Elmer Lane 27 - Officer's Mess

 DB raises another building.

The last major building to be installed at the depot is labelled '32/33' at the bottom left of this previously-featured cropped image taken by Ian Coates from the Steam Inclined book. This was the loco crew's amenity block, with lunch room, lockers, lavs and showers. The building was extended over its life and survived into the 1980s.

The building was made using the methods previously detailed that have been employed with the others on the module, being an evergreen clapboard shell with chunky strips for eves, and (modified) brass etched Ratio British N scale windows, which are obviously a tad small. But the effect is OK I reckon.

The roof going on below. This is the same ancient but lovely Fidelis N scale corrugated iron used on the yellower-coloured office block on the other side of the depot. This time I scored a midline and chopped this into skinnier verticals and glued the sections on, rather than using one solid sheet. I'm not sure even I can tell the difference.

A test fitting, yes, the building should be located on a different angle, but this was intended to partially hide the shadow sidings behind:

Despite the orangey look in the picture above, the door and windows are a similar shade to the roundhouse windows. The next morning, the crew block and the larger stores building beside it had some weathering applied:

Odd angles mainly due to the wide angle phone lens. The crew building has an open back and hides the Digitrax autoreverser module featured in a previous entry, so this building will probably be glued down, whereas the roundhouse, stores and railcar shed are still removable. The Stores shed may lose the unprototypical lean-to out the back, or at least its roof, for better access to the Kato turntable controller underneath it. 

Elmer Lane 26 - Autoreverser test

 DB plugs onwards.

A return was made to the basement to see if I could get the remaining bits of the module any closer to finished.

The 'shadow' storage tracks out the back were laid in a fairly ugly manner. I used up some old code 80 points and track here, and lazily did not power the frogs (relying on the electrofrog wipers). Seems OK so far.  All rails were extended towards the 'north (the station) and a piece of PC board applied under them and wired up. I've also decided to extend the depot track at the 'back' (closest to the red fence) towards the camera so that it can be accessed from the rest of the layout. Previously it was only accessible from the turntable, which meant you couldn't store pairs of diesels there easily.  Its yet to ballasted at this end until the point is located just this side of the next module.

A Digitrax AR1 autoreverser was added onto the balloon loop to deal with the unfortunate physics of the "red wire becoming the black wire" as you go around the loop and back in the direction from whence you came. 

This works by having an isolated section in the loop that is powered from this device, which is (seemingly unsophisticatedly) a relay that works like a reversing switch.  As a train enters or departs this from either end of the isolated bit,  if a short is detected it tries flipping the polarity. This seems to work, and gets good reviews online. I picked it up when Acorn models in Christchurch had a sale on a while back. 

My original plan had a one metre length of flex track on the Hoki line (in front of the railcar shed) that would be powered by the autoreverser, but I recently decided to isolate the entire lump between the points at the far end of the storage sidings through to the points at what will be the Greymouth Station. This should be long enough to take the longest train (about three metres), and avoid the tiny probability that both ends of a one metre section could be bridged by metal wheels at the front and back of the train at once. Very unlikely given that most of my wheels are plastic anyway, but having said that, most of my vans have metal wheels, as does the Tranz, and that is longer than a metre. 

So, with that installed, it was time for a test. Out with the Multimeter and... shorts everywhere. I took off the remaining locos, checked for exposed wires touching underneath, isolated the autoreverser... Nope. 

Finally I decided I'd have to snip some wires to isolate a few segments to track down the error. Either on the new shadow tracks, which look fine, or on the roundhouse roads, which also look fine, or on the small bit of Greymouth platform/loop, which looked OK, but was now covered in light ballast, so I couldn't really tell. Snip. Action stations! I'll have to re-feed those two tracks later. I knew I should have been testing this all along....

Anyway, the module works, the turntable still works, and you can spin a loco or drive one onto the powered roundhouse tracks.

Pain in the Nethers - Chassis Frustrations -1a - Atlas

DB follows up - 

FYI here are the three versions of the Atlas SD7/9/24/35/etc. 

The 1990s Atlas/Kato one  - they still run well, but the motor had to be isolated to add a DCC chip:

The early 2000s edition was 'DCC friendly' with an isolated motor, and you could unscrew the chassis halves a little to pop out the light board for a DCC replacement. The negative with models of this era was maintaining good electrical connection between the frame and the decoder board (often requiring slim brass shims wedged into the four corners), and between the board and the motor. These models have quite slow speed motors from memory, which was a pain when running them with other locos, which why most of my other diesels have been modified with DCC speed changes to they will run with these slow DC/DBR/DA chassis:

The new one. Black speaker box under the board at right whether you want one or not, little piggyback board under the main board at the left end, joined with an E24 connector (DC here, but these can be replaced with a DCC or DCC+sound one):

On the plus side, while the bogies look identical to the older models (complete with now-redundant sticky-up copper tabs), tiny wires are now used with micro connectors to bring the power up to the board, rather than the old brass strips along the sides. I think the motor is also linked to board with wires, so I may end up throwing away the supplied board and hardwiring an orange decoder into those wires. Of note, the chassis isn't split frame anymore,

With the tiny wires, connectors and components one wouldn't want to drop this on the floor...

