I've been working in the train room every day so far this month. The countdown clock is running, winding down to April 29th, when I will be part of the NMRA division layout tour. I have some solid and achievable goals for the end of 2016.
In November, I finished the last of the mainline switches, 124 tortoises, all working. I was never happy with the temporary power supply that I had been using. It was just an old MPC transformer with a bridge rectifier. I shopped the Bay and found a nifty 12VDC 5A supply that came with an adapter to connect wires, for just $6.67.
Here's that little adapter with its screw terminals.
The Tortoises work much better now. This one is installed on the north side of the room, but serves the whole layout. I bought a second unit, and will add it to the south side of the room to reduce voltage drop. Eventually they will also power the signals which run on 12V.
That little piece of curved track next to the end of the backdrop was almost the last piece on the entire layout. I still have to build one last bit of benchwork in the big helix for the other turntable, an old Bowser. The connection and garden tracks will be the last. Target date December 31st.
It's up to me to pickup where Matt left off, and finish the last 10 manual switch throws.
A little more bending and fitting, and these 3 will be done. It's the next 3 that are going to be tough, because 2 of the switches are above the bookshelves. The push rods will have to be spliced, and the wires will have to be bent in the very confined space. Yikes!
Here's one of the 3 new lower arms.
And this is what they look like up top.
See the stud by the light switches, the one that isn't as dark as the others? That one was bowed out almost a half inch. I took my planer and shaved it down, then used a chisel to finish the chunk between the boxes that the planer couldn't get. After all that, I had to carefully pull the nails out of the electrical boxes, and re-nail them at the correct depth for the 1/2" rock.
Now the rock will go on nice and smooth. This wall segment was just too short to not repair the stud.
