Charlie B Wrote:It is really starting to shape up. Great pictures too. Won't be too long until you can quit working on it and start enjoying it.
It seems like it takes forever to get the first train running, but after that it is fun to just build and detail things.

Thank you Charlie. Definitely making progress. I'll be glad when the wiring is completed. That started out fun, enjoyed running the conduit under the layout, all that. But making all the wiring connections in 60+ junction boxes is getting to be a bit monotonous. But I am almost there, and it will be a great feeling knowing it is all accomplished. From there, it is scenery and structures and detail! Of course, the ballasting and painting the track will probably get pretty tsdious also... there's alot of it to be done!

P5se Camelback Wrote:Thanks for the great long shots of your GERN Facility... every additional view helps!

You're very welcome.

P5se Camelback Wrote:I still have trouble with GP7 / GP9 and with most of the current ones I'm just totally lost, but then , the young guys don't know what the Whyte System is, or why a Wooten firebox was shapped the way it was, so maybe we're even.

Well, not only do I not know the newer diesels, I also don't know anything about older diesels or the Whyte system or a wooten firebox! But I can spot a GP30!

O.K., today's lesson is all about how to spot the two types of steam locomotive fireboxes that are not of the USRA (United States Railway Association) design.

The Belpaire firebox we should all be able to spot - the Pennsy used them - the have "square corners" at the top. Quite a few locomotives in the U.K. had this firebox as well.

The Wooten firebox (Mister BiL's favorite ) is very wide, very deep and has an overall fat, rounded appearance. It was the reason Camelbacks came into being ... anthracite needs more grate area to get a hot enough fire to generate the necessary steam pressure. The cab was placed in front of the firebox as it was believed that the engineer would have better forward vision that way. However, it made for difficult communication between the engineer and the fireman. There was also the problem of a thown side rod from very tall drivers rotating at a high rate of speed cutting a nice foot-wide swath through the cab and taking the major part of the locomotive engineer with it. hock: When locomotives got larger, that cab was moved to the rear, solving both problems.

O.K. ... that's it in a nutshell ... today's lesson is over.

pictures! pictures!

That train looks great winding around the layout, Gary. WOOHOO? Yeah, and YEEHAW! too.

Wayne

O.K. ... a picture ...

[attachment=5200]

86" Drivers ... imaging the main rods at 85 or 90 mph ... now imagine a main rod coming loose at that speed .,,

We don't need pictures of that.

Interesting ... I never noticed that on the pony truck, the front wheels are spoked and the rear ones are solid ... Hmmmmm ...

BTW, the wheels on the trailing truck are 56"dia.

So the Wooten firebox is the big ol thing at the back of the boiler and was better for burning certain types of fuel than others? And the Whyte system was a method of capturing the condensate water from the piston cylinders through a series of valves and bypass orifices, whereupon it fed back through a preheater piping system which used boiler heat as the medium, and then returning the heated condensate water to the boiler which contributed to the increased efficiency and distance between stops of the locomotive?

BTW... your photo appears to have been scrambled in translation through the net. I fixed it for you:

[attachment=19823]

Geez, Gary! You catch on quickly!

See, Class? Now, there's a good student! You should all follow Gary's example and make up you own explanation, complete with Photoshopped examples and illustrations! Then maybe some day, you will win the Nobel Prize for Global Warming!!!

Woo Hoo!

Just to provide a counterpoint to Gary's "Excellent Layout Wiring Adventure", here's my power connection to the layout:

[attachment=19824]

While there's a little more wiring to allow me to select which type of throttle I wish to use, this is the connection to the track. And everybody keeps saying how DCC simplifies wiring?

Wayne (keeping it simple for "Stupid")

Glad you fixed that picture up...That loco did look kinda strange...What I can't figure out yet is what that grid of tubes on the top of the boiler right behind the stack is for....Is that part of the Whyte system..??

Geez, Wayne! I've been laughing so hard ... I literally lost control of ...

