Like most modelers I seem to have an endless list of unfinished projects.
Many projects start, but very few seem to finish. So in the spirit of making January new year’s resolutions, and in the hope that by writing them down they will miraculously get done, I present my overly optimistic list of 2017 ‘to-dos’ (in no particular order):
DCC
1.Troubleshoot JMRI. No idea why, but when my laptop updated to the most recent MacOS v 10.11.x my JMRI stopped working. Or more specifically JMRI is working fine, but Decoder Pro isn’t programming decoders anymore. No idea why I can no longer read or write to decoders, but my guess is that it has something to do with my Zephyr Xtra DCS 51 not properly communicating with the Digitrax PR3 and I am sure that this little project will occupy many frustrating hours.
2. Set up Command Stations & Boosters. Happily, Steve Juranics gave me a great deal on a used DB 150 Command Station and I plan to hook this up to the DCS 51 – as either the command station or as a booster. The DB 150 has 5 amps of programming power and provides that bit of extra juice to program the troublesome Atlas engines with QSI sound decoders that didn’t seem to want to work with the Zephyr (unless I was programming in blast mode). Part of this project will also involve setting up power districts and hooking up a couple of PM42 Quad Power Managers.
3. Speed Match all my locos. Conditional on actually getting Decoder Pro to successfully program a decoder, the plan is to start speed-matching pairs of locos so that I can have consists that actually run well together. It will be nice to finally have smooth running pairs instead of the pushing and pulling that I’m used to.
Tech
4. Arduino. I am inspired. After reading Geoff Bunza’s great article A modeler’s introduction to the Arduino in MRH in Dec, I have most of the bits (and almost enough very basic knowledge) to put together a couple of really neat Arduino projects. First up, I will finish the Tardis project started a year-and-a-half ago. The plan is to trigger the flashing light on top of the tardis and play the dematerialisation sound whenever someone approaches it on the layout. This can easily be accomplished with a PIR motion sensor; all I need to do is figure out how! Next up will be railroad crossing lights and bells for three roads on the layout. Also check out a great series starting on YouTube Model Builders called the YTMB Arduino workshop.
Layout
5. Oh yeah, that. I guess that in all the ‘fun’ stuff I should also include the track and scenery to-dos. After laying the mainline and key switches with tortoise switch machines, I have been troubleshooting my track work and have found a couple of places that need a little TLC. I will continue to sand, fill, gap and redo until the mainline track is flawless.
6. The Paper Mill. I plan to attack the complex track work in the paper mill section next on the theory that once done, I can have some fun switching if I want a distraction. There is no shortage of track to lay and it would be nice to have it all finished by the time the year comes to a close.
7. Scenery. I’m not one for the step-by-step approach to model railroading. I know that some people attack all of the benchwork, then all of the track and wiring before moving on to scenery. Call it hobby ADD but I get bored easily and like to mix things up a bit. Two areas of the layout are ‘done’ and the track in those sections isn’t (yes I know) going to change. I’d like to start building the farm scene in some detail and start on the Ciment Quebec scenery.
8. Structures. I’ve never built a kit. Yup. It’s true. Not plastic, not wood… nuthin’. And that’s gotta change soon. I have quite a large supply of wood and plastic kits that I purchased over the years and now it’s time to start building. First up will probably be a wood barn kit for the farm scene or a couple of the cement work structures.
Rolling Stock
9. Weathering, couplers and weight. Early on I made a promise to myself that I would only run cars on the layout that had at least a minimal level of weathering. I plan to give each car a spray of Dullcote to remove the plastic sheen, a quick dusting of Pan Pastels and a little detail work on the trucks and wheels. In addition, i’ve noticed that most of the couplers need a little bit of attention. I plan to swap out all plastic couplers for Kadees and check their height. At the same time at cars will be weighed and extra weights will be added if necessary.
10. Locomotives. I have a number of locomotive projects planned; from simple weathering and modifications right up to complete strip and repaint jobs. These include:
- CFL 114 – MLW S13u BELL-GAZ switcher
- QGRY 6908 – a SD40-3 originally built as CN 5198 (SD40)
- a couple of fictional additions to the G&W family including the B&B (named for Bernard & Ben)
11. Centerbeam Lumber Flatcars. One of my most important goals this year is to have some decent items to bring to the 2017 Toronto Railway Prototype Modelers Meet. Last year I met Chris van der Heide who showed me some of his fantastic lumber loads, and I’ve been busy at work getting this project ready for the next Meet on Saturday, March 18th, 2017.
12. Ecofab gondola covers. The project that I am most proud of and most excited about is my scratch-building of some Ecofab gondola covers out of styrene. This will be the subject of an upcoming blog post, so I’ll leave the details of this project til then.
13. PQTX. I haven’t blogged about this in any great detail other than here, but I have one ‘fun’ and fictional industry on the layout. Poutine Quebec (PQ) will be a poutine factory located outside of Montreal and will have a number of company owned cars. Inbound will be cheese curds in PQTX reefers, potatoes in PQTX boxcars and light brown gravy powder in PQTX hopper cars along with packaging and other assorted supplies. Once a week there would be a PQTX tank car shipment called the ‘gravy train’ that would bring in a heavier grade of gravy for storage in onsite tanks. Outbound would be the finished Poutine Quebec product to market.
Phew. There are more ideas in the works but that is certainly a good start for now. It’s likely that each of these projects will morph into it’s own blog post…so please stay tuned for many more details coming soon.
As always, comments, ideas and your thoughts are very welcome!
On the JMRI front I had endless problems with my original Zephyr (DCS50) and PR3 on windows. I ended up getting DecoderPro running on a RaspberryPi 3 and have basically left it untouched. All three items are on the same powerstrip and nothing gets unplugged unless I have to update the sound on a digitrax sound decoder (for some reason it’s more reliable with the Windows app than through JMRI for me).
The solution for me when my PR3 seems to be working in JMRI but not actually working is to make sure JMRI is in the right mode (Interface/Ops Mode or Programmer/Programming track connected to PR3) and failing that pushing the little buttons on the PR3 till it works. I found somewhere that holding both buttons down until you get rapid flashing of the LEDs will reset it’s internal settings and that sometimes works, and sometimes “fresh power” (turning it off and on again) does the trick. This is probably something good documentation of how the PR3 works could solve, but as far as I can tell it’s not available (and Digitrax themselves may not understand the problem).
Also I love the billboard, that’s going on my list of really cool to do projects