Lostentry - Bernhard's random ramblings

Productive Weekend

2012-02-12T23:32:00.000-08:00

This has been a productive weekend.

Stub-ended staging track 2 is set for departure

I rebuilt the stub-ended staging yard, added more power feeds and squeezed in some more track. The switch ladder is now fully powered and integrated with JMRI. The logix are set up to throw the switch ladder and set an imaginary signal to Green when leaving the staging yard. Also, when setting the route for an arriving train, the cross-over on the staging ramp is thrown automatically.

I actually relaid the staging tracks 3 times, because M-track was giving me some connectivity issues. I hope I have that worked out now. Time will tell...

The decoder "bank"

Next was adding another DS64 to the main decoder panel. The panel was originally envisioned as the central place where all electronics is located. Over time that turned out to be not such a smart idea, and I came to appreciate a model of components distributed on the layout and connected by LocoNet. Nethertheless, there *are* a lot of solenoid driven turnouts in staging, and the signals in Talheim, so it made sense to group the decoders driving those units together.

Finally, I spent some time to install and connect the first semaphore signal in Emsingen. This signal is known as "A". Since there is a facing point turnout in Emsingen, the signal needs to be able to signal both "Stop" (Hp0), "Go" (Hp1), as well as "Slow" (Hp2). I wrote JMRI logix to control what the signal shows based on which route is chosen through the station. Below is what the signal shows, as well as what's shown on the layout panel in JMRI. Yes, JMRI introduced the concept of signal masts in version 2.14 which should render quite a bit of my custom routing and signalling logix obsolete. However, what I have works, and I don't feel like ripping it all out at the moment. There are more interesting work items ahead of doing _that_...

"Stop" (Hp0)

"Go" (Hp1)

"Slow" (Hp2)

Fourth Operations session of the Welztalbahn

2012-02-05T21:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, the 4th operations session of the Welztalbahn took place. Balazs joined me again, and Alex popped in for a little while.

I updated the schedule based on feedback I got at the LD/Ops SIG meeting last weekend. The biggest change is the addition of a local freight (Ng / Nahgueterzug) that runs from Prechtal staging to Emsingen early in the session, and a return trip to Prechtal staging near the end of the session. The intent was to make more use of existing staging capacity, as well as make use the engine servicing facility during the session. An unintended side-effect was that switching Emsingen became more involved. I'll likely revisit the yard in Emsingen in the near future to add a 4th yard track.

Another suggestion I implemented was parallel meets of passenger trains in Emsingen. While it's interesting visually, I'm underwhelmed about the operational need to run two trains up from staging on the same route back to back. However, I'll definitely take another look at this as part of running passenger locals from Prechtal only to Emsingen (possibly servicing and turning the engine in Emsingen), and returning back to Prechtal, without running the train all the way down to Freiburg staging.

For the first time I used the new stub-ended staging tracks under Kopper Furniture to hold the two freight locals from Hausach and Freiburg respectively, which freed up the main staging tracks for trains that make multiple appearances. Even though the track is still not mounted permanently in place, nor has feeders, it worked well enough. I really need to power the switches, though ... A side-effect of using these tracks is that I actually do need to spend a little bit more effort on staging the layout for a session.

While the layout mostly ran well, this session still had some problems:

Early on we tried to convince the freshly digitized BR141 locomotive to actually work. It appears I need to take the motor completely apart and clean it thoroughly. Even on straight DC the motor didn't run properly, and lots of arcing was visible around the commutator and the motor brushes.
BR86 got stuck regularly, and needed the commutator cleaned.
After throwing a switch on the down ramp towards Staging 2, JMRI and/or the Intellibox went into a fit, LocoNet got flooded with switch commands, and the switch got toggled endlessly. I had to power down the layout, exit JMRI and start over to clear this condition. Adding "breakers" to Logix to control whether groups of Logix rules are active should help to diagnose this condition further in the future.
Due to the missing BR141, the schedule couldn't be run as written, and we somewhat messed up towards the end of the session.

Overall, the session lasted for about 2.5 hours, and we ran 21 out of 23 scheduled trains.

Emsingen Engine facility track connected...

2012-02-03T07:50:00.000-08:00

I originally intended to use Flextrack to build the two tracks leading from the 3-way switch to the turntable. Which means, I wouldn't use the engine facility for quite a while. Last night I built a temporary connection from sectional track and for the first time ran an engine from Emsingen to the turntable and back. Things are starting to come together.

Emsingen town area

2012-01-23T18:33:00.000-08:00

I've been building the support structure for the town of Emsingen over the last week. Since the town will sit on top of the ramps between the layout levels, I'm planning to make it at least partially removable.

The brown area will house the Emsingen freight shed near the track. Depending on how space constraints work out, it will also support the lower parts of Emsingen, with the upper part of town (including the market square) sitting over the ramps in the corner. I simply used a 3/4" sheet of styrofoam (aka "Styropor") as the base, and cut it to the right shape. Messy as usual. I also reduced thickness a little bit around the freight shed area, so that the floors of cars on the track are at the same height as the loading dock. That said, the shed needs to connect to a small loading ramp that extends along the side of the track. The current arrangement is too diminutive. Maybe also scratch build an extension for the shed?

The "brown area" from below

The support framework will get in the way when cleaning track. I hope that by making the town removable, I can work on the town at the work bench in a somewhat comfortable seating position.

Boo-boo of the week

Oooops. Vertical clearance for the Prechtal staging track (center of photo) is 5 mm too low. That needs to get fixed.

The top of a wall

2012-01-22T17:55:00.000-08:00

After walking through Andy's Hobbys in Morgan Hill (not much train stuff there, but a good seletion for model car and plane enthusiasts), I picked up a piece of dimensional balsa wood that I figured might work well to top off the wall I added last year.

I managed to bend the balsa just enough to match the curve of the wall, and pinned it in place until the glue sets. I'll find out tomorrow if the glue will be strong enough to hold the piece in place. As it turns out the top is a bit on gracile side compared to the track ties. Oh well.

Eventually, I'll add a steel banister to prevent switch crews from falling off the wall.

Town and Freight area supports

2012-01-19T23:27:00.000-08:00

I'm about to fill in the empty corner in the back of the room shared by the freight shed, and the town of Emsingen. The bracing supporting the lower lying freight area and first row of houses is framed and glued in. I really need to get cooking on the layout of the actual town, and the detection sections in Hochwaldtunnel. While the town will be removable, access is starting to become tricky...

Thank you!

2012-01-19T16:01:00.000-08:00

Got some nice wine from a co-worker today :-)

Racing Fuel

2012-01-15T21:42:00.000-08:00

Seen at a 76 gas station in Saratoga. Yes, that's $7.99 per gallon of Racing Fuel.

View from the office

2012-01-12T13:25:00.000-08:00

From the extended weather forecast, I knew the rain was coming. Yet it was at the same time exciting ("yay. Wind and rain, and I'm in the middle"), and depressing ("urgh. I'm cold and wet. Want to sit by the fire and sip some hot chocolate").

Books

2012-01-11T08:35:00.000-08:00

Seen in the office library.

I love the combination of titles right next to each other.

Let it snow

2012-01-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

Contrary to last time I was in Cambridge, MA, today we got a real dusting of snow.

Ohne Worte

2012-01-06T21:37:00.001-08:00

At the station

2012-01-06T16:38:00.000-08:00

As I was waiting for my train home today, a northbound express Caltrain raced through Mountain View's Castro Street station at high speed. Like this ...

... When it had passed there was a lot of excitement on the north-bound platform. A group of teenage girls with their luggage was discussing the experience:

"Oh my God, that was so cool!"
"Yeah, it was ... like ... it almost hit me."

"This was ... like ... so ... like ... soo cool!"

"Wow!"

"I was ... like ... standing here, and ... like ... the train was passing here. All that wind, and ... like ... noise. I've never had seen that before."

It's nice to see people ... like ... get excited about trains.

Sunday at Point Lobos

2012-01-03T21:37:00.000-08:00

Definitely one of my favorite places along the coast...

Hochwaldtunnel, part 2

2012-01-01T23:16:00.000-08:00

Before I can permanently mount the "rocks" around Hochwaldtunnel, I need to build the actual tunnel tube.

Hochwaldtunnel portal

The tunnel portal is from Faller's premium series and made from foam. While the visual effect of the stone work is pretty good and it's easy to work with, overall I'm not particularly impressed by this tunnel portal. The foam is quite brittle, and I managed to break the portal near the crown stone. You can see the "fix" in the second photo below.

For the first part of the tunnel liner I'm using Noch granite wall stone paper. Yet another product I'm not impressed with, so I'm wasting it on the insides of tunnels. It has a nice stone structure embossed in the paper (contrary to some of the truly awful Faller stone papers), but the stone color is quite nasty, and to top it of, the sheet has a shiny finish (how lame is that?). When I paint the tunnel portal in the next step, I'll also paint the liner fading to black in the back. After the stone paper is plain old black construction paper, cut to fit. I like using construction paper inside tunnels since it has a flat finish, is reasonably sturdy, while still flexible enough to bend out of the way to gain access in emergencies. And of course, it nicely creates the "pitch black" look of a tunnel as demonstrated in my first tunnel built last summer.

side view

Since Hochwaldtunnel butts up against the room wall, the track inside is curved, and I need to be able to access the tunnel from underneath the layout, the tunnel "tube" is modelled only on the right hand side of the tunnel. The left hand side is open for access. Because of the room wall, one can't see the left hand tunnel wall. I will likely make it just a "curtain" of black construction paper once the tunnel is installed.

top view

The last photo from the top nicely shows the curved arrangement, and how the black construction paper acts as view block for folks attempting to look straight into the tunnel portal. I made the ribs supporting the paper tube from corrugated cardboard this time. The plywood ribs used last time are very sturdy, but the extra sturdiness wasn't really worth the additional effort compared to cardboard. I glued everything with Titebond II, a waterproof wood glue, that develops a good tack quickly, dries clear, and works very well with most porous materials.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T00:57:00.000-08:00

It's beautiful here.