Oh ... hock:

All of a sudden I'm reminded of a small cartoon that I drew and had framed and hung on the wall in my office at Sperry (Univac). With a tip o'the hat to Charles Shultz, there stood Charlie Brown, in a dark blue suit. In the balloon over his head it said, "Doing a good job around here is like peeing in your pants in a dark blue suit ... you get a warm feeling but no one notices!"

O.K., then ... ah ... AFK ... BRB!

doctorwayne Wrote:Just to provide a counterpoint to Gary's "Excellent Layout Wiring Adventure", here's my power connection to the layout:

DocWayne, I have always wondered if the DCC gurus have sold us a pig in a poke on the wiring they claim is necessary to make a system work properly. It would be an interesting experiment to use only one feeder to my entire layout and see if it would work. I would do an experiment, but with all the track tied together with the bus and the drops, there will still be umpteen parallel paths once we got past the single feeder.

Reminds me of a discussion I had with an old-timer LHS owner awhile back. It was my very first visit to his shop because he is over an hour from my house. Anyway, we were discussing DCC and my plans on how I would wire the new layout using large gauge wire due to the distances from the command station, and that I wanted to buy a booster to supplement the power and help with the voltage drop at the far corners of the layout.

He looked at me and said "You don't need all that stuff, your single command station/power supply is enough and you certainly don't need that large wire for the bus either."

I countered with "But the corners of the layout are over 50 feet from the power supply."

And he asked me, "Do you know what the two most important conductors on your layout are?"

I thought for a minute, then figured it out, "The track?"

"There ya go" he said.

As a side note - I looked around the shop awhile and found several things I needed - rail cutter, decals, brake wheels, etc. Total came to nearly $30. I pulled out the credit card:

Him: "Sorry, I don't accept credit cards"

Me : "Oh man, I don't have any cash on me today."

Him: "Well, here is my card with the address - just send me a check when you get home."

Was very nice of him to trust me like that! And of course, I put the check in the mail as soon as I got home.

Okay, enough of the recollections. DocWayne, don't you have about 200 feet of main? I assume all your rail joints are soldered? Nickel silver or brass? You're on DC, right? So with only one feeder, is it possible to run several trains at the same time?

Oh... one more thought that dawned on me: There is a difference between "complicated wiring" and "lots of wiring"! The claim that DCC is simpler is based on the old school "multiple blocks" of the DC system.

doctorwayne Wrote:Just to provide a counterpoint to Gary's "Excellent Layout Wiring Adventure", here's my power connection to the layout:

[attachment=19825]

While there's a little more wiring to allow me to select which type of throttle I wish to use, this is the connection to the track. And everybody keeps saying how DCC simplifies wiring?

Wayne (keeping it simple for "Stupid")

When I was building the layout in my other house I had 28 remote switches that were operated from the control panel. Some of the wiring runs were over 40 feet so I took a huge spool of 18 ga wire to my back yard and made a wiring harness using a tagging system that the electrician that wired our power plant gave me.
There were 84 wires to the switches (3 ea) and I included extra wires for future lighting and new switches. Not knowing that you can't run trains on 18 Ga wire, I also ran 2 wires to each of 20 blocks. (every joint is soldered except insulated ones).I wrapped this as a wiring harness that you would find in a car. Everything fit.
I used a high voltage capacitor discharge system to throw the machines, and soldered all the terminals to the wiring instead of crimping them. It still functions today, and I've never had a problem, which is really good because I wouldn't have the foggiest idea where to look, and the trains run fine, as many as 12 locomotives at a time on a double 3 amp old style MRC power pac. Hence the saying....I'd rather be lucky than good.
I have hooked my PA DCC to the layout, and it too works fine with no Mods.
Charlie

You old-timers are giving me a complex. If trains will run on DocWayne's large layout with just a wee bit of copper between the controller and the track, I am betting that my trains will run equally as well with some big ol' copper 'tween supply and track!