Weeeeelllllllll... Been running trains and breaking in a couple of new locomotives daily for about a week. Today I went out and was going to clean up the layout. I had bought these 'clumpy' trees years ago. And although they look nice and full all you have to do is look at them wrong and they 'shed' clumps of 'stuff'! I was going to throw all the clumps away until THE WIFE suggested that I make 'bushes' out of them ! So today I 'planted' 100+ bushes around the layout using drops of superglue. They look pretty good for 'bushes' Now comes the arduous task of vacuuming the whole layout ! .
Never ever throw anything away, that might could be used on a layout. Of course there are some things that need to be thrown away, but you'll know, or we hopefully will, or will we?
You made good use of the clumps that fell off, George. The bushes add to the scenes where you've placed them.
Track Realignment Project...Part II As a refresher...THERR RV is a cooperative effort between my wife and I. We both built and own THERR RV ! I have my Freight Trains I run. She has her Excursion Trains she runs. I consider myself the COE she is the CFO Nearly 3 years ago...01.08.21...I suggested a 'track realignment project' to THE WIFE. She pretty much shot it down. She likes her bridges ! Fast forward to today...12.20.23. I once again pitched the track realignment project to her. This time I brought along photos to make my point ! Here is THERR as it stands today... I took her out to the layout and had her sit in her captains seat up front. I sat at my workbench in the other captains seat...my usual point of viewing. I snap a pic of my view... I handed her my phone and asked her to snap a pic of her view... We went back inside the house where it is warmer and had a cup or 2 of coffee and the negotiations where on !!! I showed her my view and explained what I was missing seeing...that being Jeans Valley itself !! The 'flyover' was in the way ! I could see the horse ranch, the concrete batch plant, and George's Scrap Yard. That was about it !!! In her view she pretty much couldn't see anything on this side of the aisle... She did however have a great view of "Lucky Penny Yard". Not something she is highly interested in. OK..so here is the 'flyover' and the raised portion of the layout in question... I never was happy with it or the inclines up and down. My trains didn't like them either. It just looks too congested. Never liked the road layout either. Plus it's blocking my view of half the layout ! I went in my photo editing program yesterday and made up a NEW track alignment proposal. I am happy to say THE WIFE finally agreed it would look better. AS long as I don't mess up any of the scenery we spent many of an hour on !! I finally got APPROVAL for the NEW 'track realignment project'..... YYyyesssssssssssssssssssss !!!! All the inclines, bridges and raised portions on THERR will be dismantled and the track will all be lowered to the top of the layout itself !!! .
Good reason to buy more power Me too, like the grades and bridges also. My solution would be to change seats and buy more locos . Sumner
A major project Spring, Summer of 2024? Should be interesting and different. It appears a lot of people have issues with inclines over time? Good luck, can't wait to see the changes.
Not me. Just need MORE POWER! Using Kato inclined piers, with intermediate set added (but keeping same spacings) Depending on viaduct piece lengths, grade is very manageable, and works fine with MUd power.
I run DCC. Speed matching locomotives or MU'ing them is NOT something I am sure I want to get into. I like running ONE locomotive pulling 15 or so cars. THERR is a (fictional) Shortline Railroad serving areas North of I-40 and interchanging with the BNSF along the I-40 in Northern Arizona. Single locomotives are the norm.
BTW.... The track realignment project isn't necessarily something that is an urgent consideration. I just have THE WIFE APPROVAL to do it if and when I feel like it.
Inclines aren't bad...if you hit them at a scale 80-90 MPH... Track speed on THERR is 45-50 scale MPH. At that speed trains get about 2/3 of the way up and they start slowing down. Sometimes even coming to a complete stop. The wheels still spinning ..buttttttt .
If you have Digitrax in all of your locomotives it is very easy to speed match them by giving them all the same speed curve and the adjust the Forward Trim (CV66) and then Reverse Trim (CV95). If you use the same brand of decoders, this becomes trivial. If you have one of the Optical Speedometers, you can adjust the Trim on the fly. If you don't have the same manufacturer decoders the methodology is the same except for NCE, They only use CV95 for both directions if I recollect correctly. One if the reasons I do not use NCE because not all motors are symmetrical in both directions or close enough. They are the only manufacturer that did this. I do not buy their decoders so it may have changed. But this process has worked for Digitrax, TCS, ESU and Zimo decoders.
It isn't very hard with JMRI and DecoderPro. For the ones I've done it takes about 10-15 minutes once to speed match. I don't speed match them to each other. I speed match them to my throttle. Speed step 10 is 10 mph....20=20mph....60=60mph and so on. I run them around my test track one at a time and know the scale distance around the track so know how many seconds it should take to make a lap at any speed (setup a chart to do that). On the throttle I'm using to consist them is very easy. Go to the consist option and add the road numbers and that is it. Now when I send a speed to the consist, say speed step 40 they will all run at a scale 40 mph. Pretty easy and opens a new operations option for you and no harm in running two locos together on your short-line at times. Sumner
The fun thing about Zimo decoders is that they have additional settings for Trim on the CV(66) and CV(95) that actually lets you space out the starting and stopping of the locomotives. Trim on Acceleration actually acts as a timer, the same way for deceleration. So you can have matched distributed power. 3 or 4 locomotives up front, say 150 cars then 3 midtrain helpers another 150 and then 2 or 3 pushers. All locomotives are speed matched. When you slow down the deceleration trim slows from the rear to the front meaning the Forward acceleration trim on the lead locomotives become the deceleration trim on the pushers, mid train stay the same and the lead locomotive have the value of the Pusher acceleration trim as their deceleration trim. This allows for graceful launches and stops.
