Coal is dead...

Looking towards Converse Junction

That may be on the minds of Arch coal and investors alike but here on my model its just as grand as it ever was. Track for 2 mainlines has been ordered!
 Otherwise not much has changed, projects elsewhere in the homestead have kept me busy (and of course work) all summer long.  The first snow of the season pushed me indoors to the train room, its a love hate kind of thing.

A short video glimps of the Powder river

Alot to go on

Some good progress has been made sense my last post.

I decided to make the full switch to DCC and couldn't be more happy with it. Also picked up another decoder yesterday and got that installed this morning. The only other decoder i have has sound, and i must say that the one with sound is far more interesting to watch and use. The other nice thing is you know ware its at. The other locomotive is almost silent moving around the layout.  My goal however is to have one locomotive in each consist with sound.  Running the trains this morning with dcc was much more easy then before with dc. I could actually watch them and have time to enjoy it before trying to rush and throw a reversing switch.  The slower realistic speeds producced are a great improvement too. i can not wait to get my mainline down!

I found this idea In digitrax's how to area. I know i will need some place to put the dcc components so i figured this might be the best way. everything will be installed on the side you see so i wont have to work under the benches or upside down. leaving slack in the wires and not pinching them might be a little bit of a trick but i don't think it will be to much trouble. This will fold all the way around under the bench work.

I didn't want to take up space on the board i made for the dcc components so i am placing the command station and power directly off to the side.  My power supplies are formally Bachmann transformers. (17 VDC 20 VAC) These have been kicking around for a while. These where bought in boxes of train stuff at garage sales over the years, for me when i was a kit by my family members. I actually have a couple of the old metal box ones too. 

I ran 14g wire from the transformer to the command center.

I didn't have any fancy wire ends around and all of the 14g wire didn't want to fit under the screw terminal on the transformer. So i made my own out of the end of a Cord I had "saved for something". First I cut the bottom side of the loops open and then cut them free from the cord. then solider my wires to them. Oddly enough they fit perfectly.

Excitement on the horizon

Train operations are a pain with dc! both ends of the track are reversing loops. It might not be too bad but i have about 6 feet of track between them. (for now)  I had planed to make my next purchase in the form of about 40 feet of ME code 55 concrete track for one of the main lines but I think now it will be more along the lines of 2 more decoders. I have one sd70 with a sound decoder and two digitrax ar-1 for the reversing loops. It is a toss up at this point.

I opted to use masking tap over the cardboard webbing method. Mostly because i couldn't wait to see how my hills would look like, partly because i wanted to try it. The method works great. Its nice to see how the hills will look and ware adjustments in the webbing need to be made. I wondered about how much tape it would take and how much extra that would add to costs, but i did all of this on half a roll. This will be the method i will continue to use.

I have completed the roadbed for the first level and installed all about 3ft of the cork.(which i was short.) The day before i was right next to the store and thought to myself "i got enough" wrong.