Between York and I-Hobby it's been a couple of VERY busy weeks. It was a real pleasure to finally meet Jerry (gnnpnut), Sasquatch, Hot Water, Richtrow, Santa Fe Jim, and all the other members of the Independent Hi-railers Midwest Division in person. I want to especially thank Jerry for flying me out (the exit row seats were great!
This was the first time I had participated in the actual setup and operation of a modular layout. Setting up the layout is quite an operation. The entire layout fits into two cargo trailers. At I-Hobby, there's enough room indoors that the trucks and trailers can pull right inside for the unloading process.
As the modules are pulled out of the trailers 2x2 legs are inserted so that each is a free standing piece.
A couple teams start at one point and work around the layout in either direction. In this photo, Richtrow is leveling a module and inserting track pins while Jim R. hooks up the power wires to the adjoining section.
Once the layout was well along towards full assembly I started working on the DCS setup.
Here's one of the standard TIU setups. There are four TIU's around the layout with this same configuration. Each powers the three mainlines on a group of no more than 14 modules. This helps the DCS signal by limiting the number of wire connections and total length of wire run.
The TIU setups look a little Rube Goldberg but Sasquatch plans to make some proper mounting brackets between now and Trainfest.
Right from the beginning there was a level of disbelief that DCS could actually work in the layout. Is that GN R-2 really responding to the remote??? YES!!
Operations on Thursday were a bit choppy. Some problems were physical. Modules need their legs adjusted, a couple modules were assembled out of order, a pin or two was missed, etc. DCS was working on the mainlines but needed some tweaking. One by one during the coarse of the day I also installed TIU's in the engine terminal, staging yard, and wired up the passenger yard in passive mode. By Friday mid day things were settling in pretty well. The guys were able to run pretty much whatever they wanted at will. Here's some of the highlights from Friday.
On Saturday several of the club members with "real jobs" were able to join in the fun. Richtrow was like a kid on Christmas morning running his new CN SD70-M's.
A modern train needs a proper FRED, so the guys from MTH loaned us one of the cars from an SD70 starter set to put o the back of Rich's train.
One of the things that really sets this layout apart is the level of detail and scenery. Many of the structures are stored off their modules for safety. It takes extra time to set them up but the results are quite impressive.
With all the work involved with transporting and setting up the layout one might wonder if it's worth the effort. Certainly there are benefits for the members who get to run their trains on a layout far larger than most any of us will ever have at home. But modular layouts also do service for the hobby at large. They are one of the most public ways to spark interest within the next generation of modelers.
Thanks again guys! It was a blast getting to see the operation. I hope all goes well at Trainfest.