets as the controllers were becoming unresponsive and disconnecting. All the stock, lights, sounds and smoke I was starting to push 5A draw. This was the kick I needed to finally get it sorted.
Eventually, a nice day in the spring I was able to spend the day stripping things back and getting the booster working and since had not issues with control or power.
Before adding the booster, I had acquired two
DCC Concepts Alpha Meters which were loosely wired in the garage next to the central station. It was finally time to put these properly in situ so
acquired a mimic panel to mount above the garage door. A quick coat of paint and a dremel of the displays and we have the HSBA Power Monitoring Board. The lettering was produced using the Cricut machine to cut Vinyl. Notably, this was much more challenging than usual because the rough surface mean the vinyl didn’t adhere as well as to plastic. Next time, I’d probably use waterslide decals.
Finally, most of the screws on my junction boxes started to fail. Although the enclosures are IP66 rated, the quality of the screws are poor. I ended up replacing them all with brass wood screws which isn’t ideal but works given I couldn’t find the direct replacements.
What’s next?
- Add isolator switches (DPDT) to each junction box to give me the ability to easily isolate issues.
- Rewire the bus to the end of the reverse loop.
- Add a new junction box at Barettberg station.
- Automation of the branch line to the terminus station
Trackwork
As many of you know, the garden was built around the trackplan so the track pan hasn’t changed much since my original posts.
Slow-throw Point Motors
I’ve had a number of older LGB point motors fail. I’ve not got around to looking into them properly but saw that Mxion do a range of slow throw (servo) point motors. I’ve been using these mechanisms on a few points and have been impressed so far. They’re easy to setup, fit the LGB point housing and been running well since the first were installed just before Christmas. The only drawback is you cannot ‘push through’ as the blades are locked and that requires the operate (me) to be diligent enough [NB: I’m not]. The recent Massoth Evo-S do allow push through so I’ve acquired one of these for the junction next to the pond and also been happy with its performance.
TrainLine45 Point Repairs
By now, I’ve had to repair almost all my TrainLine45 Points. I did a
YouTube review last year which is due an update but the main issue is the strips of brass which jumper power across the different rails are screwed with brass strips (as opposed to soldered like LGB). As those of us running track-power are well aware, over time the brass is oxciding and reducing connectivity. I have not yet got around to adding a dropped to ever section of track (it will be done eventually because I want to automate) but in the interim I use the points to pass power around the layout and this has caused running issues.
The solution is very simple - unscrew and remove the rails and brass strips. Use a track rubber or old track-cleaning wheels to clean up the strip, the rail and the screw and reassemble - this time adding either copper grease or conductive silicon grease. This seems to have solved the problem doesn’t take too long but a design flaw they should address.
What’s next?
- Add approach-detection on the reverse loops to ensure the point is thrown and the locos don’t have to push through. The issue right now is lighter locos or those with pilot wheels have trouble navigating and often derail.
- Potential expansion round the conservatory for extra storage siding for running sessions/ Open Days
- Slowly adding dropper wires to each section/block of track in addance of automation.
