I've been working on a Builders in Scale 630 Elm street for several months, in between coding binges and other chores. It is finally finished, or at least ready to be put aside until installation on the layout. (It will be at the front, so must be installed last.) Here is the realtors' view:

There has been a lot of arguing discussion lately about the merits of two attitudes, which at the extremes can be summarized as "It must be beautiful even if it has nowhere to go" vs. "I don't care what it looks like as long as the trains are on time". Everyone seems to have staked out a spot along that line, and many are vociferous in the defense of their position. Personally, I am probably closer to the art end, but I feel all approaches are valid and potentially fun. I also have no illusions that either approach is particularly "real".

So I made this commitment to design a plug and play powered turntable and write a tutorial on it , something that can be built with (mostly) off the shelf parts, including an Arduino. (This isn't about the visible bits of the turntable, just the mechanism that turns it.) Any wiring will be restricted to standard things like switches and pushbuttons, with no circuit building required. The recent post by AnyRail shows one possible approach using a popular stepper motor with internal gearing.

There are a lot of reasons why we would want to electronically detect the presence of a train. This series of posts will cover a simple method of doing that using a classic circuit published by Richard Schumacher in the NMRA Gateway division website. There will be at least three sections, covering

Craftsman quality structure kits have been on my mind a lot lately, both because I have just completed my first build of one and because I am helping a friend dispose of a lifelong collection. This has led to a lot of research as I track down original product numbers and prices, and try to get an idea when various items were produced. That in turn has given me an overview of a part of the hobby I had never paid much attention to.

I am seldom intimidated by a project. Ever since I took apart my first alarm clock as a child, I have jumped into practically anything with confidence (or chutzpah) and enthusiasm. I've had the occasional setback (I remember blowing a fuse amid smoke and sparks while demonstrating electromagnetism in 5th grade, and at my retirement recital one of my favorite contraptions went seriously cracker dog), but most everything eventually worked reasonably well.

Then I acquired this kit in 2013:

I've been posting a lot of analog circuits lately, and while these are primarily chosen because of the concepts involved rather than the actual result, there is always an underlying question-- "would this be easier as an Arduino project?"

The model railroad hobby is full of gadgets that are fun to control-- motors, lights, turnout motors. It is also full of contraptions that can control them ranging from crude to sophisticated-- manual switches, detectors, computer boards. Whenever I have to connect a control contraption to a gadget, I have to pause. How do these things connect together? This is not a trivial consideration. It is often possible to damage, even destroy either or both by making the wrong choice.

A recent thread discussed the need for feeder conduits in foam. The consensus was that permanent conduits are not necessary, but temporary conduits might make the installation go a little faster. Having occasion to add some feeders to the LT&SS, I thought I'd give it a try. Here is what I came up with.

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It's been a quiet summer on Laurel Creek, at least as far as the layout goes (other stuff, hoo-boy!). I am tired of looking at pink foam, so the odd minutes I have found for modeling have gone toward getting ready for landscaping. The main geological feature of the LT&SS is Medium Creek, which divides the layout horizontally: