Choosing the "Wye"

With a good bit of help from Erik at Tony's Trains Exchange and input from a DCC forum, I made a choice for placing gaps/insulators in the "reversing wye".  The hope was to allow working the woodyard on the top track while bringing chemicals in and taking paper out on the bottom two/three tracks.  That is, two locos working the 2X8' extension at the same time.

As shown in the earlier post, I think we can claim success.  For clarification, I chose the "green" gaps in this sketch (of colored options!):

It's MAGIC!

OK, so Tony's Trains PSXX and PSXX-AR -- I think you might call them a circuit breaker and an auto-reverse -- are now installed after I got the last Flextrack in place.  And, they work!  First try, got a short notice (red light).  Oh, sure, the new piece of Flextrack is wired different than the siding, color-wise.  Fixed that by changing the siding wires.  Oops, STILL have short according to PSXX.  Well, dang, the wye leg has four OTHER drops.  So, swapped siding wiring back and swapped new Flextrack drops.  BINGO!

Count the number of "suitcase" connectors for TWO drops on the siding. . . .

But, it worked.  Must be magic. . . .

Well, you have to trust me that I never picked up the locomotive, but I had to shorten video to upload.  I did add a little Roy Acuff. . . .

Wiring Expertise

Sometimes you wonder. . . .  I told "The Wife" that I was using black and red wires for the buss and white and red wires for the drops while wiring the new section.  Would have preferred black and red for both, but all I have to do is connect red to red.  So, what did I do:

NOT Red to Black!!

Better:

So far, so good. . . .

More (Slow) Paper Mill Progress

 Making progress on Panama City, FL, paper mill in relatively small steps, it seems.

Roadbed

Track

Small Connector -- upper right

Started a little wiring of buss plus reversing wye electronics.  I hope "green means go".

Red and Black with Suitcase Connectors

The Paper Mill Layout Takes (Some) Shape

Tried a "new" method of planning and laying out track.  Used the free Any Rails application to work out something that might be a compressed Panama City, FL, International Paper Company mill in about 1956.  Since the mill is on a sort of a peninsula, it lent itself to a bit of a "switching" setup.  Maybe something like this:

The addition will connect to the existing double oval.

Since it was printable in 1:1 ratio, I did that and placed 27 sheets of paper on the pink foam:

Used something like a sewing pattern transfer wheel to run down the center of the tracks and mark the path through the paper.

If you look hard enough, you can see the tracks of holes!

Started laying roadbed halves using wood glue and rail nails (temporary):

Looks like it might work out OK.  This part of layout may not be quite so well scenicked -- maybe enough to get the point across.  We'll see. . . 

Switches are not permanently attached since rail nails are sticking up.  Nails will be removed!! 

A Reversing Wye?!

 Now planning a 2' X 8' addition that will focus on a compressed pulp and paper mill site.  Track design is not fixed for the moment, but it looks like there may be an option for a reversing wye, of sorts.  Still working on it. . . . 

A Year Later. . .

Wow, has it really been almost a year since the last post?  Oh, well, a little activity today to place a load of pulpwood on a pulpwood rack.

A buddy in the hobby found a pulpwood load at a local swap meet and picked it up for me.  He said I could have it for an arm and a leg, so I jumped right on it. . . .

One problem was that it was too long for the pulpwood rack I wanted to use.

A little time on the bench sander and we got a fit.

The ends of the pulpwood bolts seemed a bit yellow compared to other sticks of pulpwood I had around so I tried mixing fawn, licorice, and sunny yellow acrylic paint with a little bit of water to get a wash.  

Since each brushful required a little more mixing, the color is not uniform on the pulpwood -- probably a good thing!

For the moment, I'm very satisfied.  Looks good on the layout but now I think all of the pulpwood ends could be lightened up a little.