I am so grateful Mikey and the rest of the motley crew made this move...I was worried we were going to lose the family. It is so true that it's the people that make these forums and you all are living proof. I LOVE IT!!!! Show me how to get those smileys on this post and I'll be ridin' high!

Hello all, man the smell in here is familier, I'm from the old days of Big Blue for those who don't know me. I sure hope it great success and nice to see faces I remember from long ago. I will try to post as much as possible and make Big Blue kick.

Prototype

This is one of my two home layouts and the one that is furthest along. It has its roots in, of all things, 1980s Canadian Pacific grain branches visited by Chuck Bohi in the August 1992 issue of Railfan & Railroad magazine. What caught my eye were the wide open spaces and relatively small trains of 40' boxcars hauled by Alco switchers. Unfortunately, finding suitable engines in N scale proved to be a bridge too far so I modified my prototype to be Burlington Northern in eastern Washington as seen in Rob Leachman's Northwest Passage (Hundman, 1998). Construction progressed with track laying and the assembly of some Walthers grain elevator kits, but I still hadn't purchased any BN equipment yet. That idea got shelved when a friend sent me a new Atlas Trainman 40' boxcar painted for the Milwaukee Road. Overnight my layout changed yet again from a 1970s Burlington Northern operation to a 1960s Milwaukee Road line. Certainly the entire Milwaukee Road system was known for light-density branchline railroading, especially the Iowa, Minnesota & Dakota and Aberdeen Divisions in the upper Midwest, but there was still something alluring about the operations on the Coast Division. Fred Hyde's Milwaukee Road (Hyrail, 1990) presents the perfect inspiration for a light density grain line, eastern Washington's Marcellus Branch. From these inspirations the Mathewsville Subdivision presented here was born.

The layout is loosely set in east central Washington state in the grain-growing region east of the Columbia River. It measures roughly 16" by 34" in keeping with the small-scale nature of grain branch railroading. It's operated like two separate lines that join at Reid Junction. The Mathewsville Subdivison, a secondary mainline, runs from off the layout to Mathewsville. At Reid Junction the Wehbyrn Branch breaks off to its namesake town. With no runaround tracks there are a lot of shoving moves, much like on the real grain branches. Right now it operates with a borrowed Life-Like SW1200 painted for my freelanced railroad, but plans include acquisition of a pair of Kato NW2s (whenever they get around to released them in Milwaukee Road). Rolling stock is mostly from Atlas with 40' Trainman boxcars and new two-bay open hoppers for stone service. In the future I might invest in some Walthers log cars to test them on the curves. Maybe someday down the road I might have to squeeze a log loadout on there somewhere!

Model

I drug my layout outside a few days ago for an impromptu photo session. The Geeps pictures, great as they look, don't really operate around the curves. I really can't wait to get a hold of those Kato switchers! Both of the grain elevators are Walthers kits; the grey elevator in the process of being stripped for repainting. I plan to add some Rix grain bins to at least one of the elevators to further act as a view block. The base is just a 2" piece of foam that I've painted and built a layout on. Someday soon I'll get around to adding a fascia, probably Masonite since it's thin and stiff, and finishing the scenery. It's wired as one block with two sets of feeders; someday I'll hook my DCC system up to it but for now I just use an MRC Tech II.









Bibliography

Bohi, Charles. "Changes on CP Rail's Radville Sub." Railfan & Railroad. August 1992, 50-55.

Hyde, Frederick W. Milwaukee Road. Denver: Hyrail Publications, 1990.

Leachman, Rob. Northwest Passage. Mukilteko, Washington: Hundman Publishing, 1998.

Hi to every one! Is this a stand alone operation or part of another enterprise like Zealot or what ever? Either way I wish you the best of luck!

seems cozy around here. I am honored to have been invited. Thanks to all for this gift. This is truly a great Christmas present.

Joe

The Tileguy runs In SCREAMING......... :hey: ......ITS ABOUT TIME!!!

I thought you would Never get this done!........I waited and I waited and I waited.. ....FINALLY.

Nice to BE HOME!!!

:hey: Just would like to say hi to everyone and hope to see all the GREAT people i have met on the previous forum. I have completly left Zealot and no longer wish to be a part of that forum. I hope that everyone who was currently a member of zealot will come and join us here on the Gauge. It feels good to finally see the Gauge logos back and to see all the good mods and Admins back in action

See you all around the forums

As an impromptu act of support I will post an article I was going to avoid at my own site. Not because of a lack of quality, a lack of time.

Anyways here it goes. I purchased this half built turnatable earlier this year. I sent the girder section to a friend from the WMRC

Attached Files

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In Ft Wingate Army Depot , while working last week.







Mike

This thread will contain Tutorials on installing decoders/sound decoders into engines .

ANYONE that wishes to add a decoder, or sound decoder install tutorial to this thread IS MORE THEN WELCOME TO DO SO .

*********************************************************************************************************************
**Tutorials Added by Forum Members**

A BIG THANK YOU!, TO KURT FOR ADDING HIS TWO TUTORIALS , THANKS KURT!

A BIG THANK YOU!, TO UPNICK FOR ADDING HIS TUTORIAL , THANKS UPNICK!

*********************************************************************************************************************

**Deano's Tutorial:

PROTO 1000 "HARDWIRE" SOUND DECODER INSTALL

BEFORE WE BEGIN...

I am going to show you folks how I do a "Hardwire" install.

What is a "Hardwire" install?

A "Hardwire" install is wiring a decoder, or in this case a sound decoder, into an engine.

We will be doing the hardwire installation because the engine that is getting the sound decoder DOES NOT have a DCC READY "Plug-n-Play" circuit board.

Though i am installing the sound decoder in a Proto 1000 engine, you can use this same exact type of install on ANY engine thats motor is already isolated from the frame, and has a circuit board, but does NOT have a Plug-n-play circuit board .

HOWEVER, you can use this type of install on "DCC ready" engines with plug-n-play circuit boards too, take Athearns "DCC ready" engines for example, their plug-n-play circuit boards are worthless (in MY eyes), and i hardwire ALL my sound decoders into those engines. (i have wrote SEVERAL posts on this )

Using the basic principles i am showing you in this tutorial, you should be able to "hardwire" install a decoder or sound decoder into MANY different brand engines.

ANOTHER REASON to do a hardwire install would be to save space, in many engines there just isn't much room to add a sound decoder, so to save space you might need to take out the existing circuit board thats in the engine to give you room to install the sound decoder .

A SMALL DISCREPENCY...

I am installing a sound decoder into an FM CPA16 engine, Loksound makes real good quality sound decoders, thats sounds are really pretty much "right on" for the engine sound they offer . the problem i am having with this engine is i use 6 resources to get my sound decoders from, and only one of the six had Loksound FM sound decoders in stock, the two FM sound decoders i had to choose from was the H10-44 and the H24-66 sounds, no CPA16/CFA16 sound decoders were available. i wanted to stay with the FM opposed piston sound, so i opted for the H24-66 sounds, its not right for this engine, but at least it has the FM opposed piston sounds .

LETS BEGIN THE INSTALL...

TOOLS NEEDED:
Soldering gun
solder
hot glue gun
4'' piece of fine black wire
4" piece of fine red wire
thin strip of thick styrene
wire cutters
exacto knife
heat shrink tape
electrical tape

ALSO, the decoder or sound decoder of your choice, a set of DCC compatible lights, and of coarse, the engine to install it all in .



OK, now that we have ALL the materials together that we need, this install should only take 30-45 minutes, tops .
get your engine and sound decoder out, and familiarize your self with them...





Now, cut the 8 pin plug off your sound decoder, exactly as i shown in the pic below, leaving plenty of wire still attached to the sound decoder...



NOW disconnect the wires from the circuit board thats in the engine, and pull the circuit board out of it, also take the light/s out of the engine at this time...



Now you see the only wires that are still in the engine are the four wheel power pick up wires, two red, two black, and the two engine power wires in the middle of the engine, one black, one red. (pic below)
At this time i make a little "shelf" out of a thick piece of styrene, what this does is gives you something to put the speaker and sound decoder on so none of it touches the hot motor, and it keeps the wiring from getting into the gears . i put two SMALL drops of hot glue on top of the flat part of the motor casing, let the glue almost dry, then put the styrene "shelf on it, DON'T press the shelf down hard on the motor, the drops of hot glue keep the "shelf" off the motor just a bit so air can get between the two, for cooling purposes . MAKE SURE THE SHELF TOUCHES NO MOVING PARTS.



OK, NOW we are going to take the two pieces of 4'' wire we have(red and black), and we are going to make them "jumper wires" that will go between the left and right side wheel power pick up wires. (shown below)
**NOTE: YOU WILL WANT TO USE YOUR HEAT SHRINK TAPE TO COVER THE SOLDERED WIRES WHEN YOUR DONE, you will notice i don't use the heat shrink tape, i hot glue over my connections , it does the same thing as heat shrink tape, but you have to be VERY CAREFUL and make sure ALL of the bare wire is covered, I DO NOT RECOMMEND doing as i do, PLEASE USE the heat shrink tape, WHY YOU ASK? , well if your reading this your NEW to doing "Hardwire" decoder installs, so don't take any chances, do it right and use heat shrink tape, leave the "tricks" to the pro's .



NOW that we have the wheel pick up jumper wires installed, we will take and bare the ends of the wires on the sound decoder that we are going to use . the wires on decoders/sound decoders are color coded, the codes for each wire color coming out of the decoder are:
RED- WHEEL CURRENT PICK UP #1
BLACK- WHEEL CURRENT PICK UP #2
ORANGE- RIGHT MOTOR WIRE
GRAY- LEFT MOTOR WIRE
WHITE- HEADLIGHT
YELLOW- TAIL LIGHT(no tail light on this install)
BLUE- THE COMMON WIRE FOR BOTH, THE HEADLIGHT AND TAILLIGHT .
GREEN- FUNCTION F1(we wont use this)
PURPLE- a function wire we wont use either for this install.
2 BROWN WIRES- speaker/s

OK, going by the wire codes i have provided, and the pic i posted below this, solder it all up, don't forget to use your NEW DCC compatible light, and use heat shrink wire wrap to cover ALL the bare wires when your done.



OK, now that we have it all wired up, re-install your light, neatly wrap up the extra wiring and tape it in place so it doesn't move around. (see pic below) at this time i take a drop of hot glue and put it on the bottom of the speaker baffle/case(NOT ON THE SPEAKER ITS SELF! ), then place it on the styrene shelf...



NOW place the engine shell back on its frame and...WE ARE DONE!


SEE, not hard at all
Put the engine on your track, program it, and ENJOY IT!

I hope this helps some of you out .