It has been a little over a month since my last update and these videos will bring you up to date with the construction of the Union Station passenger and freight yards.  

This is the update for 12 December 2015. The construction of the layout finally reached the Union Station (aka Kansas City Union Station) yard area in early December. I've left this area to the end because it will have the most complex construction piece, the engine facility in the middle of the east helix. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks, I can get a couple of tracks installed to join the layout from one end to the other. I am in the process of planning the design of the support structure for the engine facility that will be placed in the middle of the east helix.

This is the layout update for early November 2015. The wiring for the Paradigm to Union Station yard limit section (soldering feeders, connections to terminal strips, and connections to the main bus) has been completed. A DCC test of this section of power district 2 has also been successfully completed.  All of the tracks, including sidings, in the new section have been fully tested with DCC without any issues.

This picture shows the area where the DCC wiring has been completed.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been working on finishing the installation of the two remaining sidings (Paradigm siding & Morris Stock Feed Yard) and placing/annotating the track feeders for the Paradigm section. The bus wire for this power district (Main Level PD #2) was made, marked with two yellow strips of tape every 5 feet (give or take), and run through the pre-drilled holes along the back wall from the east helix to the power cabinet under the window. 

Just a quick update on the project to merge an N-scale Con-Cor GS-4 4-8-4 (Rail Baron Series) DCC ready engine and a Bachmann 4-8-4 Northern DC engine.  This update shows the engine chassis and the 52 foot tender running in DCC with sound.  The stock speaker that came with the Digitrax SDXN136PS has been replaced by a TTX Super Sonic Mini Speaker with enclosure.  The speaker is 15 mm x 11 mm.  The sound was barely audible with the stock speaker but I think that the sound is really good with the new speaker. 

Just a quick update to progress that has been made over the last couple of weeks. The first thing that I had to do was to order another box of Peco code 80 track.  While waiting for the track delivery, I double checked the electrical plan (shown in the video) so I would know where to place all of the Atlas insulated joiners (I know they are ugly but they work great).

Over the last few weeks I have been able to complete the DCC wiring for section 3 (aka power district 3) of the main level of the N-Scale ATSF Paradigm Division.  There are now 6 of the 8 planned sections or power districts wired for DCC and operational. Back in late August, I spent a day participating in an operational session at a friend's layout in San Antonio.  That experience encouraged me to re-look at some of the operational functionality of my layout.  Thus the changes were made.

UPDATED 8/16/15: The video below shows two N-Scale Kato PA1 units with sound decoders along with a PB1 unit being tested in a A-B-A consist. The sound decoder, Digitrax SDN144K0a, is the same decoder that was previously installed in the Kato E8A (April 2015) and two F7A units (July 2015).  The PB has a non-sound decoder.

At the end of July, I showed the results of my first installation of a drop-in Digitrax SDN144K0a into an N-scale Kato F7A . The unit had a modified Aztec frame that accommodated a TTX 16mm speaker.   This is also the same decoder that I had previously installed into an N-scale Kato E8A back in April.