What will the new year bring?

Let's jump onboard and find out.

Hochwaldtunnel

2012-01-01T00:30:00.000-08:00

First test arrangement of the painted tree bark. It looks quite OK on the right, but the pieces above the tunnel portal are too regular. I'll probably either break or replace the middle piece to get a bit more variety. The gaps between the pieces will be filled in with either Scuptamold or sculpting plaster. The top of both walls will be filled in with plaster and vegetation.

While the inside of the tunnel is pitch-black on the photo, it's not quite as dark in reality. A tunnel liner is in the works.

Bluetooth micro keyboard for Grumpy

2011-12-31T11:03:00.000-08:00

I picked up this micro keyboard on sale at Central Computers. It connects via Bluetooth to Grumpy, my MythTV box, and acts as a regular keyboard and mouse pad in both X Windows and the text console. It's functional, yet tiny. I wouldn't use it for programming, or email, but it's perfectlly sufficient for MythTV's keyboard shortcuts and or typing in a search box.

I'm using an Ambicom USB Bluetooth receiver, and the standard Linux Bluetooth stack. Adding the keyboard to Linux was trivially easy with the Gnome Bluetooth applet. The keyboard is found and recognized automatically. Aside from the Bluetooth pairing process no configuration was required.

Asus AT5IonT-I, MythTV, HDMI, Debian squeeze = no sound

2011-12-30T17:38:00.000-08:00

Grumpy, my MythTV computer, is getting a hardware upgrade. I wanted a fanless motherboard with onboard graphics, which severely limited the choices. Eventually I settled on the Asus AT5IonT-I which comes with a dual-core Atom processor, NVidia ION2 graphics, Gigabit Ethernet, all digital video (DVI and HDMI), one PCI-E expansion slot.

I later found out that the Deluxe version of this motherboard has a DC 19V input, so could be powered with a common laptop power supply, and run completely fan-less. Oh well ... instead I found that this is the first motherboard in the house that has a 24pin ATX12V power socket. While the socket accepts the traditional 20pin ATX plug, I opted for a new power supply with a temperature controlled fan (Antec Basiq 350W). The setup runs *very* quietly, especially compared to the previous setup.

Since one of the Seagate replacement drives showed up recently, I could build the new system without having to take apart the existing system. The install with Debian Squeeze worked reasonably well, with the only hiccup being my indecision on what I wanted the file system layout to be, and the need for building the RAID array with a missing drive. The AT5IonT-I comes with a RealTek GigE network adapter, which needs non-free firmware. One needs to jump through a few hoops to get the firmware file in place during the network-based install.

Migrating MythTV was surprisingly easy. I mostly followed the instructions from the MythTV site, and eventually moved one drive from the old system to the new system. After a few hours of copying, the files were on the new disk, and I could add the old disk to the RAID on the new system.

So far, so good.

Then the trouble began. The usual dance debian-style to add the non-free NVidia drivers quickly produced a decent desktop picture. I adjusted the resolution to 1360x768 instead of the default 1280x720 reported by my Sharp TV. Oh, did I mention that this motherboard has a HDMI connector? Sounds great. Though, there wasn't any sound. An extended excursion into the depths of ALSA, HDA, and HDMI sounds on Linux followed. What a mess.

aplay -l consistently did not show the NVidia sound card with HDMI. alsamixer always told me that "This card has no controls", so there was no SPDIF output to unmute. Debian Squeeze comes with alsa 1.0.23, and a NVidia 195.x driver for kernel 2.6.34. Combine this with the setup of the AT5IonT-I which has both an Intel HDA sound, and NVidia HDA HDMI sound built-in, and I could not get HDMI sound working, no matter what probe settings I chose, manually loading kernel modules, etc.

Eventually, I relented and upgraded the machine to Debian Wheezy (i.e. testing). It comes with alsa 1.0.24, NVidia 290.x and kernel 3.1.0. The usual apt-get dist-upgrade dance took place, which included a fun Perl dependency during the uninstall of libwmf0.2-7 failing on File::Copy (hence aborting the dist-upgrade leaving the packages in an inconsistent state) because we got a partially updated Perl 5.14 module set.

However, once that was all set and done, setting NVidia HDA HDMI as the default sound card in the Gnome Audio Settings, and adjusting the MythTV settings, I got crystal-clear sound. I also set MythTV to use VDPAU for hardware-accelerated video-playback, which substantially improved the video quality of 720p and higher recordings.

All of this would have been A LOT easier had I trusted my gut and installed Wheezy from the start.

A side-note on GNOME3:
What have they done to this previously really usable window manager? It's not quite as annoying as Ubuntu's Unity, but the default GNOME3 is merely pretty and looks good. Once one tries to use it, workflows that used to take one mouse click and a drag, now require at least 3-5 mouse clicks on different parts of the screen.
I can SEARCH for an app by TYPING its name in a search box. How brain-dead is that for a desktop environment?
It appears that the developers took all the ideas of MacOS and Windows (the ones that make you move the mouse a lot), picked the worst of both worlds and combined them into GNOME3.

Regular GNOME3 also interacts badly with the menues in MythTV frontend.

GNOME3 Classic with the regular menu structure is usable, and works fine with MythTV frontend, though if I encounter any more issues, I'm switching to another window manager.

If it weren't for MythVideo, I'd run MythTV frontend without any window manager...

---

After all this trouble Grumpy really deserves its name now. While this whole exercise took almost 3 days of elapsed time, it was a learning experience, so at least I got something out of it.

Freight Depot

2011-12-29T11:57:00.000-08:00

While gathering all the pieces I need to rebuild a computer for the train room, I also made progress on other work items on my list.

The freight shed for Emsingen is almost done.

Gueterschuppen (office side)

Gueterschuppen (street side)

Visually, I like the office side of the freight shed a lot better than the rear side. Since the track serving the freight shed is to the right of the station building, I'll likely arrange the shed so that the office faces the the station. The drawback with that arrangement is that there's only the short covered loading ramp facing the track. And the office is in the way of loading doors, too. Oh well, when there's ground to put the shed on I'll try out what works best and go from there. I need to add the lights for the loading ramps, as well as a little lamp above the office door, and I'm still toying with the idea to add actual office furniture inside, but only if it'll be visible from the Emsingen operating pit, so that will have to wait a while until I make up my mind. The shed is painted and lightly weathered. I especially like the effect of the corrugated roof.

Hochwaldtunnel with bark "rocks"

Years ago I read about a method to make "rock walls" from tree bark. Pascal and I tried that out yesterday, and while the color of the rocks came out a bit too dark, the result is definitely workable.

Hence the "Hochwald project" was born:

Before going back to work on Jan 3rd, the plan is to finish the rock cuts around the Hochwald tunnel entrance, the tunnel portal, as well as the trees and deco in the Hochwald corner of the layout.

The semaphore in the photo is the north entrance signal to Talheim, but won't stay here. Instead I'll allow switching moves all the way to the tunnel portal and add a "Halt fuer Rangierfahrten" sign to the tunnel portal. This matches the detection sections I already set up, and makes explaining the Talheim switching limits a lot simpler. Even though, after I added Kopper furniture and related switches in Talheim, most operators don't use this section of track for their switching moves anymore at all.

The Talheim entrance signal will be imagined to be on the "other side" of Hochwaldtunnel and be represented on a signaling board mounted to the back wall, whose LEDs will be controlled by the SIC24D that drives the Emsingen panel. That signaling board will eventually also display track occupancy of the long tunnel track between Emsingen and Talheim.

The semaphore will become the south entrance signal of Emsingen.

Christmas Tree is done

2011-12-24T13:26:00.001-08:00

10 feet - 500 lights - 4 hours

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T09:31:00.001-08:00

Oooops!

2011-12-23T14:44:00.000-08:00

I think, I need to buy more Christmas lights...

Vacation has begun ...

2011-12-21T23:37:00.000-08:00

... and I don't need to feel guilty for staying up late to work on models.

This is the well-known Faller "Gueterbahnhof", a model that has been around forever. I decided to try a couple different techniques with this building to get back in the swing of building plastic models. Out of the box the model is way too colorful for my taste. Red brick walls, green wood rafters, gray paneling, brown window frames, ...
The walls don't look like bricks to me at all, but are sized more like cement blocks, so I painted the walls Aged Cement gray. For the rafters I used Leather brown. The window frames are painted in a thin coat of Rust. The outside flooring is painted in Cement, the inside flooring CSX Gray (PollyScale colors).
I don't have a nice green tone for the doors at hand, so I left them alone. The outside walls were treated with a light wash of black India Ink in Isopropyl alcohol. Once I'm completely done with the building, and weathering, I'll seal everything with Dullcote, which will also remove the plastic sheen from the freight doors.
I'm planning to add some freight boxes on the loading dock, and inside the building, so I touched up the inside walls with dirty White. This building will probably be tricked out with four to five grain of rice miniature filament lamps (one each above the loading docks, one in the office, one above the office door, possibly one in the loading area). The lamps will need to be dimmed a bit, so that they last longer, and the light doesn't shine through the thin plastic walls. I might try to add some office "furniture", too ...

