The Basket Case of Pembroke Hill

Of course the vertical transition curve at the top of the hill in Pembroke had to include a turnout. So I wasn’t surprised when the dust settled after the Battle of Pembroke Hill to find that removing this transition had transformed the turnout into a bit of a basket case. I was, however, surprised by […]

The Battle of Pembroke Hill

Well, I won’t say it was easy, but I believe I’ve managed to get the roadbed pretty flat through the north end of Pembroke. As I mentioned, the roadbed was glued and screwed (from above) onto the benchwork, and the screws particularly made the work tough. I also found that the contortions I had to […]

Flattening out Pembroke

After all that work on #10, she can now stomp out of town with her passengers in tow. Unfortunately, when she gets back in to the station, the physics of backing back out of the station are too much for her, and she slips her drivers. The real yard at Pembroke was on a gentle […]

DCC decoders are too smart

My colleague, Darryl, came by my office at the end of the day on Friday. He’s been following my thinking about control systems for steam locomotives, and is considering doing some inventing of his own. His ideas have more to do with counting ties and trying to keep automated trains from running into each other. […]

A new test track

As mentioned a little while ago, Pembroke didn’t have a programming track until recently. For most of the past couple of weeks, the programming track has been a section of flex track on my workbench. This is clearly not sustainable, and so, I have now lifted it off the workbench. Six and three-quarter inches off […]

Tuning an ESU LokSound Decoder

An unanticipated consequence of replacing #10’s decoder was that performance would degrade. It says right on the box that your locomotive needs to work flawlessly before you go installing decoders, but still, a certain amount of back EMF compensation is known to smooth out the occasional foible. The old Zimo decoder worked fantastic right out […]

Before you can program a decoder…

Now that #10 seems to be running as well as I can make it mechanically, it’s time to stop running it under address 3. Okay, where’s the programming track? The truth is, there isn’t one yet. Being in a bit of a rush to make things run, and because it’s a little inconvenient to access […]

The knob killer

In response to my post, Time to kill the knob, the ever-insightful Trevor Marshall asked … but if we get rid of the knob, what do we replace it with? Are you thinking along the lines of a miniature backhead? I assume it would have to be something hand-held… Yes, exactly. The knob killer will […]

Time to kill the knob

Over on Mike Cougill’s excellent blog, he asked a few weeks ago I wonder, what sorts of hare brained ideas are we dismissing today, that we’ll take for granted tomorrow? What sacred cows are we clinging to that will soon be as antiquated as outside third rail power distribution? Naturally, he has us all thinking […]

Debugging #10

It seems to be two steps forward, one step back on #10. No sooner had I fixed the quartering issue that had popped up, than I discovered that the engine truck weight was dragging and catching on guard rails. After I resolved that, I triumphantly placed the engine on the track. Where it sat. Silently. […]