Rail traffic for the first time in 20 months.

[chopperthedog]

After 9 hours of weeding, track cleaning and re leveling, my railroad sees its first action since October of 2011. Between April 10th and September 28th of 2012 I slept at home only 15 times. I traveled with Foghat for a month and a half as a guitar tech and the rest of the time was spent in Milwaukee on a window project or doing other gigs with The Ides of March (other band I work for). That meant the railroad became an over grown sad to look at weed patch. I also finally had a chance to use my tablet for the first time as a remote. For those not in the know, my set up is DCC there is 20v ac constantly flowing through the rails and each locomotive is outfitted with a decoder that picks up commands through the rails. Inside the house is 2 10 amp ps's, 2 brain boxes and a pc hooked to my network. So different directions on the same rail is possible along with lights staying on when loco is stopped. What a great feeling it is to have my mainline back at least. Now to start on the center weeding and pulling the rest of that black edging crap.

















good day.

[SavannahLion]

I dabbled for a time with HO scale. It was a promotional train from Campbell's soup that started it. I started construction on a 4x8 table but alas, being 12 and having virtually no source of funds put a stop to that in a hurry.

That's pretty cool. It's gotten me to thinking maybe I should do an outdoor track instead of an indoor one. I'll probably figure out a way to elevate it though, I can't stand the thought of having to clean dog crap from out between the tracks and ties.

[Howard_Casto]

What an amazing coincidence.  I've been looking into garden railways and I'd really like to try it.  Where I live (cabin creek wv) used to have a ton of rails... two for coal with 5 branches, a freight line and a passenger line back in the 40's.  All but half of the main line is now gone so I'd like to ultimately re-create a lot of it on a G scale railway.  I've got plenty of outdoor space and really no indoor space so that seems to be the only way I could do it. 

Could you post some tips in regards to laying the track?  I've watched a lot of vids/shows and they seem to want to lay a concrete pad and do things that way.  Seems rather intrusive to me... I mean what if I get sick of it in a few years?  I don't really want to have to dig up a sidewalks amount of concrete.  Also I wanted to do a r/c train setup.... are there any cheaper alternatives in terms of track taking into account the fact that I don't have to electrify it?

I'd really like to start with a cheap pos setup to see if I'm into it before forking down a lot.

Any advice would be extremely helpful. 

[Howard_Casto]

Oh... for savannah....

There's a bbc discovery series called "The Garden Railway"  I watched the entire thing and although I get the feeling some of the info is a bit outdated (it ran in 2005) it helped me get my head around the process. 

The entire series is up on youtube, so you might want to take a look. 

[ark_ader]

I would like to build Z scale railways.  I can have a complete set up in the same space that your controllers reside, ideally in the marquee section of a cabinet but the curve radius would be tight.

[chopperthedog]

@Howard_Casto, I went the simple route with cutting the grass out and back filling area with a 3/8" granite chip (found at material service type places) don't use pea gravel. Track is a mixture of LGB and Aristocraft secured at the joints with Hillmans rail clamps filled with conductive grease. There is a 2 conductor 12ga feeder wire under the rails with taps at every 15~20'. My rail is floating on the gravel. You might see some discussion between completely over engineering rail installation or just letting it float. All my rail was first laid in 2008 and aside from normal cleaning and the occasional adding some more rock and I haven't had any rail failures. For an rc setup if you use Aristocraft or USA trains track the couplers have an integrated set screw that for connection and you save some bucks on rail clamps. I do not have any knowledge of current control systems as I originally bought into the LGB MTS system back in 2005 and haven't payed any attention to current tech.


good day.

[wp34]

I traveled with Foghat for a month and a half as a guitar tech...

I was going to post how cool your train set was (I've never seen an outdoor setup) and then I noticed that little gem of a sentence.  Sounds like an awesome job.  I've got "Slowride" stuck in my head now.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah he's definitely 10x cooler than any of us. 

That's all extremely helpful man, thanks.  I thought they were going a bit overkill with everything.  The only thing that worries me is the fact that around here, all train tracks are elevated for drainage.  I would have to re-create that someway and I know that dirt mounds of such a small scale would just wash away when it rains.  I might be able to do that with gravel as well, I dunno.  I assume by normal cleaning you mean keeping the track free of debris and such?

I'd really rather do a fancy electric setup like you did, but I don't really have a shed near by (correction.. I don't have an empty shed near by.  ) to house all the power supplies.


Btw, has anybody ever successfully done roads with moving cars on an outdoor setup?  I saw mention of this rather expensive German system, but other than that I couldn't find any info.   

