Weekend Update for 8/15/25

[Paul S.]

Please update us what you've done on your model railroad or other modeling projects this week/weekend. This weekly thread is intended for us to post snippets about our layout/project progress, rather than be a substitute for our layout-build or project threads. Think of this topic as a mini update on what you've accomplished during the week/weekend.

The administrators/moderators will start a new update thread each Friday. You can link from your layout-build thread or project to your posts in this thread as a part of a more extensive post there, or visa-versa (post to your build thread and link to that post when contributing to this thread).

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So fellow RMRers, what have you been up to this week?

[Russ C]

My recently arrived batch of NSWGR U trucks. Built with bottom discharge hoppers, they hauled wheat/grain and coal and, with the hopper trap doors in place, just about anything else. 4 wheels, 22' long, 25 tons capacity, 2,750 were built and 1,800 of the similar (no bottom discharge hoppers) K truck.

[Paul S.]

They do look hefty for two-axle stock, Russ. Nicely detailed, too.

[Paul S.]

Another installment in the saga of "Tony Koester Designed My Staging Yard."

https://realisticmodelrailroading.ne...1426#post41426

[Russ C]

Looking good so far Paul!
Looking at the early photo, I was thinking you could almost add rolling stock storage draws under the top deck.

[Paul S.]

If I'd routed the wiring differently, Russ ( Russ C ), I could have, and I probably should have. There's definitely space for that at the first 16 inches nearest the camera.

[David]

Over the weekend I got all the track feeders wired up in Duran, so Duran is electrically sound and finished. The track and electrics are all completed in towns on the upper level, baring any changes that may happen in the future. I can finally start track laying and electrics on the final three towns for the bottom level. Things are slowly moving along.

[David]

@ john_plsn are you pointing out the track plans under the Footprint portion of the Blog? I've checked and they show for me from both my computer at home and at work. The links are working also on both my computers.

[john_plsn]

David, On the right of the BLOG page under "Layout Overview, then Layout Trackplan", the blue links just give me a circle with a line through.

[Allen]

David, I'm seeing the same thing, a large gray image with large white circle with a MINUS sign in the middle.

[craigtownsend]

Not much happening here. Been working in the background with the OPSIG group about the C&E exam, enjoying the last few days before I go back to school.

I have a new idea for a stationary speedometer so I can more easily speed match my locomotives using the ESU lol sound programmer and the PT.

It involves a bike speedometer, a ball bearing, and a few FDM printed parts once they get designed.

[craigtownsend]

Came home from a camping trip and had a nice surprise in the mail from OPSIG. I know I've qualified for others but don't have the paper trail to prove it.
Oh darn more excuses to operate. And most of all motivation to get the last few items on my have to finish before hosting a layout ops session.

The C&E exam should be going live soon but I'll leave details up to Paul Weiss. Thanks Paul for the honorary C&E award for helping develop. I wasn't expecting that in returning.

This might be the push I needed to get an official OPSIG apron.

[Paul S.]

Good one, Craig! You"ll be an Ops Ninja before you know it.

I'm still waiting for my "Railroader" certificate to arrive.

[craigtownsend]

Since it's still "this week" and I mentioned this above, here's my grand idea...

One of the projects on my must do list before I can host an ops session is to speed match my locomotives and tweak the decoders to better match the PT notching. The way I was doing it before was to plug the locomotive into the Lokprogrammer, adjust CV settings, pull it off the Lokprogrammer, flip a DPDT switch for PT control. Then after that was done place the locomotive on a 4' circle of track and time how long it took to do a loop then do some math. That was a slow and painful process.
Then I decided to make a speedometer car using a bike speedometer. Used a LGB 40' boxcar, cut a hole in the floor, attached the magnet for the bike speedometer to a wheel, adjusted the bike speedometer to make it think it was a 36" wheel etc. Then using the loop of track pull the car around the circle of track trying to read the scale speed. Better than before but still wasn't user friendly.

Now for version 2.0 and another $10 bike speedometer. Using the ideas of Dan Gilchrist and his roller bearing test track he posted on printables, I went to the hardware store and found some 1 1/8th OD bearings. A bit pricey but I only really need one. Some CAD work and printing last night got me the rough draft of the new stationary speedometer. Needs some tweaking but the initial test is showing promising results.

Now in theory, I should be able to keep the locomotive hooked up to the Lokprogrammer, test various settings and dial in each speed step. Phew.

Then take that information and plug it into the PT and I should have the speed steps set to how I want them for each notch (on a full battery).

[Russ C]

That's some good problem solving logic Craig!!
Those Rolling Roads / test stands certainly come in handy for 'tweaking' decoder CVs.

[craigtownsend]

I forgot to explain why I went with a 1 and 1/8" ball bearing. It's really close to a 36" wheel and while the math can be calculated for any size bearing aka bike wheel on the bike speedometer, I got thinking a lot about the size difference between a 36" wheel spinning a ~36" bearing vs say a 22" scale bearing. That would require a lot more math that I didn't feel like doing.