Switching with a control stand throttle

2011-12-18T10:54:00.000-08:00

This is very cool.
Makes very effective use of slow decoder deceleration, and NCE's brake functionality.

Winter in Android Land

2011-12-16T09:22:00.000-08:00

Seagate's 2TB SATA drives

2011-12-14T21:40:00.000-08:00

A year ago I added two 2TB SATA drives made by Seagate to grumpy, my MythTV machine, and set them up as a RAID1. I got the Barracuda Green 5900rpm drives at a quite decent price.

The trouble started within weeks. The ominous "Seagate click". Study of various articles led to the conclusion that in this drive family this is some harmless recalibration during times when the disk has been idle for a while. Not the well-known "click of death", when the disk heads can't read the servo information on the platters any more. Aside from a firmware upgrade (which more or less just makes this calibration less audible), one could prevent the click by making sure there's at least one disk access every 30 seconds or so.

Anyways, that was dealt with. A year later, in late October, one of the two disks got thrown out of the RAID array due to failure to read a sector. Since this is a giant data volume with lots of movies and videos, I got a replacement drive at a local store (at a higher price than I paid last year, thanks to the flodds in Thailand), installed it and resynced the RAID. Good.

I sent the disk to Seagate for warranty replacement. A refurbished drive arrived promptly a few weeks later. On Monday the replacement drive I bought new in October got thrown out of the array with a bad sector. I ran a SMART self-test, and sure enough, the self-test reports unreadable sectors.

Not a problem, I still have that replacement drive in the closet, install that, re-sync the mirror over night, go to bed, and ... the sync didn't even complete before the drive got thrown out of the array with read errors. In the morning, I left the drive in the machine, and went to work with a plan to take a closer look in the evening. Just after dinner, there it was, ... the "click of death". The replacement drive didn't last even 24 hours.

So, now I have two bad drives that are going back to Seagate tomorrow, and a replacement Green drive from Western Digital should show up by Friday.

Sometimes I hate technology.

At Lunch

2011-12-12T22:36:00.000-08:00

BLT PIZZA!

Found it!

2011-12-10T14:10:00.001-08:00

After quite a bit of searching I finally found the short circuit in the Emsingen power district.

It's here:

Can't see it? Here's another view:

Still can't see it? How about in this photo?

Yep.
I screwed up when I installed the track 9 months ago and didn't pay proper attention to the connecting latches between these two switches. One latch was bent so that it touched the rail when the neighboring switch was pushed down onto the track bed.
This only became a problem a couple weeks ago when I glued down the last track in Emsingen's freight area. I don't glue switches to the roadbed since they have moving parts underneath, so when the loose track seen in the first photo was glued down it pushed down the switch, which pushed down the rail, and made it touch the bent latch.
Ripping out the newly installed track didn't help, because the ends of the switch where tacked down during installation and got some glue, too, so the switch stayed in position. I'm actually glad it stayed put, since a persistent problem is a hell of a lot easier to debug ...

Using the continuity tester in my ampmeter and following the resistance readings, I was able to reduce the problem to the general area of the north switches in Emsingen.

I found the bad latch only after I clamped the leads to the rails and pressed on tracks and switches, as well as lifted them from the roadbed where possible until the beeping stopped.

At that point I could control the beeper by pressing on the joint, and I knew I had a winner.

Fixing it required some gentle force with a screwdriver to bend the latch out of the way.

Total Eclipse of the Moon in San Jose

2011-12-10T13:59:00.001-08:00

This morning I got up a bit early, and took Pascal and Tatjana to see the total eclipse of the moon from the eastern foothills. The picture is a tad shaky (even though I used a tripod), and the camera / lens is not taking this well, but as can be seen in the picture ... the moon is indeed red.

A little bit later we drove over to Santa Teresa County Park, to see if I could get a better shot. Unfortunately by the time we got there the moon was so dark and low above the horizon that it no longer was visible.

However, the sunrise was quite nice.

Time to go home and have breakfast...

Holiday Preparations

2011-12-02T17:28:00.001-08:00

"I'd like to watch some TV ..."

2011-11-27T20:25:00.001-08:00

"... could you please bring my phone?"

The wonders of Mythmote.

When something goes wrong ...

2011-11-25T17:29:00.001-08:00

... it usually happens in more than one place at a time.

The laptop I use as train computer developed a memory problem. The BIOS disables any memory above 88M due to a failure during POST. Yes, that laptop was quite slow, but it did the job, and has a beautiful, huge 1900x1600 display. Evaluating my options:

I can go out and buy a cheap desktop computer, put it in the server rack, and run VGA/keyboard through the KVM to the 15" monitor at the rack. That would likely work out to be a DualCore or low-end i3.
Ditto, but get just a low-end, low-power motherboard, and memory. One of the current pseudo-embedded CPUs, or Atoms, should do just fine. Install it in a spare computer case and put it into the rack.
Try and make do with the 88M memory, convert the laptop to a dumb X-Terminal, (potentially remote boot it), and run JMRI on the server with a remote X session to the laptop. Technically a bit more interesting, a bit more involved, and actually not really something I'm particularly keen on. I get enough overly complicated setups at work.

I think I'm going to throw hardware at the problem, and go with either option 1. or option 2. and give up on the nice display.

---

The Emsingen power district of the layout developed a short circuit some time in the last 48 hours and I have no idea what caused this. The PSX circuit breaker is solidly reporting a short. All 3 PSX's LEDs flicker roughly every 2-3 seconds, and the amp-meter shows an inrush of current at the same time. Evaluating my options:

When I installed semaphores yesterday, something got on the track and is causing a short. I brushed down all tracks in Emsingen. No dice.
Maybe a locomotive has a shorted out decoder, or some car is derailed. Removed all rolling stock from Emsingen. No dice.
When I cut and glued down the north stub track next to the loading ramp on Wednesday, I somehow caused a short. Unlikely, but I ripped out this piece of flextrack anyways. No dice... Now that's annoying.
I somehow jumbled track wires underneath Emsingen. No idea how that even could have happened. Did a visual check, and all connections look good.
Powered off everything. Maybe the PSX just got confused. Nope, problem still there.
Maybe the PSX is bad. Put the district on another PSX for testing. Still to do.

---

Patricia's computer developed an interesting file system problem. It appears that when the system stats some inode linked from her home directory, the operation hangs forever. This causes process like Nautilus or ls to go into state D+. I can kill -9 the process from another terminal, and get back the prompt. I can do tab completion (e.g. type ls .[TAB] and get a list of all files starting with '.'). I haven't tried every character yet. There are no hard disk related errors in dmesg. smartctl reports the hard disk recorded no internal errors either. I'm suspecting ext4 file system corruption, and will try an fsck next.

---

Bottom-line: What the hell is going on today?

Wireless stopped working ...

2011-11-22T17:30:00.001-08:00

Out of the blue, wireless networking stopped working on our Dell Inspiron 1440. It runs Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, and no system update was performed before things stopped working. The Network Manager menu in Gnome shows Wireless Network Disabled, and Wired Network as Disconnected. Meanwhile other laptops in the house have no problem connecting to the wireless network, so this must be something local to this laptop.

In digging through Network Manager, iwconfig, iwlist, wpa_supplicant and friends, all I could come up with was that /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state lists WirelessEnabled=False. Manually setting this to True and restarting NetworkManager gets us plenty of log messages that show the device exists, and then gets disabled.

Finally, I realized that someone must have pressed the Disable Wireless button on the keyboard. Pressing it again resolved the problem. Sometimes it's the simple things ...

Mickey's Fantasmic! vs. World of Colors

2011-11-14T17:28:00.001-08:00

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of watching both the "World of Color" show at Disney's California Adventure, and "Mickey's Fantasmic!" show at Disneyland back to back.

Both shows are very well attended outdoor evening shows, so getting there early (and getting the Fastpass for World of Color) is highly recommended. Both shows are good and fun to watch.

What struck me more, though, were the differences both in style and execution.

World of Color - California Adventure

Let's start with "World of Color". This show transforms the big lagoon at California adventure into a colorful spectacle of water fountains, mixed with movie scenes projected on screens made out of water. The execution was flawless. The color effects are mesmerizing. The fountains fantastic. However, to me it felt like this show was "built by committee".

World of Color - Movie projected on water fountain

The show started off with a season appropriate opener involving a Christmas theme. The fountains were colorful and impressive. From then on short sequences from well-known animated movies, old and new, played back to back with fountain sequences. Some sequences where upbeat, funny, others a bit scary, or dark. I'm still scratching my head why a segment from "Pirates of the Caribbean, On Stranger Tides" was included. The mermaids in the segment are really not Ariel-style family fare... At the end of the show I was both impressed and disappointed. The technical part of it was fantastic, but the whole thing lacked ... heart.

Mickey's Fantasmic!

After a mad dash from California Adventure we made it just in time to Disneyland's Rivers of America for "Mickey's Fantasmic!" . This show also uses water screens for movie sequences, but uses the Pirate's Lair island as a very effective stage for Mickey directing lights, fireworks, and fountains, as well as acting as background for the witch's magic potion scene and even a full-size dragon.

Mickey and the Dragon

Some movie scenes mix with live action of dancing princesses, Peter Pan fighting Captain Hook with the crocodile on their tail... and generally, compared to World of Color, less computer-controlled, more hand-made action. Even though (maybe because) Fantasmic! was a bit less polished, to me it had a lot more charme.