I was thinking maybe a person could use one of these toys as a base:



It would be better if it used a hall effect sensor (so it could follow an electrified wire) but I couldn't find any kits for that.  At crossings a magnet /ir led/whatever could be turned on along with the crossing and a super simple relay circuit in the car could cut power to the toy whenever a signal is found as well as turning on a signaling device in the back of the car body to stop any cars behind it. 

I mean it wouldn't be real cheap.... probably 30-50 bucks a car once all the mods are done, but considering some people play 5x that just for freight cars for their train it seems more reasonable than the current system. 

[DaOld Man]

Wow Chop, that is a very cool train setup. How do you keep the sun and rain from degrading the track?
I take it that the cars go into a shelter when not being used? I never thought of having a model train outside, but I like the idea.

Howard, where I work we have an AGV system (Automatic Guided Vehicles) that deliver Ingots, coils, and mill rolls all over the plant.
They follow wires embedded in the floor. They also read RFID chips in the floor to get the positions.
To give you an idea as to how big these vehicles are, each one can carry up to 250,000 pounds.
(There are 6 vehicles total.)
They run on batteries that are 72 volts.
It is a very neat system and my job a few years ago was helping to install the system and commission them.
It was a very interesting stage in my career.
The vehicles were made by Ewell-Parker and the controls were made by CEC out of Harbor Springs, MI (USA).
Not sure if they are still in business, I last worked on the AGV system 16 years ago. But the AGVS are still running and are very reliable.
(My duties are now with a three stand rolling mill at the same plant.)

[Howard_Casto]

Garden Railways are unbelievably popular in the UK I'm told.  They've been doing it since the 50's.  It's just now catching on here in a big way though. 

Yeah that's the sort of thing I was hoping to find an example of.  I just can't find anything with a simple circuit, which would be necessary for cost reasons. 

One of the reasons I like the ir line followers is the fact that they are so dead simple.  All they consist of are two ir leds and two ir sensors, both pointed towards the ground... if light reflects back (aka it found white) that closes the switch for the power to the wheel on the opposite side of the car and thus it turns.  If both sensors detect white (aka it's on the line) they both power up and it goes straight.  So there isn't any circuit to speak of, it's all e.m.  From what I understand, a hall effect sensor is analog, which would mean that you'd need an avr or something similar.  So if you have any input on that dept it'd sure be helpful. 

I'm wondering if a ir-reactive paint would do the trick.  That is if they even make  such a thing. 


I've given it some more thought and assuming the visible line problem could be tackled I think I could build are really cheap "dumb" car that would drive realistically. 

Picture this:

1. Take the exact same line following toy and clip the power wire.
2.  Wire in two reed switches to that power wire in series.... normally closed switches, one facing down towards the road, another facing forward... as low and to the front of the vehicle as possible. (The front bumper would be best) So if either of these switches are tripped, the car loses power and stops.   
3.  Ok now in the rear bumper of each car put a magnet facing towards the back.

So now at every crossing you wire up a electro-magnet (could be a solenoid or anything really) that's just below the road in front of the crossing and wire it to whatever switch you use to power your crossing signals.  So when a line follower approaches an active crossing, it stops.  Now remember that magnet in the bumper?  Well when the first car is stopped at a crossing and another car approaches, that magnet in the bumper will kill the forward-facing reed switch in the second car  and if another car comes the magnet in the second car would stop the third... and so on. 

Intersections could be handled the exact same way, only with stop lights and the electro magnets wired up to the red lights. 

I think you could buy/make a line follower with those mods for just under 15 bucks... buy a 10 dollar scale model off of ebay to skin it with, and you are done. 

You could take it one more step to make it even cooler. 

You know those 2 dollar, solar powered garden lights?  Take one of those... clip out the resistor and wire up two white leds and two red.  Now you've got lights that come on when it's dark and if you can hide the solar panel somewhere in the model, they are rechargeable as well. 

And it could go one step further.  Take your separate garden light battery and wire two more reed switches directly to it to create a separate circuit (bypassing the photo sensor). This time make them normally open switches though.  Wire up two more red leds to this circuit.  Now when the car stops, the brake lights go on!

I'm just snow-balling here... I might pick up some toys and some parts to see if I can build a prototype. 

*edited for clarity*

[Howard_Casto]

Well it looks like a lot of my ideas have already been used before.  The Fallen system uses a wagon style hitch on the front steering with magnetized wire, now that I've looked into it a bit further.  This is a simple and cheap system, so why are they selling their cars for 75 bucks a pop?

