Signal Upgrades On The Railroad Continues For Morris Plains Interlocking

Greetings followers of the A.P.R.R. and my blog!

While we wait to get back to a somewhat normal state of being, it hasn't stopped me from working on the railroad. In my quest to have the railroad run bi-directional to and from staging and Rock Ridge, I needed to have signals added to the layout. 

Back in October I posted how I added signals for the engineers to proceed to and from staging at Morris Plains.

Dwarf Signals were also added at the Rock Ridge Yard Limit. 

It was brought up by the guys who I run trains with that since I can control the crossovers at Morris Plains by the dispatch area during an operating session, there should be some indicators to show if the crossover is normal or diverging. It's a good idea so I wired a pair of bi-directional LED's and proceeded to add them to panel. 

Before I can get them mounted I had to add a relay to each crossover. I use Atlas Snap Relays as they work well with the Atlas Switches. It was easy to add them since I had a terminal strip in place for each crossover. Just add the wires from the strip to the relay, making sure they go to the right screws, run 2 sets of 30+ feet 4 conductor 22 gauge wire around the layout to another set of terminal strips. Add the LED's and we're good to go!

We now have turnout aspects for Morris Plains at the dispatch area. I may add LED's to the panel over at Morris Plains as well. We shall see.

So what's next? 2021 will start the signal upgrades to West Harold and Little Jamaica Interlocking so that both tracks are bi-directional and controlled by the dispatcher. We will also upgrade the signals on the mainline. Mainline signals will be Pennsy style and the tracks to & from Rock Ridge and staging will be "D" head signals. 

Here's a sneak peak of what's to come for the mainline signals, courtesy of my signal maker, Custom Signal Systems in Utah. This is my signal that he sent me. A pair of these for the mainline and 4 stand alone PRR signals, all prototypical in size and all LED's!

Thanks for reading. Hope everyone stays healthy and safe!