Bottom-line: Try to see both shows, especially when you're in the parks more than one day. Watching the shows back to back is probably only feasible during a slow week outside the summer months, because the viewing areas fill up quickly. Even last week, on a somewhat rainy day, many people got there over an hour before the show started to reserve good spots.

Oh yeah, it's very hard to take any halfway decent pictures of either show...

Is that going to work?

2011-11-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

On the workbench

Building a Timesaver in N scale is a little side-project. Above is the result of one long evening. The track is cut, and partially glued down. Let's see how this develops further ...

Kalmbach Books now available in digital formats

2011-10-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

Here's another publisher who is having a hard time adjusting to the digital age: Kalmbach, the publisher of the venerable Model Railroader magazine. I'm a subscriber of Model Railroader, and looking at inserts and ads in each issue, it's very obvious that Kalmbach is very good at recycling content from articles in different forms and trying to milk their customers any way they possibly can.

Recent example: The Model Railroader 75 year DVD set ... at a cost of $195. The biggest value here is being able to look up a certain article from a few years ago, but at almost $200 that's really not worth it. miba (the german equivalent to Model Railroader) is selling their 60 year collection on DVDs for 60 Euros, ie. at a cost equivalent to 4 digital yearly editions of miba on CD.

Another example: Kalmbach Books is releasing popular books in digital format by partnering with Zinio. Take "Basic Model Railroading", an introductionary book to model railroading. Zinio charges $17.95, the exact same price as the recommended retail cost of the paperback version. Sounds fair?
Not really, no-one sells the paperback at retail price. It's on Amazon for about $10-12, and can be found new for as low as $5. While there's certainly some value to be able to carry around your railroad literature on a memory stick, is it worthy to pay more than street price? No, thank you.

And oddly ... I still prefer paper over pixels.

At night

2011-10-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

I like this shot of the signals south of Blossom Hill in the headlights of an approaching train. I should come back with a decent camera and try to do this right. A cell phone camera in the end is still a cell phone camera...

The answer

2011-10-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

Nothing new

2011-10-25T22:25:00.000-07:00

Yep, there's not much going on right now with the layout. The "busy season" has started, and on top of that a lot of things are happening at work. That doesn't leave much time for modeling, building stuff or even running trains. I don't expect to get much work done on the layout until at least Thanksgiving.

However, I'm getting my fair share of running trains over the next week: SVL has the last ops session of the year on Friday, and I'm invited to an ops session at a local layout next Tuesday. Both should be fun, though likely quite different in how they pan out.
The following Saturday, November 5th, 12 noon to 5pm is Open House at SVL.

The Schedule

2011-10-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

I designed the passenger schedule for the Welztalbahn around a few constraints.

The schedule would need to make sense in the real world. My operators most likely don't really care about this, since they are busy with getting trains and cars to where they are supposed to go, but I notice and that's what counts.
Provide for some operational interest. I.e. make life a little bit harder for operators by setting up meets and having to think about train priorities and direction through Talheim interlocking.
Get in the way of freight trains and switching.

Emsingen is the hub of activity on the layout, closely followed by the interlocking in Talheim. Above constraints led to the following principles:

Passenger traffic flows mostly between the big cities "surrounding" the layout area, as well as commuter service to Freiburg.
Emsingen is "Eilzugstop" (i.e. the faster passenger trains stop only in Emsingen).
Trains arriving from Prechtal via the (imagined) branch line either terminate in Emsingen, or continue on to Freiburg.
North-bound passenger trains to Prechtal can meet a south-bound Eilzug to Freiburg in Emsingen.
South-bound passenger trains from Prechtal can meet a north-bound Eilzug from Freiburg in Emsingen.

That yielded the following sequence of events:

PT = Prechtal, FR = Freiburg, ST = Stuttgart, TB = Tuebingen, EM = Emsingen, TH = Talheim

(S) = running south-bound, (N) = running north-bound

EM switching
PT -> P 8114 (S) meet E 3577 (N) at Emsingen -> FR
FR -> E 3577 (N) meet P 8114 (S) at Emsingen -> ST
Ng 83271 (N) prep
Dg (S)
Ng 83721 (N)
ST -> E 3576 (S) -> FR
FR -> P 8115 (N) -> PT
Dg (N)
PT -> P 8116 (S) meet E 3555 (N) at Emsingen -> FR
FR -> E 3555 (N) meet P 8116 (S) at Emsingen -> TB
Ng 83720 (S) prep
Ng 83720 (S)
FR -> P 8117 (N) -> PT
TB -> E 3554 (S) -> FR
EM -> Ueb 97 836 (S) -> TH (Switching)
PT -> P 8118 (S) meet E 3579 (N) at Emsingen -> FR
FR -> E 3579 (S) meet P 8118 (S) at Emsingen -> ST
ST -> E 3578 (S) -> FR
FR -> P 8119 (N) -> PT
Dg (S)
PT -> P 8120 (S) meet E 3557 (N) at Emsingen -> FR
FR -> E 3557 (N) meet P 8120 (S) at Emsingen -> TB
TH -> Ueb 97 836 (N) -> EM
EM switching

There are still several flaws (e.g. meets in Emsingen are always the same direction, and there are no returning trains from Tuebingen), but I liked how the schedule left room for switching moves, and allowed for ebb and flow of traffic.

Third Ops Session at the Welztalbahn

2011-10-15T23:40:00.000-07:00

Today marked the first time the Welztalbahn saw an operating session with 3 operators. Although, ... it almost didn't happen.

I prepped for the session early this week, wrote a short description of the layout, its "history", and setting. I created scheduled trains. I did some (minor) staging. All that was left to do this morning was cleaning track in staging, and testing one or two trains that changed, and/or were known to be a balky. I also had set up a Chromebook with a connection to JMRI's mini-web server and planned to operate the turnouts in Staging from that. 45 mins of prep on the layout and plenty of time to get other chores done around the house as well. When I threw one turnout, hell broke loose...

LocoNet went nuts. One of the semaphore signals was being set to red over and over again, two turnouts did the same thing. I cut power to the stationary decoders. ... Deep breath. ... turn power back on, and it all continued. Power-cycle everything, and it still continued. Further debugging showed it came from JMRI Logix, but that didn't seem to make that much sense either. There's nothing in the Logix doing this. After ripping a lot more hair out, fruitless debugging, and contemplating to cancel the ops session, I realized this all started with when I threw a switch in staging which I haven't done since I added semaphores ... could it be ... 4x DS64, 2x SRC16 ... that they draw just too much power on the 12V DC bus? ... Indeed! That bus is powered by a wallbrick rated for 1A, and when the system comes live, there are short spikes of up to 1.5A, multiple DS64 charging their capacitors. Overloading the wallbrick can cause all kinds of funky problems.

Robert brought along a DC powerpack, things worked well with that, and the session could start. I took the mole job running staging, while Balazs manned Emsingen, and Robert took Talheim. We ran a total of 19 trains (out of 20 planned; BR50 didn't want to cooperate for the last Dg run). Aside from the BR50 issue, there where no mechanical problems, and no derailments! The session ran for abot 2.5 hours at a leisurely pace that left time for chatting on the side.

The operator positions are based on location.

Running Emsingen is mostly a switching job, sorting cars in the yard, switching the sidings in Emsingen, and swapping cars from the local freights. This position also includes running the Emsingen tower.

The Talheim position gets to run most passenger trains and freights on the visible portion of the layout, as well as operate the interlocking tower in Talheim. The interlocking can get a bit busy at times. For balance, towards the end of the session this position switches Talheim industries, while the Emsingen operator gets to run some trains.

The mole job is responsible for positioning trains at the staging exit for the operators to pick up, and storing trains arriving from the visible portion of the layout in staging. This position keeps track of the schedule and occasionally runs trains when the schedule asks for a passenger train meet in Emsingen.

Suggestions for improvement:

Better indication of direction. For both stations it's unclear which direction is North or South.
Prepare instructions for the individual trains that explain the required moves. Especially expectations about direction, station stops, and meets.
Better instructions for how to operate the interlocking panel.
Control all switches from the panel.

Explain color codes of trains and waybills somewhere.
Make sure to have English labeling for everything.

The sequence schedule I cobbled together worked surprisingly well. I'll have a separate post about that.

Overall, this session was a much bigger success than the last time, and everyone had a good time.

More Backdrop Painting

2011-10-10T23:56:00.000-07:00

When I got home tonight I needed to decompress and started painting more of the backdrop along the wall near Hochwaldtunnel. Not only did I feel a lot better when dinner was ready, but I really liked how the landscape now frames the layout in that corner.

So after everybody was in bed I cleaned up the edges of the existing backdrop painting and kept going around the rear corner almost to the tunnel portal behind the roundhouse. I'm quite happy with the result. Most of the painting in the rear corner will likely be hidden by the town of Emsingen, but I hope at least some of it will remain visible. ... and if not, I can always paint the mountains a bit higher...

Jetlag

2011-10-05T07:08:00.000-07:00

It seems I dropped my body clock somewhere on the East Coast on the flight back. In the evenings I rarely make it past 8:30pm, and in the morning I'm awake by 5am at the latest. Arriving in the office while it's not quite daylight yet ...

Interlocking now working in Talheim

2011-10-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

I finally completed the interlocking in Talheim, including working semaphore signals.

Here's a rough overview of how I implemented it with Logix in JMRI.

