20 January 2015 Update - Over the last couple of months, I have been getting ready for the construction (electrical and track laying) of the main and third levels of the N-scale ATSF Paradigm Division. 

The rough-in of the main and third levels has been completed.  The full size paper design has been glued down on plywood, cuts made for planned scenery features, and risers put in place to raise the levels to their appropriate height. The first video shows what the overall layout will look like to include some final old-school hand-drawn track center adjustments made to some planned bridges near the city of Paradigm (see layout diagram below).

I have continued to build and install risers on the main level (3/4 inch dimensional lumber pieces) and for about half of the 3rd level (either pieces of dimensional lumber or cut from ripped sections of leftover pieces of plywood). Much of the material that I am using for risers are being culled from the very large collection of lumber pieces left over from my previous layout.  

The support structure for the main level has been completed. The full scale drawings (discussed in my August 2014 blog) of the layout were taped together and laid out on the supports with the help of poster board.  This gave me a good idea if the tracks were where I wanted them.  

This short video shows my N-scale Con-Cor (~1986 vintage) Santa Fe Blue Goose (4-6-4) running with DCC sound during its final installation test before being shipped back to me.  I had the same professional installer (reasonably priced) that had converted a Walther’s DL109 for me last year.  This installation used a Digitrax SDN136PS which is also very reasonably priced. This is the same engine that can be seen in a couple of previous videos testing out my spline helix while running in DC prior to being converted to DCC.

At the beginning of the month of August, I got stuck with how to wire the LED panels for both the 4 Bluepoint manual turnout controllers and the two panels (one on each side of the peninsula) that I needed for the 2 Tortoise turnout controllers. With the help of several MRH subscribers pointing me in the right direction, I was able to get that task completed as shown in my previous blog posting.  This posting will show progress made on the construction of the support structure for the main level of my layout.

17 August Update:  Thanks to everyone that helped point me in the right direction.  The panels now work the way that I had intended.  I deleted the 150 ohm resistor and added a 1.5K ohm 1/2 watt resistor on the positive leg going to each LED.  Everything works now.  The video below shows the finished product. Thanks again.

Mid July 2014 Progress Update

Over the past month, I have been checking out some of my steam engines, running trains, installing decoders, worked on fixing the shorting issue with the insulfrog turnouts, and began work on the support structure for the main level. There are four videos in this update.

I have spent several hours over the last month pulling up each of the 48 insulfrog turnouts on the staging level to insulate the frogs.  This was fairly easy but tedious as I use track nails to hold down my turnouts and I do not solder them to the incoming or outgoing tracks.

I have now completed the wiring of Staging Yard "A" (10 tracks) on the near side of the peninsula.  It took about 35 hours over two weeks to complete the wiring job.  All 10 tracks can be turned on or off via the SPDT switches located in the recessed openings in the fascia and each track has an LED power-on indicator. The switches were recycled from my previous DC layout.