Basement Train Layout: Week 245

Sun, Apr 7, 2019 thru Sat, Apr 13, 2019

Sun, Apr 7, 2019

I had a few minutes today to prepare for tomorrow's train day, so I cleaned up the workbench...

BEFORE

AFTER

Mon, Apr 8, 2019

Train Day!

Jordan Osborn wasn't feeling well today. He'll be over on Wednesday.

Rob Fair stopped by from 6-7:30pm (1.5 hrs.)

Tonight we're going to wire up the LED bridge support lights.
Rob Fair preparing the soldering gun.

Rob and I worked side by side installing the jumper wires and then the lead wires.

One set installed and in operation.

Other side installed and in operation.

Both sides combined and in operation together.
I very much like the look.

Another perspective from the sky.

Next week we'll wire up Milwaukee Avenue bridge support LED lights.

Check off Fulton Street.

Tue, Apr 9, 2019

my birthday celebrating with Mom and Dad and Jan at Al's in Elgin

Wed, Apr 10, 2019

Before the guys come this afternoon I wanted to get some work done.

Take a look:

I'm going to begin work on Chicago downtown.
Here's the bus stop on the far south end.

Added the street lights and the back railing.

The model is complete.
Now I need to install and wire it up.

I also did some more clean up on the workbench.
Notice I took all the cars off the RIP tracks and put the engines on the tracks instead.

Train Day!
Dean and Cam aren't able to come today.
Jordan stopped by for 1 hr from 4-5pm

I found two yellow blinking LED lights.
See it on the right end?

Both installed on the right side.
Look closely and you'll see them.

I brought the bus stop down to install on the south side of Chicago downtown.

I'm going to need to figure this one out over more time.
The left side is the hinged side so I can't wire the right side unless I have a lot of slack in the wire.
I'm thinking of rerouting all the wire to the left side so when the top is hinged the wires only need a little bit of slack.
If the wiring is done on the right side the slack will need to be as long as the top can raise.
Make sense?

Thu, Apr 11, 2019

I had some time to work on the train this evening.
Here's what I did...

Here's a picture of the trench I had to cut to make a path for the wires from the east to the west.
Hinges are on the west of of Chicago Terminal so that's where the wires will connect.

Here's where the bus stop will sit once this section is placed above Chicago Terminal.

A video of the trench I cut for the wires.

Length: 00:00:32 sec.

Fri, Apr 12, 2019

I had a full day off today and got quite a bit done on the RR...
My goal for today is to install the blinking lights on the center bridge support under Fulton Street and Milwaukee Avenue.

I started out at the workbench.
Since these are 3V LEDs I need to install a resistor.
I researched to see if it mattered if you connected the resistor to the (+) or the (-).
I tested both ways and the results were the same.
So it's true what they say, "You can wire up either way, it doesn't matter."

Here you can see I attached the feeder wires to the resistors connected to the LED.

Next I soldered everything together.

Wow! That was quick.
Already installed Fulton Street Center Bridge Support.

And here's how it looks all lit up.

This is a view of the other side of the bridge.
The back side, if you will.

Milwaukee Avenue
I brought the wires through from the center bridge support and sent one wire to the north side and one wire to the south side.
Why? You ask?
Because I thought it would be easier to fit three wires down the straw rather than all four. I think the maximum capacity is three, maybe four.

Fulton Street
Here's the back side view with the wires exposed. I do have the wires in the horizontal straws (conduit).
I'm going to wait until Rob comes on Monday to finish pulling the wires.
I'm afraid if I do it now, the wires will kink.