Granddaughters' Visit

 Well, two granddaughters visited to join us in a banquet but we just HAD to check out possibilities for additional scenicking with the Fathers Day gifts they had gifted!  The older granddaughter, rising senior in college, was most interested in being a train engineer.  Although I KNOW she's a very smart young lady, we had a hard time ensuring the long-long-short-long horn was sounded befor the crossing.  You'd think that with the layout named "Blacktop CROSSING", knowing the proper crossing signal would be important.

The younger granddaughter, rising senior in high school, did seem to approve of earlier work with scenicking from the gifts.  She also thought another dog should be placed in the park near Mill Hill.  She picked out an appropriate canine.  We forgot to name him, but for the time being we'll call him Bernie the St. Benard.

You might note that Mr. Terry has loaned one of his canons to the park -- if Mayberry can have a city canon, so can our Mill Village!

Spoils of a Father's Day

Frankly, I have just about everything a guy could want, but I do get spoiled on Father's Day and other gift-giving occasions.  This year for Father's Day, some of my son's family made a stop or TWO at New Brookland RR & Hobby shop in Columbia, SC.  The spoils of those stops became apparent June 18.  There are plenty of figures and a good bit of bushes inventory yet to be used, but here's a start!

Several garbage cans were picked from the Woodland Scenics "Junk" selection.  This could improve the sanitation on Mill Hill.  The retired couple put a can neatly in the back corner of their neatly trimmed hedge, of course.  The family with kids is trying to be neat but evidently one of the kids used the top of the can as a shield playing knights of the round table.  She didn't do a very good job of putting the top back on.. . .

The Greaser's (maybe I'll do a little searching on this blog to come up with their names, but for the moment they are all forgotten -- later:  someone needs to index these posts, still don't know individual names but the family is the MILLners) have a new junk frame and flathead engine to deal with.  Maybe they should move the chassis out of the walkway/path!  Manana. . . .

Over at The Cotton Factory, a couple of workers at the loading dock are straightening things up for the next rail delivery.

And, it looks like we're about to have a fracas back over at the Greaser's.  OMG.  Uncle Joe Bob (or whatever his name is) looks a bit perturbed with  Allie the alley cat on the white top of his favorite pick 'em up. Rufous the Bassette Hound is hoping he'll hear Joe Bob say, "Sic em, Rufous, you ole hound dog!!"

One of the granddaughters who may have been partially responsible for the excellent Father's Day gifts has suggested that I write a book.  I figure when I retire I can; in the meantime I'll have to refer her to my Blacktop Crossing Blog!

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!!