NP Lester WA T-Trak Z Module Set Project

rray Feb 11, 2020

  1. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    I bought every road number of every car style, the day they were released, as I usually do every time anything NP is released. I bought 8 of the MTL NP GP9's when they were released. I'll probably get 4 of the AZL NP RS-3's when they come out.
     
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  2. shamoo737

    shamoo737 Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I wish I have a train budget like yours, Robert. :D
     
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  3. bremner

    bremner Staff Member

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    I wish that I had a budget
     
  4. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    I just love Z Scale that much!
     
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  5. JoeS

    JoeS TrainBoard Member

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    I wish I could settle on one road name! haha...
     
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  6. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    Today I was just about to mount the roundhouse and discovered I totally blew the track diagram! In the photo below, on the left side is a siding that clearly splits into 3 tracks. The Rightmost of the those sidings butts up to the depot, the Leftmost comes from the turntable and the Middle has an FT unit visible, most likely an ABBA set being sanded and fueled. It's that middle track I totally forgot! I had it in my diagram, and somehow forgot it when I was laying track on this module.

    [​IMG]

    Here is my track diagram, where directly in front of the turntable shows the diesel servicing track:
    [​IMG]

    And here is the module where I am adding a turnout, and the diesel servicing track. It's going to be a tight fit getting track around the depot, but I really want to model the early prototype diesel servicing tower they had in Lester:
    1.jpg

    This is the early diesel servicing tower. Very unique if you ask me, but I have not seen many examples of the first generation, and nowadays they look much more modern:
    [​IMG]
     
  7. SJ Z-man

    SJ Z-man TrainBoard Member

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    makes for an easier Y too.
     
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  8. JoeS

    JoeS TrainBoard Member

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    Looks like your using atlas turnouts. How are you powering the frog? Got to be a simple way.
     
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  9. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    I bought a bunch of Tam Valley Frog Juicers to automatically switch polarity of the frogs, since my module set is DCC. In the event I am connecting with a TTZ club that is DC only, then only the 2 mainline tracks will be used and all yard and siding tracks will be unpowered for staged equipment.
     
  10. ddechamp71

    ddechamp71 TrainBoard Member

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    Robert, I didn't acurately follow this topic, but don't you consider a crossover between the two main tracks ? No connection ?

    Dom
     
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  11. shamoo737

    shamoo737 Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I had problems running dc with the juicers. It burn out couple of them.
     
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  12. gmorider

    gmorider TrainBoard Member

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    Forgot a component. I can totally relate to this. I am the "Mayor" of forgot something. I sometimes get into a rush to be "perfect" and have problems. As for the last photo, ya' got people ambling on the turntable track, dangling legs in the pit, wandering around everywhere. It's outa' control!....:eek:
     
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  13. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    No crossovers, the track plan for the module set will be exactly like posted on the diagram above. It's two completely isolated loops, an East to West and a West to East. The reason for this is that I cannot have any auto reversers on the main two loops or the transponding feature I plan on using will not work. I need transponding because I am planning an under table sound system that follows locomotives into sound zones.

    I need the inside rail of the outer loop, and the outside rail of the inner loop, to always be common to each other, all the way around the module set for the Surroundtraxx and Digitrax transponding to work correctly.

    Thanks John, that's good to know. I will make sure have a DC Disconnect feature to isolate all the juicers from DC running.

    Yeah, back on Aug 4th 1957, at the end of the steam era, they had a steam fan train running. This was called the Casey Jones fan train and featured a steam loco pulling a train of both old heavyweights and newer streamline cars from Seattle to Cle Elum WA.
    The loco, a 4-8-4 Northern Class number 2626, also known as "The 4 Aces" (Timkin Roller Bearing Demonstrator originally numbered 1111) was on it's last run before visiting the scrappers torch.
    Back in those days, you were allowed to climb all over locomotives, on the roofs of roundhouses and water towers, and generally go anywhere you wanted as long as you step aside to get out of railroad personnel's way. No worries about people getting hurt an law suits, those were truly the good old days! :D
     
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  14. husafreak

    husafreak TrainBoard Member

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    Lawyers and lawsuits really did change the way we live. And they did it in a few short years too. And young people today don't know what the "Darwin Theory" is...
     
  15. HoboTim

    HoboTim TrainBoard Supporter

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    Robert

    The more photos that you post showing the original railroad in Lester the more I wonder if your effort to shrink it into the T-Trak modules are not going to do it justice. It looks like a nice town that I would have liked to grow up in back then.
    I'm sure I am wrong about my thoughts because if anyone can pull the realm of realiZm with this IT IS YOU!!!
    Your work so far is extraordinary!

    Hobo Tim
     
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  16. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    Thanks Tim, I will do my best to properly represent this town in Z, AND do it on T-Trak-Z modules. I have been relegated back to a crowded garage again, so I will only have a 30" x 8' banquet table of TTZ modules, and my 5 ZBT modules that are 24" x 15'.

    I ended up loosing my train room again, as the people in my life just keep jumping out of the woodwork needing a place to live. I just evicted my cousin because my daughter, her husband, my granddaughter and their 3 hunting dogs are moving in, Also my dad moved in a year ago, so my train room shed is being converted into a bedroom now.

    Life has been against me having a dedicated train room. And to make matters worse, even my son in law insists he gets one bay of the garage for his stuff, so I have to buy another storage shed for all my garden tools, fishing, and camping gear.
     
  17. JoeS

    JoeS TrainBoard Member

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    Almost can see your foresight with the T-track system. That said buy shed for son in law and keep garage. ;)
     
  18. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    Yeah, I tried that and my daughter and son in law started arguing that Arlin needs a garage bay to work on his sleds, quads, and side by side. And he has lots of expensive power tools that will rust in a shed, and all his friends are garage hangout people, and i have 3 bays, so he deserves 1 of them. After several hours of arguing back and forth, with no progress, the only way he will concede is if I build a shop on the side yard.

    If I build a shop, I can make it a 2 story and they will live in it, a Barndominium as they called it would be just fine. Then I get the shed back as my train room. So I am looking into that option because my Realtor told me I would be able to recoup almost all of the investment immediately due to lack of homes in town with a shop and RV parking.
     
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  19. JoeS

    JoeS TrainBoard Member

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    Actually a good idea. You’ll need a sign on your drive though with “Robert Ray compound” on it. Haha...

    Best part is you’re then back to what you originally planned with trains.
     
  20. rray

    rray Staff Member

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    I actually fit the servicing track in. I was worried that the radius would be too tight, but then I realized that I don't need to place that track anywhere special on the adjacent module to the right, so I went ahead and glued it in. Ballast is on it, and I just need a day for the matte medium to dry. And best of all there is just enough room for the diesel servicing tower on this module:
    1.jpg

    So after I build the servicing tower, I need to build a power pole with a couple PCB cans on it, and some wires running to the center of the turntable arch, and continuing on to the roundhouse. These will be actual live wires, and I will put one of my hanging industrial lamps on both the power pole, and hanging over the center of the turntable bridge.

    The module to the right of this one will get the water tower, diesel fuel tank, sand drying house, ash pit, and coaling tower. That will probable take me another 6 months to build, rebuild, and three build, as I just can't seem to get things just right on the first try anymore. Here is the diesel servicing tower I am starting to draw up:
    Lester Diesel Sanding Tower.JPG
     

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