1) The panel: I built an actual panel with push buttons. All approach tracks as well as the station tracks in Talheim have a button. A route is requested by first pressing the origin, then the destination push button. The panel is built using a Team Digital SRC16 and connected to LocoNet.

2) Button state: When a push button is pressed, it causes a Loconet Sensor (LS) message and a respective Internal Sensor (IS) in JMRI is set to active, as well as a IS for "button pressed".

3) Route Selection: When the second button is pressed, the IS of the first button, the "button pressed" IS, and the LS of the button just pressed, uniquely identify the route being requested. For each route I wrote a Logix with the precondition of the respective sensor combinations. In the action part of the Logix, I trigger a JMRI route to line the switches, reset the "button pressed" IS, and set the interlocking internal sensors.

4) Interlocking: Each route through Talheim potentially conflicts with another route. There is an Internal Sensor for each valid route. When the respective Logix for a route is triggered, it sets the Internal Sensor for this route to active, and all conflicting routes to inactive.

5) Route Execution: The JMRI routes selected in 3) trigger the switch machines and line the switches. When the route is set, an Internal Sensor becomes active that indicates the route is set.

6) Signals: Each valid route has associated signals. When both the IS for the route is active, as well as the JMRI route sensor is active, the signal allowing a train to enter that route is set to Green. Since the interlocking sets routes to inactive, another Logix rule triggers on the IS of a route becoming inactive, and sets the signal to red.

Phew.

The logic works very well, and since the flow always originates with the panel and goes "downhill" from there, I don't think there are loops or races in the logic.

I have not yet implemented setting the signals to Red once a train passes, since I don't have the respective track sections wired up.

Uuuuuuufff!

2011-09-25T07:03:00.003-07:00

Fuer Patzi

2011-09-25T07:03:00.001-07:00

Laecheln!

2011-09-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

An afternoon in Rems

2011-09-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

There wasn't much water in the river.

I like the many tones of green.

I never quite realized that his house on Hegnacher Strasse has this bridge mural.

Friendly company on this walk.

Swiss Accuracy

2011-09-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

A train is not "about 15 minutes" late in Zurich. It's about fourteen minutes late. And we left pretty much exactly at 15:24...

Eurowest 2011 BEMO Layout

2011-09-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

This is a narrow gauge modular layout usually shown at the annual ETE Eurowest show. The lighting in the exhibition area was very bad, so the video came out a bit dark.

Haltbarmacherei

2011-09-22T06:36:00.000-07:00

I love the name of these guys. Seen in Zurich.

Thinking of Transit agencies as Welfare Providers ... Really?

2011-09-21T01:20:00.000-07:00

The Transport Politic has an interesting discussion about how to look at transit agencies and their respective subsidies. I'm disappointed by the conclusion of looking at transit agencies as welfare providers. Though, it is reality in today's America.

While it's not quite in the american psyche to consider transit as a viable alternative to the car, in the end change comes down to a chicken and egg problem, both in terms of supply and demand, as well as mind set both of planners and users.

Routes planned for today's usage pattern of the poor rarely encourage new users from more affluent neighborhoods. Placing transit stations on the median of freeways tells you something about the relative appreciation of transit users. Poorly timed transfers between transit agencies, and/or disparate fare systems, make using transit very inefficient, and yield nonsense like monster-long urban bus routes (e.g. in San Jose, Route 68 from Gilroy to Milpitas, or Route 22 from Palo Alto to Eastridge).

Furthermore, the true cost of daily automobile subsidies (yes, building roads costs money, too) and their relative cost to society (e.g. traffic accidents) is rarely discussed, and mentioned in the blog post only in passing.

However, I have very little hope that views on this topic will ever change in America. A clean, efficient, and fast public transportation system would be nice, and I'd use it. I guess my only option to experience that (again) would be to move back to Europe.

Traveling ... again

2011-09-19T06:36:00.000-07:00

"I'll go back to the engine and see what's going on ..."

2011-09-13T23:40:00.000-07:00

I stumbled over the railroadradio.net Web site a while ago. This is a collection of various radio receivers across the country and Canada providing audio streams of the communication between locomotive engineers and their respective dispatchers. The link above goes directly to the Caltrain page, which is a very busy railroad, so there are a lot of conversations going on. The sound quality of the radio transmissions varies a lot, some are extremely clear, others are choppy and very hard to understand.

On a late Tuesday evening one can hear three active trains: southbound 194 and 196, as well as northbound 197. One hears the engineers announcing arrival at stations, asking and getting track authority, as well as more unusual stuff like setting blue flag protection at San Jose Diridon, people walking on the tracks, or an engine failure of train 197 in Redwood City. "I'll go back to the engine and see what's going on there". 10 minutes later he comes back on, reports that "HEP is down, but the main engine is running again" and then asks for authority to proceed to San Francisco with the engine doors open. The HEP (head-end power generator) provides power for the cars. I.e. 197 is currently running dark with no lights, or air conditioning in the cars.

Danny Macaskill at Ayshire Railway Preservation

2011-09-10T08:15:00.000-07:00

Well worth the time to watch the whole thing.

Kicker scenes:

balancing on a rail, ... and jumping to the other
jumping on top of roof supports
riding on a crane steel wire

Effect of Cleaning Solar Panels

2011-09-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday Pascal and I cleaned the solar panels. I was curious if there's a measurable effect of the cleaning. Conveniently enough, I have data to look at.

Here's the SolarGuard graph from Friday (which is quite typical for last week), a nicely shaped curved that closely follows light intensity over the day. We're topping out at ~1.3kWh around 14:00.

Here's the graph from Saturday. Starts out quite similar, ... 11:00 - 12:00 the sky was a bit overcast, so there's a drop in production, but when the sun fully came out again after 13:00 our production shot up to peak at just under 1.5kWh.

... and that wasn't a fluke as the graph from yesterday shows:

So, for us it's worth it to clean the panels once during the dry season. Over the winter we get enough strong rainfall to wash off dust and dirt.

Hungry rat causes short circuit at Stuttgart Hbf

2011-09-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

Wow, this is hilarious. A hungry rat decided to munch on cables that power platform lights at Stuttgart Hbf plunging the main station into darkness for over 90 minutes.

I wonder if anyone took a photo of the dark main station...

Update:
Indeed, there are a few photos floating around. A pretty bad smart phone video can be found at bambuser.

Update:
YouTube to the rescue:

It's interesting how, after a few days, more and more content pops up about something as boring as a limited power outage at a train station. First the same article was linked from multiple places, then a few local papers and TV stations published their own versions, and finally user-generated content climbed high enough in search rankings to be actually findable.

Salad

2011-08-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Hass Avocado, Black Bean, Tomato, Red Onion, Cheddar Cheese,
Bread 'n' Butter Pickled Jalapeno, Red Pepper, and
Cilantro Salad with Cumin-Lime Vinaigrette, Sour Cream, and Tortilla Crunch.

Peek-a-boo

2011-08-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

Roaring Camp's CF7 is waiting in Felton for its next assignment down to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.

Some switching in the evening ...

2011-08-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Switching Emsingen and Talheim is a nice laid-back experience at the end of a day. Especially if -- for a change -- everything works. A lot of work items are idling on the to-do list, but I didn't feel like building stuff tonight.

I'm making up way-bills for any empty car cards that I encounter, defining at least the destination cities. If no specific industry is specified on the way-bill it's up to the operator to find a proper spot for the car at the respective stations. So far, car cards and way-bills feel more natural to me when operating the layout, compared to computer-generated switch-lists.

Best Buy: We're sorry

2011-08-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

I went to www.bestbuy.com and got this. Why is that guy so friggin' happy that their Web site doesn't work?

Feeling better

2011-08-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

Last week was quite eventful at work, so I took it slow over the weekend, and spent time with family and building stuff.

Today's project: The tunnel tube.

Now that the tunnel portal is installed, I need an actual tunnel. Near the tunnel entrance I also want stone structure. I made a cardboard template of the portal opening, transfered it onto thin plywood, and cut it out. Rinse, and repeat. The stone structure is made from Faller wall paper. I didn't like the color of the stones, so I used black water colors to make the inside of the tunnel quite dark. I sealed the watercolors with some Dullcote. I'll use heavy black paper further back in the tunnel. After a few inches one can't tell anymore whether the walls have stone structure anyways.

Next, I painted the ground on the inside of the tunnel deep black.

Yep, that's exactly the effect I was after. I might add some additional black paper later to extend the covered portion of the tunnel. However, this will also need to be removable for access in case of derailments and repairs.

Now that the tunnel is in place, I mounted the other side-wing from the Busch kit upside down. Except for the small portal opening I really like this kit.

After this photo was taken I started building the substructure for scenery down to the creek, and extending the creek to the inside fascia.

First tunnel portal

2011-08-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

I've had mock-tunnel portals made from cardboard on the layout for quite some time. Today, the first actual portal was installed.

This is a heavily modified Busch 7022 "Dampflok Tunnelportal" I bought by accident a couple years ago. The original is made for steam engines -- no catenary -- so the portal height it is quite low, just over 7 cm. I cut out the original arch stones in the portal opening enlarging it to an inside height of 9 cm. Then I installed a Faller arch stone strip in the new opening. The left side of the portal wall is heavily trimmed for clearance with adjacent scenery. The retaining wall on the left, as well as the tunnel crown, is from the Busch kit, too. Judicious application of Scuptamold will integrate this with the surrounding scenery.

Semaphores - installed

2011-08-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

The north semaphores in Talheim are installed. Including covers. I used Polly Scale Aged Concrete for the base color of the cover, and will glue sand, ballast, and greenery on top. The idea is that the covers remain removable.

