New Update to the Layout

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad! 

The work continues on adding details and structures to the layout in readiness for the September Open House. One of the items on the list was a large flat structure to add under the display case on the south wall. 

I had from DPM Products the Powerhouse Kit. The original plan was to build it and use it on the layout as a power plant situated between Tropicana and Cargill. However, that went out the window when one of my friends from Georgia made me buy the Menards Power Plant (Thanks Engineer Ed!)

Since I didn't want this kit to go to waste, and I had a large area without details, I figured I would take the kit, make it into an abandoned flat building and add it to the wall area. 

Here's the building as purchased....

I used small lower walls (not shown) and while the kit had six of the cathedral type windows, I bought a few more. There are 12 sections to this flat structure. Windows on both sides to simulate stairwells on each end of the building. The overall length is 33 1/4". It's huge and fits just right..

The one thing that I'm not happy with are the windows. I sprayed them with weathering, but should have sprayed them black. Took a scrap piece and sprayed it black over the weathering color to no avail. I took the kit back to the workbench and proceeded to take the windows off and will replace them with ones in black. Here's the new look..

Next, I moved one of the flats that I had temporarily placed in Rock Ridge Yard over to the south wall next to the Powerhouse flat to give the rest of the wall more abandon buildings.

I like the way the rest of the wall is turning out. Today, one of the guys from our train group offered to build a flat for me in anticipation of the open house layout tour. He did some great work for one of the other guys. I asked him if he would make a 4 truck loading flat that I could put on the other side of the track by Ideal Auto Parts. Based on his talent, he said he can do it. The target date to have it on my railroad is September 10th. 

Thanks for reading! 

A Little Amtrak Fun

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad! 

Last might I had a couple of my friends over to run trains, since I'm not going to be around for a couple weeks. I invited my two senior layout operators, NJ John and Norman the official APRR event photographer. NJ John brought over a set of Amtrak Phase I Metroliners to test run. 

The night started out just fine, until NJ John put the last Metroliner car on the layout, #822, a DCC sound equipped coach. For reasons which we figured out later, he couldn't get it to run as it was showing in consist. In the world of DCC, units in consist usually have 2 or more engines made to run at the same time. Now NJ John is our resident DCC guy for our group, but this on puzzled him. So, what do most of us do when we can't get something to work the way we want it to? We hit all the buttons at random! Meanwhile, I went to move a train, and I couldn't, as it only showed the loco number and not in consist. Then I went to browse my consists on my NCE ProCab and ALL of my consists were gone! Whatever NJ John did, he wiped out all of my consists in the system. How did this happen? It turns out I had an Amtrak P42 engine with #822 on it. While it was on a track with no power, it was in a consist in the system. We realized why, and after we got the Metroliners to run, they helped me re-consist all of the sets of engines paired up. 

They do look nice and run well. Walthers made them with just one powered truck in each car. No dummy units were made by them. You could buy DC / DCC Ready or DCC with sound, which can run on DC. 

A little railfanning for your enjoyment!

A run by near Rock Ridge Yard

Metroliners thru the Amtrak Station

A little view at night!

The night was enjoyable! Thanks for reading!

New Update to the Engine Terminal

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad! We're making progress slowly but surely as the NMRA / NER Convention is less than 3 months away.

On the last update I showed some photos of the Richmond Hill Engine Terminal and how the tracks should line up from the turntable. Since it was a slow work day, I decided to head to the train room just before dinner and start to work on the 3 remaining tracks that needed to be aligned to the turntable. 

Two of them went in fairly quick and aligned to the turntable as well. The last track, which is on the east side of the engine building, wasn't cooperating the way the others went in. Took a break and went back at it after dinner. The last track is installed. 

All that is left is to add the wire drops, then make the panel as each track will be able to be turned off when not being used. 

The engine terminal has its own power booster, which is 5 AMPS. In the world of DCC, depending on the engine, and if it has sound or not, the power drain can add up. The engines are always lit up, but not moving, so there is some current going to the engines. Based on a rough count, the engine capacity on the lower level is as follows:

Turntable tracks - 6 engines
Engine house - 5 tracks, 3 engines max on a track = 15 engines
Diesel service tracks - 2 tracks 4 engines max = 8 engines
Diesel service track - 1 track 2 engines
Tracks opposite service tracks - 2 tracks hold 3 engines each = 6 engines. 

That's a grand total of 37 engines at full capacity, PLUS one on the turntable for a grand total of 38 engines! There's a handful of engines currently parked down below with sound. That's why EVERY track where an engine can be parked will have a cut off switch to shut down the power to that section. The service tracks are currently set up to do that.

That's all for today. Please keep checking back for more updates leading up to the convention, new arrivals, and of course, the P.C.C.M. virtual op train movements!