Pain in the Nethers - Chassis Frustrations -1

DB notes some N scale developments in recent decades:

I had the good fortune to be deposited into Aladdin's Cave a few weeks ago, but left feeling I like had been mugged, despite returning several desirable items from my shopping trolley back to the shelves.

This aisle is 95% N scale 'locos'. Dribble. ScaleTrains in the two shelves of red boxes at right that extend to the front of the shop, and more in the left distance behind the counters, which mainly contain layers and layers of Atlas/Kato/Intermountain models. With some rarer brands and steam in the counter closer to the front. Microtrains stuff and N containers are hanging on the wall at left, with some N and HO track further down.

The main item on the shopping list was a pair of SD9/7/35/26 to turn into DCs. All good, they had new 'DCC ready' Atlas SD9s for a reasonable US $90 all up, and I already have a bunch of leftover Digitrax decoders for Atlas locos from the last time I bought a few of these.

I then got suckered into buying a gorgeous ScaleTrains SP tunnel motor (with sound) at a ludicrous price. I didn't want sound, but this was the one only that was in the mid-late-90s configuration left, and I was already smitten at that stage. I also picked up a Canadian wide-body 'DCC ready' Dash 8 for a reasonable price, which looks lovely and is something different for the American fleet. I searched for ScaleTrains BNSF H2 Dash-9s among the hundreds of Scale Trains items but there was nothing sensible available.

After much wringing of hands, I decided to look more closely at a ridiculously-priced Paragon sound-equipped Pacific that looked like it might make a good Ab. I'm not really a steam dude, but could do with something pre-1980s to sit at Elmer Lane and tow those three red coaches along.

One of the sales guys asked if I wanted to test anything on their track before I left. Most diesels are pretty foolproof, but it made sense to check that the expensive, complicated and fiddly-looking Pacific worked. Onto the track it went.

It moved (as expected), but the sound! Phenomenal, loud, realistic! Mind blown. The first and last time I'd heard sound in N scale was 17 years ago, a pair of SD40-2s that sounded tinny and toylike with no bass, so other than for the novelty value of hooting the horn, the expense of sound seemed pointless... back then. 

After that, the Tunnel Motor might be worth a listen. Again, I had low hopes that were again shattered. Sooooo good! I double-checked there wasn't another mid-90s Tunnel Motor hiding at the back of their shelves.

Back down to earth upon returning home, I got inside the Atlas SD9s only to find that the chassis design has changed. My Digitrax Atlas decoders won't fit these new ones. Drat. Worse, they have a 'plain' DC circuit board that looks like something out of an iPhone which might be a challenge to solder a normal decoder onto, plus there is little piggyback for a tiny DC (the default) or DCC or Sound+DCC board that uses an E24 nano-socket. Whatever that is. The SD9s  (whether DC or DCC or sound+DCC) have a speaker built in.

In hindsight, had I known all this, at the very least I could have bought two matching E24 decoders while I had the ability to get them at US prices, or, now that I have heard that N Scale sound is far better than it used to be, plumped for sound equipped ones. Then I checked the prices and remembered why I went for the $90 DC units instead of the $175 DCC/sound ones (marked down from the $250 USD RRP each!!).  

Some thoughts on N scale market developments that seem to have occurred in the last 12-15 years. 

• The cost of N sound decoders is insane given that they look pretty similar componentwise to a DCC decoder. They are often $100 USD or more. 
• Many locos are being retooled for sound, so if you have a drawer of decoders that you bought 20 years ago for future loco purchases, they're probably not going to fit the new models. Dammit.
• Rather than having manufacturer/model specific decoder replacement boards, the industry is moving to decoder plugs. Unfortunately there are a proliferation of 'standard' miniscule decoder plugs in N at the moment (just pick ONE already!).
• I wonder if it is going to be harder to get non-sound/non-dcc locos in future, because the newest decoders can now automatically detect and switch to pure DC (non-DCC) operation, while still providing basic sound functions. As far as I could see, this shop had no steamers available that didn't have DCC/sound, so they were all very expensive. 
• All of the above is pushing up the prices of N scale locos. I'm grateful to have some Dash-8 chassis (plus decoders!) in stock for DXs, and a bunch of DCC-equipped SD40-2s that I could sacrifice into DFs. 
• Given the way the prices have escalated in recent years (and this is before potential new tariffs take hold) the older and plainer but still very good quality Atlas/Kato/etc stuff from 1990-2015 might become more "valuable" to NZ120 modellers. 

Upon returning home, I note GraFar has a new re-tooled British 08 model that is tempting for a DSA. Again, even the base DC edition comes with a speaker (sound-ready) whether you ever will need it or not, and costs from $322 NZD upwards. The prices on the DCC/Sound ones go up to $727 NZD! For a little 0-6-0 shunter! The top of which I'd throw away anyway! Crikey. 

More on Chassis Frustrations in an upcoming edition.