This afternoon the semaphores at Abzw. Talheim got their covers cut, as well as their wiring for the light bulbs. These semaphores were made for an analog Maerklin layout and the bulbs are wired to "light" and "ground", while the twincoils are powered from "light" to "ground". With DCC decoders I don't have a constant on power source on the outputs, so I disconnected the "light" wire of the bulb from the twin coil machine, and instead wired in a dedicated 16V AC power source connected to "ground" of the semaphore body. Conveniently, the twin coil machine is insulated from the semaphore base, so I can easily keep those circuits apart.

The extra wires for the light bulbs can be seen to the right of the semaphore.

As much as I don't like paying taxes ...

2011-08-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

"We as citizens don’t take enough personal responsibility for doing our part to pay for the basic services our government provides, and that we use every day."

From The Infrastructurist, click to read their commentary on gas taxes.

Couldn't have said this better.

Reflection

2011-08-05T08:38:00.000-07:00

It's strange how I find myself doing wiring work again, while craving for more scenery. It seems I automatically end up wrapping up projects I started a long time ago (detection, semaphores, route control) before opening up even more cans of worms.
Might also be that I unconsciously want to ensure the railroad runs well and is usable before diverting attention to more scenery. The long tunnel sections continue to bug me, but that's how this layout worked out, and I'm not going to change that in this setup.

---

Either way, the visible Talheim semaphore signals are mostly installed and wired. I decided to use both multi-position semaphores I have as entry signals for Emsingen, since using one in Talheim would severely restrict the available switching space before the tunnel portal north of Talheim.
I also started to wire up detection sections in Talheim. Some more surgery with the Dremel tool will be necessary to add gaps to all sections. for proper detection. Since most of the station area is made up of already installed flex track, and gapping bent flex track is yielding very unwelcome kinks, I will need to cut a rail at two switches. Not ideal, but should work out ok.

San Diego Model Railroad Museum

2011-08-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

Most of the footage is from the Tehachapi layout.

Kindergarten

2011-07-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

The debt-limit "discussion" in Washington makes me sad.

This non-stop posturing for political gain on both sides (but particularly the Republicans) is so lame ... even Kindergarteners have a better sense for when to stop being silly.

Semaphores

2011-07-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist. ... Talheim now has all semaphores selected, though not yet functional. Tonight I installed the two on the north side of the station.

Talheim north end

The twin-coil machines are installed into the roadbed to hide them a bit from view. Where space is tight between tracks, I dug the hole even a little bit under the track. I will fit a piece of styrene over the opening to protect the machine from landscaping, dust and dirt. Yet I'll try to keep the cover removable for maintenance.

Twin-coil detail

Exit signals at the north end of Talheim

These signals are about 30 years old, and even though they are definitely not up to modern detailing standards, they look reasonably good.

Yes, that Roco 211 still needs detailing...

Talheim Local Panel - part 5

2011-07-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

The remaining buttons are now connected, and I can finally reset a badly chose route before throwing it with the left black button in the back. The black button right next to it will be used to toggle whether to set signals, too, when setting a route.

One minor snag is that the cross-overs at the bottom don't throw consistently in unison as I press the button to toggle them. I'm not sure yet if the computer is sending the turnout commands too fast, or if the commands get lost. However, since I'm experiencing zero problems with other turnouts, and it's always the same turnout that doesn't toggle, I think communication is fine, and JMRI is sending the turnout commands a little bit too fast for the Tam Valley servo controller to handle. JMRI routes allow to add an extra delay between commands when executing the route, so I'll try that later tonight.

I'm very tempted to pull out the semaphores and connect them, even if only temporarily ... It would substantially change the look and feel of the Talheim area, and would be really cool. Hmmmmm...

Update 23:00:
My stupid perfectionism found a few issues:

The old signals need a color refresh. Particularly the red color on some of the semaphore arms is in sad condition.
To my utter surprise I'm short 2-3 signals. Had I realized this earlier, I could have picked up a few real cheap last weekend at Eurowest... However to my delight I noticed that there are two signals that can show Hp0/Hp1/Hp2. Those will be used as entry signals to Emsingen, and/or maybe Talheim. Though for Talheim I can pretend the entry signals are inside the tunnel.
The semaphore masts feel small, but it turns out that a mast height of 10.5cm above the bottom of the rail works out to just over 9 meters in HO which is right in the middle of the prototypical heights of 8 or 10 m. I'm mounting the semaphors lower than intended to partially hide the huge Maerklin twin-coil machines in the base.
In some locations the semaphore arms are partially above the neighboring track. My literature says that is prototypical as well. Tough one location in Talheim is very tight, and the prototype would have used a different kind of mast with tracks that close together.
At least one track in Emsingen needs the semaphor location adjusted by a few centimeters.

Just toggling the cross-over turnouts in Talheim doesn't give reliable results, apparently because the QuadP can't handle the turnout commands right after each other. Adding a delay helps, but it looks like there's a race condition around releasing the sensor button, so the logix still didn't work correctly.

I broke up the one logix into three: One logix to toggle an internal sensor based on the pushbutton sensor going active, and one logix each to explicitly set the turnouts to thrown or closed based on the state of the internal sensor, including a small delay between the turnout commands. That works very reliably, and I couldn't get the turnouts to go out of sync any more.

Talheim Local Panel - part 4

2011-07-24T23:43:00.000-07:00

Yup, still spending time on this. Tonight I finished up the basic JMRI logic, and even came up with a way to conditionally throw signals as the routes are set based on the state of a sensor. As usual apparently I'm over-engineering this ... again. Oh well, we'll see how long this one will last.

Seen at Eurowest 2011

2011-07-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

To bad this was the only signal I could find on the whole layout, and it was always green :-)

Talheim Local Panel - part 3

2011-07-21T22:57:00.001-07:00

It's starting to come together. The bad push-buttons are swapped out. The buttons for locally controlled turnouts are added, as well as the LEDs put in place for show (though not connected yet).

Push-buttons

2011-07-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

I cleaned up the remaining mess from the 63400 testing. All systems are back to go, ... well, with the exception of the Talheim panel. The push buttons are in, plus some LEDs, electronics hooked up, too.

I'm now writing the routing logic in JMRI to get two-button routes. I.e. the way it works is that the operator presses one route button on the panel to start the route. Then another route button for the end of the route, and JMRI will align the switches (and later semaphore signals) accordingly. Since Talheim has tracks going into 5 directions there's no way to use the more regular way to control turnout ladders with a single button per route.

Some of the cheap push-button switches I use are already breaking, partly because I need to be really careful when soldering wires to the connectors, since the casing is plastic and easily melts, displacing the contacts inside. So annoying.

Does anyone have a source for reliable push-button switches that don't cost the world? The ones I use right now are similar to these.

Google Apps transition test

2011-07-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

I completed transition of my Google Apps hosted domain to Google's new authentication system. This is a test post to make sure, Blogger still works with the new credentials.

Yumm Yumm - What giraffes like to eat

2011-07-12T21:52:00.001-07:00

LPAC @ Belwood

2011-07-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

Today was the last regular swim meet before Champs. Both Tatjana and Pascal are swimming great.

<p>&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;And I </p>

And I finally managed to convince kdenlive to not letterbox the funky SD mpeg2 wide-screen videos that my Panasonic SDR-H80 camera produces. I'm setting the project settings to edit in 720p, import the 480p SD material, force pixel-aspect ratio to 1.19 on the clips, edit the video, then finally render into HDV 720 30p 2-pass. This produces ginormous videos (sorry, storage and processing folks), but the final quality doesn't suffer nearly as much as when I edit and render in straight SD.

Stuck

2011-07-07T22:17:00.003-07:00

What do you do when you're stuck at an airport overnight? ... Have some fun!

LocoNet issues with Uhlenbrock 63400

2011-07-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

Wow. This is really confusing.

The Uhlenbrock 63400 is connected to its own 16V AC transformer. The Intellibox is on its own transformer as well. The 63400 is connected to the Intellibox via short LocoNet cable. The track connection from the Intellibox is directly connected to a portion of the layout that doesn't have trains on it (one of the three power districts on the layout). And LocoNet communication is still affected.

If I unplug the transformer connected to the 63400, LocoNet communication is still affected.

If I remove the 16V AC feeder to the 63400 (i.e. make it a passive device), no issues.

Similarly, there are no issues if I remove the tracks from the Intellibox track connection.

I.e. the mere fact that about 40ft of Maerklin track and the respective bus wiring is connected to the Intellibox moves the needle from "LocoNet works" to "LocoNet doesn't work". I double-checked the cabling to ensure no crossed wires. There is no connectivity between the power districts, either.

While Uhlenbrock Support responded to my first two emails within a couple days each, the last update apparently got lost in the ether.

So, at the moment I'm putting this issue to rest and may get back to it when I build the panel for staging. Meanwhile, a TeamDigital SRC16 in combination with jmri logix is pressed into service to drive the panel. Not exactly the most economic or simplistic option, but it should do the job nicely, plus allows for some bells and whistles that make the Talheim block a bit more fun, too.

Unfortunately, the 63400 is too light as a paper weight.

Update 07/08/2011:
Uhlenbrock got back to me and suggested another test regime only involving the Uhlenbrock components and a short piece of track with a loco to weed out any influence from other components or wiring. I'll do that over the weekend.

Update 07/10/2011:
And that test had all the components working correctly.

