Week 422

 Sun, Aug 28, 2022 thru Sat, Sep 3, 2022

Sun, Aug 28, 2022

No train activity today.

Mon, Aug 29, 2022

Train Day!

w/Rob Fair

6-8pm

I produced a couple of videos for the Aug 2022 Monthly Update.

See Wed, Aug 31, 2022 entry for the YouTube video.

Here's what we did tonight...

You will see this video again later embedded 

in the monthly update...

Duration: 00:00.19 sec.

Rob Fair picked up the four (4) box cars in the
Industrial Park to prepare for pick up by the next train.

Here are the four (4) cars ready for pickup
on the transfer track near the mainline.

Tue, Aug 30, 2022

No train activity today.

Wed, Aug 31, 2022

I wanted to publish the monthly layout update today, but ran into some snags when trying to upload my videos to my Google Drive. For some reason, the top video wouldn't upload. It stalled. UGH!

Here's my updated "Mug Shot"

or this one...

I wonder why one is more square than the other.

I don't remember changing any setting?

Thu, Sep 1, 2022

Yeah, I published the August 2022 Layout Update Video today.

Click here

to view the YouTube Video Layout Update if you haven't done so already.

I also got some other work done on the layout.

Check this out...

Starting to draw lines for the crosswalks.
One set complete.

All four are finished.
I still need to fill in the "blocks"
as you will see in the next photo.

This is a Google image of a intersection crosswalk.
I will use this as my template for completed this project.

Fri, Sep 2, 2022

|Working on the RR...

Preparing the crosswalk for painting.

Paint is on!

Removed the tape to reveal a lot of "bleeding".

Fixed the "bleeding" with black felt-tip marker.

Lastly, I mounted the traffic signal controller under the layout.

When I was hooking up the 4th traffic light I heard a "POP!" Oh no!

One of the wires popped out of the socket. I'll need to rewire that under the layout someday.

Next UP?

Start wiring up the traffic signals. I'm anxious to get that started.

Should be some interesting pictures.

Sat, Sep 3, 2022

I was up early this morning and I was determined to fix that street light.

I did and here's what it looks like...

First I had to bring my soldering gun
under the layout.

Then I had to connect the wire at the top
with a new resistor (see top arrow).
Unfortunately you can't see it now
since it's covered in shrink wrap.
The bottom arrow shows the shrink wrap
over the splice where I cut the wire to insert
the new wire as shown.

The next big step was to turn on the
lights to see if I made a proper connection.

And the results are in...

SUCCESS!

A very nicely lit intersection.

One more thing...

I connected the overhead lights to the same circuit as the other street lights.

You may ask, "Why?"

Well, you see, if I want the street lights illuminated but not the traffic lights, 

I can do that when I switch on the overhead lights.

 

I will probably only run the traffic lights 

when I have guests and want them to see the details. 

Make sense?

I did the same thing with the traffic lights in downtown Chicago around Union Station.

Both sets of traffic lights are on a separate switch you can turn off and on at will.