Water Tower Circuit

The breadboard for the water tower has sat on my desk long enough that it finally transcribed itself into a diagram to start making the circuit permanent. Despite the apparent complexity, it is in fact just four simple circuits mediated by software in the microcontroller: I’m certain this could all be achieved with hardware, but […]

Subjective realism versus Slavish Adherence

Model Railway Journal 303 finally arrived at the local newsagent, an ocean and a continent away from its presses. Even though I have no intention of ever modelling the railways of Britain, I find this magazine inspirational, informative and sometimes thought-provoking. Jerry Clifford’s editorial in issue 303 was in the latter category. He sums up […]

Water Tower Animation

The gubbins for the inside of the water tower have come together at last. Once the noise maker was working, it was a straightforward matter of programming to make it all work – at least in the unit and integration tests! When I went to upload it to the board, however, there were still some […]

Point Hinge Ideas

If I’m honest with myself, I shouldn’t be surprised by a derailment at the heal of a switch. The hinge, based on the clever but fine rail joiner from proto87.com, was the most expedient solution to an age-old model railroad problem that I could think of when I was laying track. Considering this problem of […]

The Stock Spur

With the PNR regional meet bearing down on me, and needing to get the roundhouse back in its seat, I was feeling pressure to finish the stock spur while it was still convenient. So, between coats of paint on the outside of the house, I bent some lengths of rail, and soldered feeders to their […]

Engine sand

Even today, locomotives want a small amount of dry sand for traction. All my resources are tacit about where they kept engine sand in Pembroke in 1905. There is also zero information about the purpose of the third stall in the roundhouse. For years, I’ve thought there was probably a pile of sand somewhere and […]

Concurrent projects

Days to go until the big train meet and I have a crash of concurrent projects consuming space in my office. On the left we have the roundhouse with its new floor receiving some repairs. In the distance, the track crew, who also happen to be the roundhouse repair crew, are working on fixing a […]

Last puzzle pieces

I don’t recall why a former me decided to leave the stock spur as a short stub. I’m sure it seemed reasonable at the time. Maybe I planned to build a stock pen together with the spur. In any event that part of the layout has been a piece of 12 mm foam core for […]

Roundhouse Gets a New Floor

I’ve never been happy with the roundhouse floor. Being made from a thick layer of ballast, it was not flat, and some of the rocks were real ankle-turners. As a result, details like work benches and water barrels were crooked. As I had the roundhouse module off the layout to protect it while working on […]

Turntable Improvements

To avoid any nasty crunching sounds as I was disrupting traffic on the main these past few days, I undid the three screws that secure the turntable module and levered it out and onto an open drawer. While it’s accessible, I will be making some improvements. First of all, the lock has not worked properly […]