I removed (even) more components from power and busses. By now all twin-coil turnouts are disconnected, the somewhat messy Talheim panel is completely removed and cabling cleaned up. No DS64's have push-buttons connected any more, DS64 power is disconnected (not that it matters for the test).

There are no obvious ways any more I can think of that would inject non-DCC power into the system, yet LocoNet communication is still affected.

I don't get it. There must be something wrong with how the track is wired, but I have no idea what it could be. Need to find an oscilloscope, and re-read Wiring for DCC for any hints.

Tschuess!

2011-06-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

Layout ground connected to LocoNet ... somewhere.

2011-06-24T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, I heard back from Uhlenbrock's tech support. As suspected I must have a connection between layout ground and LocoNet somewhere, which causes communication issues on LocoNet. The problem is present when track is connected to the Intellibox. This won't be a fun exercise to find...

At least I have a quick and easy way to tell whether LocoNet is working or not: Connect the 63400 via LocoNet to the Intellibox by itself, then power up the Intellibox. If the keyboard mode takes less than a second to show in the display, all is good. If it takes longer than ~3 seconds, LocoNet communication is affected.

Some extra time...

2011-06-17T22:27:00.000-07:00

Spending some time at home over the next few days should help me get through a few work items. More electronics. Freight car routing. Convert another locomotive to digital. Maybe I finish up more of the backdrop painting. That would be nice.

First bit of feedback on car card & waybill routing of freight cars: Contrary to when I used JMRIs operations module, I'm more inclined to keep cars and cards in sync. I often run only one or two trains in the evening for fun, not as a formal operating session. Having the car cards right there in my face makes it painfully obvious and quick to move them to the right slots and trains.

Yes, a stack of car cards is not nearly as neat as a printed train manifest, or switch list, but so far it seems they fit my needs better. Time will tell.

Update 06/18/2011:
Well, I did end up spending an hour or two in the garage throwing paint at the backdrop while chatting with my Dad. Quite enjoyable if not for the colors on the backdrop that didn't quite work out the way I wanted. On the second try it started to come out more the way I imagined. We'll see what it looks like when the paint had a chance to dry over night.

Exciting!

2011-06-09T15:26:00.000-07:00

A bit more than 2 hours left...

DS64 "forgets" programming

2011-06-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

When I mentioned a while ago that bad JMRI logic blew out a DS64 output, the actual problem was a lot more benign. The decoder simply "forgot" that output 3 is for turnout 11. I reprogrammed the 4 turnout IDs into that DS64, and afterwards everything worked just fine.

Various posts in the jmri-users and digitrax Yahoo groups report similar issues, and the same resolution. Problems with the track connection, or spikes on LocoNet frequently get mentioned as culprits for this. Hmmm...

Talheim Local Panel

2011-06-06T23:40:00.000-07:00

The buttons are in, plus some LEDs. I'll test-program the Uhlenbrock 63400 unit driving this tomorrow.

The local panel for Talheim

Contrary to the Emsingen panel this one will be mounted horizontally next to the Intellibox, so I'm putting a little box around the electronics and wiring.

Elapsed time so far: 3 hours.

The red buttons are for setting routes ("Fahrstrassen"). The routes don't lock, since I don't yet have a way to unlock them automatically as trains pass through, though that would be cool. (I will need similar functionality once I have signals, so that a green signal turns red as the train passes through).

A route is set by pressing the two red buttons at the ends of the route, and all turnouts inbetween will be lined properly. I'll program the LEDs to light up if the turnout is set to Thrown (i.e. the train will take the diverging route, instead of going straight). I'm counting a total of 12 different routes.

Just like in Emsingen, the black buttons are "locally operated" turnouts, and simply toggle between Closed and Thrown. The 2 cross-overs at the small run-around are connected. The button throws the turnout, and the respective LED lights up if it is set to lead into the industry tracks.

Update 06/07/2011:
Oh well, that didn't work. LocoNet becomes unstable (again) as soon as I plug in the 63400. There must be something special about my LocoNet setup, though I can't put my finger on it. I'll do some more testing tomorrow, and if I can't figure it out quickly, replace the 63400 with a SRC16, and do the routes in JMRI. At least temporarily.

Update 06/08/2011:
Hmmm, that 63400 might be a bit wonky. I made sure it has a dedicated power supply, but even with only the Intellibox, a single DS64, and the LocoBuffer connected, LocoNet is unstable as soon as the 63400 is connected. I put the new panel into a box for now while I mull this over and tend to other things.

Glass

2011-06-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I went to a glass blowing lesson at the Bay Area Glass Institute. This was very cool. While the participants didn't work directly with the melting oven, we got to do most of the forming, and cutting of the pieces. After some initial explanations the instructors pick the glass from the oven, and prep the hot blob of molten glass, and then you get to have it with scissors, pliers, and and funky round wooden tool, while the instructors help you along. One has to work fast as the glass quickly cools down and hardens. Once the piece is done it goes in a special cabinet to slowly cool down over night.

Every participant made a flower and a letter weight.

I think, my creations came out surprisingly well.

New Talheim panel in the works

2011-06-04T23:18:00.000-07:00

Alright, I enjoy the panel in Emsingen so much that I'm building a similar one for Talheim (and will build yet another one for staging). Because the trackwork around Talheim is fairly complex (which should be an indicator that this will be an eternal bottleneck, but let's not go there...), Talheim routes are set by pressing two buttons on the panel at once, and the switches are lined appropriately. Well, at least they are supposed to.

The baseboard of the panel is done. Again I made this from hard-board. The buttons and LED holders are installed, and partially connected to the Uhlenbrock 63400 Switch-Control unit. I should be able to test-connect it to the layout tomorrow, and program the Switch-Control for the various routes.

This panel will replace the existing Talheim panel which was a lot of work to build, but turned out to be impractical to modify for the Kopper siding, as well as cumbersome to add LEDs or additional switches to it. I spent weeks building the old panel and the control board, mostly because of the many wires and solder connections needed to connect LEDs, buttons, and switch decoders to each other.

The new panel controls switches using LocoNet, so it doesn't matter which switch decoder controls the turnout, and they all work and behave the same.

Another shot at operations

2011-06-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before that I feel too boxed in with doing car routing with the computer. I don't have that many freight cars on the layout that need routing (~35), and the operating pattern is fairly simple. I also don't want to chase after cars that are not where the computer says they are, nor do I care that much about preparing printouts of switch lists for operating the railroad.

So, I decided to try the traditional route with car cards and waybills. There is tons and tons of information on the Internet about how other people have done this (Google for [car cards way bills]), and including primers about the principles and mathematics of operations.

Here's my version 1.0 of Operations on the Welztalbahn. I'm using Micromark's car card & way bill set for this.

Cards

Each car is assigned a car card. The car card lists type of car, reporting marks, and has a pocket for the way bill card.

The way bill defines where the car is supposed to be delivered to next. Additional information may include load, shipper/consignee, and special instructions.

There are also engine cards that have information about a locomotive (road, reporting marks, and DCC address)

Trains

A train is formed by forming a stack of car cards representing each car in the train, and putting the respective locomotive card on top. I use colored paper clips to hold together the card stack.

Train types in priority order:

White - switching and deliveries
Green - Local Freight (typical stops in Emsingen and exchanges cars at the yard)
Blue - Through Freight (typically unit trains, their main purpose is to keep traffic up and get in the way)
Red - Local Passenger Train (typical on-layout stops are Emsingen and Talheim)
Purple - Through Passenger Train (typcial on-layout stop is Emsingen)

The pocket on the locomotive card has a schedule that describes destination, stops, and for passenger trains, length of station stops.

Car Routing

Following the principles of car card and waybill operation, the destination for each freight car is provided by the way bill. To keep things simple, at the moment not every way bill is fully filled in. Instead, I simply color code for the major destinations:

Blue - Deliver to the North
Yellow - Deliver to the South
Green - Deliver to Talheim
Red - Deliver to Emsingen

Unless the way bill has specific instructions, the operator decides on an appropriate industry spot based on the type of car. Future iterations of the operating scheme will likely improve substantially on this aspect.

We'll see how this works...

Unexpected

2011-06-01T21:29:00.000-07:00

Elvira having fun running a passenger local

Elvira stopped by the train room yesterday evening. We chatted a bit, and as usual with visitors, I handed her a throttle to run a passenger train. She seemed to enjoyed it, so I ran a couple more trains in addition to keep traffic up and make it more interesting. She still enjoyed it apparently.

Alrighty then, ... let's try switching: "Here's a short freight train in Emsingen, run it down to Talheim, drop the cars at this, this, and that location, pick up the other cars and come back to Emsingen."
That was a nice little brainteaser puzzle, and she managed it perfectly.

Well done! :-)

Couple things I noticed while doing this:

The new local panel in Emsingen works well. I need to build a similar panel for Talheim.
The cheapo push buttons are not so great, though.
The Talheim panel needs LEDs for reporting which way switches are set.
There are a few dead spots in the less used industry leads due to dirty track.
Talheim Track 2 is commonly used for temporary car storage while switching. I need more experience how badly this affects traffic flow through Talheim and whether that is acceptable. Otherwise, I need to consider adding another track for working the Talheim industries, though there really isn't any space.

More progress

2011-05-29T17:44:00.001-07:00

Panel installed in the fascia

After quite some deliberation where exactly to put the local panel for Emsingen, I cut a hole in the fascia, and put the panel behind. This gives a nice look, and I hope the panel will be in a useful position for operators of all ages. The alternatives just didn't work for everyone. I tried installed the panel at an angle below the fascia, but that would have required to either intrude into the operator space, or the panel wouldn't have been visible for taller operators. Another option I briefly considered was the mount it from the ceiling (maybe on a movable arm), but that wasn't really satisfying either. In the end the traditional "mount it in the fascia" option worked out best. The temporary mounts for the panel will remain in place until I have a chance to give it a good work-out.