Anyway, this guy has implemented part of the reed switch system I mentioned:

[Dawgz Rule]

Chopper, good to see that you got the trains running again...so jealous.  No progress on mine but it will happen sooner or later. 

I would like to build Z scale railways.  I can have a complete set up in the same space that your controllers reside, ideally in the marquee section of a cabinet but the curve radius would be tight.

Ark, I have a pretty good collection of N scale and it is amazing at what you can build in a limited space.  I would have to say that my only issue with the smaller scales is that it always seems like you are cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning the track. 

[DaOld Man]

Howard, that is pretty neat. I have heard talk that they are thinking of upgrading our agvs to use a GPS system to guide them through the plant. (The wires in the concrete are not reliable, they are breaking a lot of times due to forktruck traffic and vibration, concrete expanding/collapsing, etc). Dont see how they could use the current GPS satellites because the agvs are inside a metal building and Im sure all the other machines and structures could pose some serious problems. I kinda wish I was back in that department, it would be some challenging but interesting times.
We also have a completely automatic crane that moves aluminum sheet coils around in a cooling bay of the building. It is called ASRS (Automatic storage and retrieval system). Some of the coils it moves weigh around 60,000 pounds. Very interesting too.
I will look into your ideas, cant wait to see what you come up with, design wise.

[Howard_Casto]

Dawgz:  I've had similar experiences with smaller scale..... they are fun, but so damn fiddely.  Even though g-scale takes up a ton of room, the fact that it's so much larger means that your track doesn't have to be 100% perfect, you can have a bit of debris and the train will just push it out of the way, ect...

DaOld Man:

Man it sounds awesome where you work.  I'm going to make a trip to the local discount store sometime this week.  I think they sell those cheap, knock-off train sets and I'm sure I can pick up a model car and a toy with a motor or something.  It should be enough to play around with for ideas anyway. 

[Dervacumen]

This is one of the most interesting threads I've seen.  I was hooked after the Foghat callout.

Chopper, good to see that you got the trains running again...so jealous.  No progress on mine but it will happen sooner or later. 

I would like to build Z scale railways.  I can have a complete set up in the same space that your controllers reside, ideally in the marquee section of a cabinet but the curve radius would be tight.

Ark, I have a pretty good collection of N scale and it is amazing at what you can build in a limited space.  I would have to say that my only issue with the smaller scales is that it always seems like you are cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning the track. 

I agree.  I had an N-scale for a long time and the eraser was my best friend.  A neighbor had a whole bedroom of Z-scale  That was an incredible setup - that's a lot of trains.  Had a lead engineer hat and whistle, too.  He was 60 years older than me.

[Le Chuck]

I've been interested in railroading for years but never bit the bullet on it.  Wife and I really want to do a christmas train for the kids.  This looks like a lot of fun tho, might just have to finally take the plunge.  Awesome setup Chopper.  Thanks for sharing!

[chopperthedog]

Wow Chop, that is a very cool train setup. How do you keep the sun and rain from degrading the track?
I take it that the cars go into a shelter when not being used? I never thought of having a model train outside, but I like the idea.

Thanks Guys! It's fun stuff and gets me out of the house.

@DaOld Man The rails are solid brass and only require a swiping with a 3M pad (the maroon ones for metal) on the end of stick while walking around rails once every 2 weeks if running trains regularly plus I have a car that has the same pad that gets dragged around by a locomotive. Since I neglected it for so long the rails needed a more hands on polishing. The ties are UV stable plastic and meant to live in the sun for years to come. Yes, the shed does house everything with a small freight yard and many shelves along with a door just for the trains. I'll get some good pics in the future.

I was able to get my sidings cleaned and got the yard lighting back up, so I shot a little boring video for your enjoyment. With the DCC (digital command control) system I use and the limited amount of rail I have the video shows the type of fun that can be had with controlling multiple trains at the same time. The tablet is F'ing amazing for control! These are the types of dreams I had as a kid with my N scale latout on a sheet of foam with only 1 transformer and watching only 1 train at a time .




good day.

[Howard_Casto]

That looks great man.  I don't find it boring at all.  You've got the speed scaled really well, which to me is what makes a model train come to life. 

The video makes me want to switch my plans over to electric... I doubt a r/c train could haul that many cars but then again your comments about sanding the track regularly makes me want to change my mind again. 

What are the dimensions of your layout?  I've got tons of room but seeing as how I'll probably do an elevated area for mine I would kind of like to get an idea of how big to start out. 


