Hindsight!

Greetings!  It has been a while, hasn’t it?  I have done a lot since my last entry but not that much different from what I have already posted.  I did learn a few lessons along the way.  As they say, “Hindsight is 20 -20 vision.”  Ah, 20 – 20 vision, those were days long gone by.

When I moved the track to accommodate the upper level entry point of the helix, I decided to over sand the cork roadbed to make the track dip a bit here and there like what I saw on some videos of the branch in the 1950’s which I have seen lately. This caused some difficulty with my CNR Mikado S-3-a 3702 when it was running along the wall.  I thought that there were not enough track feeders and put more in.  This did not help but it was good to do anyway.

However, when I took a closer look, I discovered that the roof extension of the semi-vestibule cab would touch the top of the modified tender at one of those dips and short out. 

Having made this discovery, I finally decided to connect flashing LED’s to the circuit breakers and attach them to the fascia. This would show any shorts that would happen from now on. These circuit breakers have outputs for an LED and a buzzer.  There are 6 districts on the layout and they all have their own circuit breaker. The possibility of having multiple annoying sounds going off at an operating session made up mind to not install buzzers. The flashing LED’s instantly show a short and are kind of cool to look at.  However, trying to attach these to already installed circuit breakers under the layout turned out to be a pain, to say the least.  Hindsight!  I should have put them in when I was initially installing the circuit breakers.

I found some symbols on the Internet that are for Short Circuit, printed them out on large labels and added them to the panel with the LED poking its head through. So far, four are installed. Park Head and Owen Sound South need theirs done. Those circuit breakers are easy to get at because the Styrofoam is not glued down yet and I will do them before I install the track at Owen Sound South.

And the Mikado? I put some Kapton tape under the cab overhang and it seems to be working out well. But I am still thinking that one out.

The Scenery is coming along. If you look closely at the layout above the Short Circuit Display, you will see some green fuzzy. I have been flocking everything. I will get into that next installment.