Yamakai Railway (DCC Layout)

[Bob_NZ]

3 hours ago, Sheffie said:

Was that the ET-127 that was failing? 

I purchased these ones and found they only have 1 bogie driven...

Series 521: Kato 10-1437, 10-1508, 10-1509 (with a traction tire) and Series ET-127: 10-1516 (without a traction tire).

 

The 521 and ET-127 failed.

 

The Series ET-122: 10-1510 does have both bogies driven and climbs okay.

[Bob_NZ]

3 hours ago, railsquid said:

What's the gradient there?

 Yes it tough. Starting curves are 4.7% and 5.2%  then a S140 straight which hits 6.47% and then curves of 4.3% and 3.3%.

 

I should be able to rework the grade by putting risers under each track piece instead of supporting it all with one angled board.  This should provide a steady grade around 5%.

 

Other options are removing the straight section so the line does not actually cross over the subway station.  This drops the gradient well down and also drops the  top level height but the downside is that at the top of this climb it becomes a straight run to the other end of the layout which detracts from it being hilly country - ie  I like the present curves.

 

If I do nothing then these short trains will need to drive like slotcars up the incline!

[Bob_NZ]

Main construction is now completed - wired up and tested.

 

 

 

[jskirwin]

Nice videos. Hope Kato isn't cutting corners on all their stuff. I'm paying a premium for quality: If I wanted junk I'd go back to Bachmann - which I thought I was upgrading from.

 

I'm also interested in running DCC from a computer and will likely explore that in the future. Thanks for showing that part.

Edited December 9, 2019 by jskirwin

[Bob_NZ]

Hills have now been created using polystyrene with a plaster cloth overlay for extra strength.  This method makes it easy to reinsert any trees that get dislodged during transit.  If this was to be a permanent layout then I would have made the hills with just a plaster shell:

 

 

I have painted the layout in a boring colour so the base does not distract from the actual scene.  I have also used the same paint to hide the white of the scenery which will allow grass and shrubs to blend in nicely:

 

[Bob_NZ]

A better view of the rock face at the end of the layout:

 

 

This area was too small for more conventional hills so a vertical rocky face was the answer.  I didn't want it flat across the top so added some pieces - well glued down so they can take some knocks.

Track has been ballasted but I forgot to paint / weather the rails first which would have been the easiest way to do it.  I can still 'paint' them later but as I use a weathering marker pen it will be a bit more fiddly.

The short platform on the right was left over so I added it to this service track and will place a small building on it to represent a train crew / track maintenance facility. 

 

I have been adding catenary towers for effect - my budget does not extend to wiring.  Placing towers near the layout edges is not a good idea on a portable / exhibition layout as they will surely snag on clothing or get damaged during transportation.  But they are easily replaced and do add to the scene.  The old style green ones that I used on the lower double track are bendable so may be more durable.  I have cut off the power line cross bars to reduce snagging:

[Bob_NZ]

A short video showing build progress to date:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Madsing]

Superb! I was happily surprised at the end of the video. Adding the buildings completely changes the atmosphere of the layout!

[Bob_NZ]

15 hours ago, Madsing said:

Superb! I was happily surprised at the end of the video. Adding the buildings completely changes the atmosphere of the layout!

 

Yes its the scenery and buildings that make a layout.  Until that stage it's just a construction and hard to visualise its character.  I'm really tempted to do more of the scenery now, but it is supposed to be a project for the coming winter so I will wait till then.

- maybe I just do a little more scenery now and also do...

 

this hobby is just so addictive!

[Bob_NZ]

Checked on the layout and found that the grass and shrubs are already growing on the embankments and hills...

 

 

 

 

I hope that some trees will start to appear soon!

[Bob_NZ]

Planting completed and the subway station has been commissioned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bob_NZ]

These are the steps I go through to fit decoders to my trains and profile them for computer running.  This is not a tutorial, as I am still an amateur and fumble my way through it but I do get there in the end. 

 

 

This was the last of these 2 cars sets that I needed to digitize so I was pleased to finish this but...

 

I had running on the layout two sets  of the Ainokaze Toyama Railway Series 521 (each being 2 cars end to end) but one set was extremely noisy so I tried to find out why.  I noticed that on the motor's armature one of the solder points was overly large so I tried to carefully file it down.  Yes, you guessed it, I nicked and broke a wire on the main coil and killed the motor - not something I could fix.  Replacement motors are not available I would have to try and find a replacement undercarriage which are not cheap.

 

I decide to convert the motor car to a trailer unit by removing the motor, driveshaft and the gears from the bogie.  I could then run it as a 4x car unit but I then found that there was not enough power to run properly - double motorized sets are definitely needed for 4x car running (as shown on the Kato specs). 

 

It was a case of taking one step forward and two steps backward.

 

But all is not lost as I now have a full set of decoders spare for future use and I found that the 4x car unit can manage to run clockwise on the outer tracks of my lower level  - I can work with that so all is good.

 

Now how shall I use the spare decoders? - should I buy....

[Bob_NZ]

 

I managed to film some trains running:

 

 

 

 

[Madsing]

Really nice layout and nice video! The automation part is really interesting.