Oh and if anyone's interested I raided one of my old toy chests today (yes, I still have some of my toys in storage from when I was a kid) and ran across a cheap r/c car.  I rarely played with it as a kid because it's one of those REALLY cheap ones that only goes forwards and back.  It's roughly 1/22 scale (g scale) though and the front wheels are on a detachable axis so it's perfect for my line following experiments.  I just need to pick up some metal coat hangers and magnets and I'll start playing around with it. 

It's most likely overkill for a model train layout, but that's kind of the point.  If I can get a over-powered r/c car to follow a metal track fairly reliably then it should be really stable for slower, more to scale speed, vehicles.  I'm thinking that I could scratch convert a model car with two toy motors, a couple of reed switches, a couple of magnets, a pot (for speed tweaking) and a battery pack of some sort.  I know you can get knock-off ipod batteries for a couple of dollars... the only trick would be charging them without an ipod. 

[Dawgz Rule]

Looks awesome.  Definitely brings back some memories of my n scale empire. 

[chopperthedog]

That looks great man.  I don't find it boring at all.  You've got the speed scaled really well, which to me is what makes a model train come to life. 

The video makes me want to switch my plans over to electric... I doubt a r/c train could haul that many cars but then again your comments about sanding the track regularly makes me want to change my mind again. 

What are the dimensions of your layout?  I've got tons of room but seeing as how I'll probably do an elevated area for mine I would kind of like to get an idea of how big to start out. 

26' X 50'. There are neat functions to the decoders that allow you set speed scales and acceleration and deceleration rates.


good day.

[TopJimmyCooks]

you got a cool day job, dog.  Lemme guess - no kidz/wives, just a few phone numbers for each town in the little black book (numbers for arcade and train sources, of course)

[chopperthedog]

you got a cool day job, dog.  Lemme guess - no kidz/wives, just a few phone numbers for each town in the little black book (numbers for arcade and train sources, of course)

HaHa wish I had a little black book. When you do a string of 3to5 shows there's no time for that crap. Lets start with landing at the airport at 1:00pm the day of the first gig. I'll snag my flight case that includes the tools of the trade and find my arranged transportation and get taken right to the venue. I proceed to meet everyone that is part of the crew and who my point people are to make sure the bands catering/hospitality needs are being met. By 2:30pm I have inspected backline equipment (rented specific items from a local facility. e.g. drums, amps and other items) and start setting up and doing line checks and setting monitor levels. Once the travel fatigue sets in on long runs the band usually doesn't even show up for any checks, well.. that's after they get to know me and just end up trusting me and that takes some time for artists to get to that point. But it's a great feather in my cap and makes things so much easier when they don't show up till show time  . 4:30pm we are done with stage and I'll do string changes on 4~10 guitars depending upon who the gig is with. By 6:00pm I'm done with putzing with the axes and stretching strings and I go hunt for food. 7:30pm back checking on opening band and checking with staff that we are on time and if not they need to make changes to shorten opener if needed. 8:15pm freshen up and make some final checks and say hi to the band. 8:30pm opener done, get their asses off the stage fast and re set our equipment and make some quick monitor checks. 8:59pm roll intro, 9:00pm band is on and rockin'. 9:00~10:30pm I make multiple guitar changes with artists and or other changes i.e. setting/striking a keyboard. 10:30pm band has unleashed massive amounts of testosterone flowing off the front of the stage and has still left the crowd wanting more after the encore. 10:31 grab instruments from artists and disappear for 7~10 minutes to avoid that "dreaded guy". You know the one that will scream at you while you are wrapping up cables "YO YO YO YO HEY YOU YO YO HEY HEY YO YO YO YOU YOU YOU GIMMIE A GUITAR PICK!!!!!". 11:20pm'ish done with packing up guitars and other pedal boards and stuff ready for flight. 11:40pm'ish still waiting for merch guy to do his count out. 11:50pm equipment and crew is loaded in van (band left 10 minutes after show) and taken to hotel to check in. 12:20am in room (figure out who is hosting in their room and proceed to do adult things). 1:45am passed out. 4:30am alarm goes off for 5:10am lobby call and you pull off the 3 S's (s_h_i_t, shower and shave) and get your ass down to the lobby. 5:20am vans are loaded with equipment, baggage, crew and band off to airport for 7:12am flight to next gig. And rinse and repeat above for the next 3 days.