Platform detail.

I cleaned half of the underground track so far. I cut myself a little "cleaning pad" from hardboard and glued a handle to it. That way it's easy to apply some cleaning solution to the hardboard and slide it up and down the track. I'm trying to avoid using a Brightboy to reduce the amount of new scratches on these old sectional tracks.

The platforms of Emsingen are taking shape. The platform edges are made from wood and will get a pattern of large stone blocks when I'm done with the sand cover. The area between the wood pieces are filled with very fine, soupy and colored plaster, and topped with very fine N scale ballast.

This method of building a platform has grown on me, and I'm likely going to use it again when it's time to build the platform in Talheim. The photo shows the almost finished state of the platform (of course for messy work like this, the track gets covered up with painters tape). Later I will add some vegetation, "platform furniture" (lights, benches, signs), as well as people to break up the monotony.

Summer Rain

2011-05-29T09:32:00.000-07:00

Summer ... Rain? Here? Seriously? That can't be right.

Yep.

We very much enjoyed the dripping of the rain while sitting outside. The smell of fresh rain on grass.

Smooth

2011-05-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

The BR211 from Roco is a very nice runner. It runs fairly quietly, with only a slight wirring sound. Nowhere as loud as the Maerklin BR86, but not as quiet as the Maerklin BR24, which is practically silent.

BR211 completed its run-in routine over the last two evenings. Now it's time for detailing and some minor reprogramming (I want to be able to turn off the red rear lights from the throttle, since they are only supposed to be on when the engine is running light). I'll use that opportunity to save the decoder values into JMRI, and adjust the locomotive address.

Staging 2 tracks affect current draw sensor

2011-05-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I was running a few locomotives and notices that there's lots of LocoNet traffic. LocoNet monitor reveals that the sensor measuring current draw in the staging departure block was continously flipping on and off.

After installing Staging 2 all three tracks were part of that block. I didn't really worry about train detection when I temporarily installed Staging 2. Bad idea...

Either way, apparently there's some resistance between the rails in Staging 2. I'll have to check for that when I install the track there permanently. Meanwhile, I insulated Staging 2 from the departure block, and now the sensor is behaving properly again.

Emsingen Panel close to working

2011-05-22T23:14:00.000-07:00

The LocoNet problems I had with the SRC16 are now resolved (Thank you, thank you, Bill Robinson!) Adding a DS64 on the LocoNet bus apparently provided enough signal stability that the SRC16 can work properly with the Intellibox.

I moved on to programming the local panel and it's respective routes before putting the decoder back into the layout. So ... much ... fun!

I'll post some pictures once everything is installed.

Update 05/24/2011:
The Emsingen panel and SRC16 are working correctly in place now. Routes work as advertised. For some routes the SRC16 needs to throw switches that are connected only to the track bus. The Intellibox translates the Switch commands sent to LocoNet from the SRC16 into DCC commands sent via the DCC accessory bus and executed by a Tam Valley Depot servo decoder.

Next up:
Temporarily put Staging 2 in place, track cleaning, some loco maintenance, and a shake out Ops session to determine work items for the next 2-3 weeks.

Reshuffling, part 1

2011-05-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

I'm probably trying to do too much, but whatever...

Too much stuff.

Some of the supplies and tools cabinets are in the way of Staging 2. And I wanted to rearrange that area for a while now, make it more narrow to actually allow for a second chair, so the cabinets have to move. And the computer (oh, finding a new place for that is a lot harder than I thought).

And I wanted to finally hook up the blue "night light", and build a box into the wall so that freight cars can actually enter the factory hall at Werner & Soehne.

New switch to get into Staging 2

And I wanted to gain more storage for various kits and building material that's currently stored under the layout. So I started putting some of the computer supplies from the big garage cabinet into a box, only to realize that *that* cabinet is apparently too humid. Various USB connectors had rust on them, and spray cans where rusty at the bottom. Hmmmm. I should have grabbed that shelf/cabinet combo my neighbors gave away for free last weekend, and chop it down so that it fits along the train room...

I got the shelf for Staging 2 installed, since that defines how much space I have for the shelves and boxes. I opened up the wall, after moving all the wood and styrofoam out of the way that's stored on the other side, and ran wiring for the blue light, and built the box in the wall for Werner & Soehne.

Shelving Rearranged

Oh, and yesterday I finished painting the upstairs hallway, the stairs and a couple somewhat inaccessible walls above the entrance area. Took me only 3 1/2 years after our move-in date to get to that.

That reminds me... A little over 3 years ago, I started construction of what is now the train room. Progress has been slow, but steady, even though at times there's been very little happening for months at a time.

In other news

2011-05-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

Some long outstanding orders are finally starting to come in.

A Roco BR211 diesel engine that will go very nicely with passenger trains for local service, along with the Maerklin BR24, and the (still to be digitized) Schienenbus.
All remaining hardware to digitize the Schienenbus.
Another DS64 and a couple more Tortoises.
The engine shed for Emsingen will complete the set of buildings for the small servicing facility I'm planning, and allow me to proceed with the overall arrangement of tracks and buildings there.
Bullfrog Snot liquid traction tires to get better traction for BR24. I haven't used this before, but I hope it will address the slipping issues experienced by this otherwise very nice model.
The first city houses for the town of Emsingen. This will be a combination of existing kits from the old layout, a few new kits, some low-relief models, and potentially a partial photo background for more depth.

Uhlenbrock Intellibox + Team Digital SRC16 powered from track = Smoke

2011-05-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

I love the SRC16. It's a very powerful and flexible stationary DCC decoder with 16 independent inputs and the ability to drive up to 16 slow motion switch machines like the Circuitron Tortoise (when using the MotoD board, otherwise it's 8 Tortoises). I use a single SRC16 for the control panel in Emsingen, and all slow-motion switch machines at that station.

I mentioned before that I had trouble getting my Team Digital SRC16 to say a peep on LocoNet. After quite a bit of back and forth with Team Digital's support, and breaking a second SRC16 at least now I know what the problem is.

LocoNet Ground of the Uhlenbrock Intellibox is not referenced to track ground (contrary to e.g. a Digitrax system). So when you power the SRC16 from track power, and plug in LocoNet, you most certainly fry a little resistor near the LocoNet plugs. Afterwards the SRC16 still works just fine, but lost it's ability to talk to LocoNet, no matter what CVs are set.

The suggested work-around is simple:
Don't use track power, use a 12V DC wallwart. I'll try to bench-test this soon. I'm looking forward to being able to continue with work in Emsingen.

Team Digital was nice enough to repair the two fried units.

Update 05/25/2011:
The bench-test worked out great .

Skype

2011-05-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

Only days after announcing a security vulnerability in the Mac Client, Skype gets purchased by Microsoft for $8.5B. Apparently Windows is so secure now, that the Microsoft security folks needed a new challenge.

More staging

2011-05-09T00:14:00.000-07:00

More staging? Don't I have enough staging tracks already? Well, yeah, kinda.

I have 4 staging tracks at the moment, 170-200cm in length. That is a lot longer than my longest passing tracks which is 120cm in Emsingen, so when I operate I often end up doubling up two of the shorter trains in the longer staging tracks. ... And then the schedule asks for the rear train to show up first. There are ways around that (e.g. shuffling trains to another staging track, or releasing the first train to the ramp, and then use the down ramp track to bring the second train up... yes, there are a lot of switches in staging...) but those operations are not fun to do, and the risk of derailments is high. I call the existing staging yard Staging 1.
Additionally, as I digitize more locomotives, I need more space for active trains.

To provide more storage capacity and expand staging capacity, I decided to stick a few more staging tracks below Moebelfabrik Kopper along one wall of the room. The shelf for Staging 2 is not yet built, so I tested the track arrangement by simply laying out the tracks on top of the future of home of Moebelfabrik Kopper.

Here are the constraints for Staging 2:

stub-ended staging (due to space and location)
3-4 tracks (I'm not going to buy any additional M-Track for Staging 2)
accessible
enter/exit Staging 2 from the departure track of Staging 1 (use the cross-over on the ramp to get from the down ramp track to the departure track and the switch to Staging 2
no manual handling of locomotives between arrival and departure at Staging 2

I was able to cut an additional switch for accessing Staging 2 in the existing trackage behind the last switch of Staging 1 without modifying the existing geometry of the departure track. Originally I planned a trapezoid switch arrangement for Staging 2 giving me 120 cm usable length for each staging track. Due to how the departure track curves and underground supports, I gave up on that approach and ended up with above arrangement. I'm mostly using M-track switches from my Dad's layout. Each staging track will have a usable length of 130cm. The switch ladder made from double-slip switches allows locomotives to move around the train.

The rear track is 77cm between switches, the middle track 90cm, and the front track 117cm. This is sufficient for most passenger locals I'm plannung to run. The full 130cm are available for longer trains, but those need more involved maneuvers to swap the locomotive to the other end of the train. A stub track can be attached to the last switch in the lower right of the picture. That track will stick through the door and will need to be removable. It might be possible to build a removable return loop from that last switch out into the garage and conecting to the middle track through a hole in the wall.

There is a short stub track off the switches on the layout side to arrange for locomotive changes without running around the cars of an arrived train.