various thoughts

[Adrian Elliott <aelliott@jump.net>]

I just finished reading nine E-mail's regarding the last run and mostly
the yard, track condition, and electrical problems.  Allow me to throw
my thoughts into the fray....before I forget them.  And they also may
change.

The Yard

While I am learning the Command control thing more and more, and Command
is the way I am leaning to, the only time I use the command control is
at the club runs.  Therefore between runs I forget everything and it
takes a little time for me to re-remember how things work.  I knew how
to operate the yard before this run but by the run I completely and
hopelessly forgot. My thoughts are this,  have one powermaster and
powerhouse to control all the yard tracks.  Assign it a permanent
number, say Track 5.  Then have a rotary switch on that powermasters
output to manually select which siding that it will control.  What this
will do is allow only one siding to be powered at a time.  It will also
assign an easy to remember track number to the yard, we are already used
to controlling the mainlines, the yard would be controlled the very same
way.  The only difference is the rotary switch which for many may be
easier to operate than the block controller.  The drawback to this
scenario is that only one siding may have power at a time.  I don't
really see a problem with that.  We are only supposed to be changing
trains on one track at a time anyway.

Uneven Tracks

What I saw is that on the older modules, even the older module I adopted
and scenicked, that the modules have bowed down in the middle.  Some
haven't bowed but rather the ties have been crushed slightly.  This is
causing a high point at the ends of the module.  I also noticed that on
several carpet modules that the ties have dug down into the carpet
creating a slightly lower track in the middle of the module.  I agree
that the uneven track needs to be repaired, however I do not think the
club should perform this work until there is much more savings in the
bank (we have some other expenses that must come first - trailer tires
for example).  The individual owners should repair their module and the
unrepaired modules should be not allowed to lock-up until we can fix
them.  This may result in a much smaller set-up for the next few shows.

Electrical Problems

This truly is a nasty little gremlin.  Believe it or not there has been
a continual repair and upgrade process to the electrical side of the
layout.  Plugs have been cleaned, small wires replaced with bigger wire,
old solder joints resoldered, power jumper harness added, new
transformers (powerhouses), broken track solder connections fixed, loose
track connections recrimped, etc..  It seems that the problems are
coming faster than the fixes.  We fix one thing and two more problems
pop up.  We have plenty of amperage capacity in the existing wire but we
too have a lot of possibility for resistance in the jones plugs ( just
the number of them the current has to flow through).  But, the plugs and
harness worked just fine in the past so it is reasonable to believe that
the harness can be restored to prime condition again.  We have
entertained many ideas how to "fix" our electrical problem ranging from
cleaning the plugs to replacing the entire harness altogether.  We
should talk about this one at Luby's to see just how far ($$$$$) the
club want's to go for perfect track power.


I will run shorter trains if the club wishes.  I will not, however run
on track three or four.  Track four is no longer 072 curves and the 072
curves on track three have been pulled too tight.  I like to run larger
cars that require the 072 and tracks one and two are the only tracks
that will accommodate me.  I agree that the yard was made ineffectual
due to people using it to store trains.  There were several instances
where my train was the only train running.  What happened to only
switching out one train at a time?