Yes, no wife/kids. But I do have a real job. I work for a commercial window company and that pays the bills. And rock n' roll is my fun money. The window company is great for allowing me time off. When I tell them I need to go somewhere for 6 days they're excited to hear who I'm going with and say awesome have a great time . One off gigs in various places that pay well ($400+ with air and hotel included) is kinda what I do the most. I've worked for these guys for 15 years http://theidesofmarch.com/ depending upon your age demographic you may not get it. I've had the pleasure of working with some really great artists over the last 18 years. Kip Winger, Alan Parsons, 38 Special, Ray Parker Jr., Tom Keifer, Rik Emmett, Christopher Cross, Brian Wilson, Dennis Tuffano, Jack Blades, Brad Gillis, Anthony Gomes and there are others I just can't remember at the moment  . I never got lucky enough to land that killer 6 figure gig with a money machine band like bon jovi or metallica and so on. I was offered many "road dawg" type gigs where it's the whole bus thing for 3 months and you get offered $1000 a week and a 1099 at tax time (thanks for asking). After that when you get home you sit and twiddle your thumbs waiting for the next call. The ides have a tad of travel this year. I'm excited about the 4 day gig at the big E and BB kings in time square (check above link).


That concludes this episode of story time with chopper.



good day.

[TopJimmyCooks]

Thanks for giving us a little day in the life.  I think it's even cooler that you don't have to road dog it 24-7-365, and obviously you like the guys you work with.  You're saying guitar tech but it sounds like you're covering all the instruments and rentals.  Sounds a lot better than the 80's version - drummer vomit tech.   

. . . 10:31 grab instruments from artists and disappear for 7~10 minutes to avoid that "dreaded guy". You know the one that will scream at you while you are wrapping up cables "YO YO YO YO HEY YOU YO YO HEY HEY YO YO YO YOU YOU YOU GIMMIE A GUITAR PICK!!!!!".. . .

good day.

That's so funny, because for a good while I was THAT Guy.  Except I was asking for set lists, and I got a bunch of cool ones.  Pearl jam, blues traveler, Clapton, etc.  I never tried to get picks even though I was a guitar player back then.    People are such idiots when they're jacked up on beer and adrenaline after a good show.  I tried to be cool but I'm sure I got yelled at a couple of times.  I always appreciated what those guys and their crews were doing - taking 6 to 18 months from family etc. to play out, especially back then when they still made some cash from record sales and it wasn't the only paying proposition.

[JMB]

 The ides have a tad of travel this year. I'm excited about the 4 day gig at the big E and BB kings in time square (check above link).

Funny to see The Big E mentioned on this site. I work a couple miles from the fairgrounds.

[chopperthedog]

Got around to taking some pics of the shed and also addressed an issue with my original poor rail construction with connecting to the shed.



I constructed some little trestles that allow me to drive full trains in and out of the shed.



The turnout used to be where the curve begins by the shed. It was to steep of an incline for the locomotives to navigate, but served its purpose for shoving strings of cars in and out of the shed.



Over time I have accumulated 12 locomotives and over 70 pieces of rolling stock. Having the shed makes it easy to manage my current collection. There is still one wall that doesn't have any shelves yet.




The black ramp on the ground is a railer. You just drop the cars down the ramp and stack up a freight train.



The shelves have strips of plywood ripped so rolling stock can be rolled along shelf.


good day.

[CoryBee]

Oh snap, didn't realize a bunch of you had more than collecting arcades as a hobby.

I never thought about it since I was a wee lad but now I want some track around my backyard......

[TopJimmyCooks]

I love the dichotomy - outside the loop- manicured fescue.  inside the loop - the Jungle.  the lawnmower does not cross to the wrong side of the tracks lightly. 

Cool Collection and well managed. 

[Dawgz Rule]

Looks awesome.  I will definitely have to tap into your outdoor railroad knowledge when I get ready to take the next step. 

[chopperthedog]

Quick little update. I've been working on getting the entire inside weeded. All the black plastic molding has been removed (worst mistake ever). Shot a quick little ride along video.




good day.

[ed12]

chopperthedog
my hat is off to u
that is soooooooooooooooooo cool
wish i had the room

ed

[Caparo8bit]

LOVE your set up. Can you now build a small town in the center ....   Now my wife wants a house with a big yard on the back thanks to your video
 

GOOD  DAY.....!

[ark_ader]

I wish I had LoCos that would crawl like that.  Everytime I tried they would just stop and you had to nudge them.

I'm looking at buying some T scale from Japan.  If I can find a dealer that won't scalp me.   

[DaOld Man]

Wow!!!!!!