Six Month Look Back

A little under 6 months ago, in March of this year, I wrote a post about how I was unhappy with the progress of the HOn3 Rio Chama "basement layout".  In that post I mentioned how I had been inspired by a comment by Iain Rice and had decided, "I wanted to try an experiment with, using a smaller project as a vehicle for that: 1.) Better planning, 2.) Benchwork".

That goal led to the creation of what was then the Texas City Terminal in N scale, a sectional layout designed to fit in a 10' by 18" area.  Two months later at the end of May I ripped up the N scale track and replaced it with HOn3 track, changing the locale of the layout from the Gulf of Mexico to Mexico itself.

It's now September, a little under 6 months after I stared this experiment and I again wanted to assess where things are.  I think I met both of my goals of better planning and much better benchwork.  Plans change however.  In looking at the layout in it's current state, there are two things which I really don't like.

First is that I've put a ton of time into wiring the thing up, getting rid of all shorts, and adding drops to literally every possible location, and the train still stalls or just flat out and stops regularly.  The HOn3 C-19 much more frequent than the K-27, but if you've read my blog for any amount of time you know this is one of my pet peeves.

Second, for turnout controls I used FastTrack's BullFrog under the table manual turnout control with fascia mounted push/pull rods.  These were controlling turnouts constructed with FastTrack jigs -- the PCB/soldered types type of turnout.  The short version of the story is the BullFrog has too much spring and regularly snaps the ties off of the soldered switch points.  That's almost as annoying as trains stopping.

Moving On

The good news is that unlike the end which the Rio Chama met, I think things here are salvageable.  I've studied the BullFrog and I've decided to pull them off the layout.  In it's place I had considered the Blue Point manual turnout control and the new "Mole" by Proto:87 Store.

Price wise, even though the Mole is a power/motor driven switch machine it actually comes out cheaper because the need to buy the push/pull rod, linkage, and mount aren't necessary.  Inexpensive toggle switches can be had on Ebay at around $25 for a package of 50, and an inexpensive 12V power supply is only a few dollars more.  I've got a power supply on it's way to me right now for a trial run.

But that was probably the easier problem to solve.

What's harder is the stopping/stalling issue.  I've dabbled with R/C before, using primarily the S-CAB by Neil Stanton/NWSL and it seems it's time again for this magic wand to come out.

So here was the decision to make:  Rip up the HOn3 track and put down something else -OR- find some creative way to use the HOn3 track.

Well, in the past year or so I've been growing more fond of 1:64 (S) as a size.  It's the perfect in between HO and O.  And it just happens than Sn2 uses HOn3 track and that I'm also partial to 2-foot gauge.  Solution?  Convert a HOn3 locomotive to Sn2 which has enough room to house R/C components.

First up was finding a suitable engine to hack on.  Most HOn3 engines however are in the $200-300 range to start.  I'm sure not going to hack up a brand new Blackstone engine.  My best route was to reach into the past and find a MDC 2-8-0 kit second hand.

The 2-8-0 is a small engine still and with space being a premium, I decided to take a page out of Bill Fornshell's playbook and use a Team Losi 180 MAh LiPo to directly power the S-CAB receiver.  Being S scale should allow me to build up the tender to have enough height to house both the battery and receiver.

You can get a good idea of the size from the above photo just how small the battery is.  While I have the battery and charger on order and (hopefully) on their way to me, I'm still scouting out for an MDC 2-8-0 though I've got some leads.

About the Layout

As I was fussing around with all of this in the basement, I happened to discover something by accident.  With the two sections of the layout up on the old benchwork for the Rio Chama, I realized that two 5 foot sections would leave room for a 3' x 3' curve section plus an additional 6 foot section, all of which could live on top of the old Rio Chama benchwork but make use of the existing lighting.

The original benchwork for this section was built to 13 feet long total.  This leaves a great area for a corner module.

One of the first things to address is that the original sections had been built for N scale then later converted to HOn3.  That meant there was very little room for S scale structures.  To account for this, I simplified the track plan a bit, removing the rear siding.

You can see from the sharpie lines and outline of where liquid nails was where the original line was.  For now I have the old track removed and fresh roadbed installed.  I'll be adding the track here int he next few days.

For the left-most section, I finished adding in the faux ties where they had been removed to fit in rail joiners and painted the track Rail Tie Brown.  The rear track leading up to the cassette was also installed (you can see the push pins still in it while it's drying).  With that, the left section now has all the track laid, and I can start working on planning structures and scenery.

However, before that gets under way there's an issue I need to address first...

With the push/pull rods removed, there were large-ish raised areas where those control rods protruded from the fascia.  I filed them down, but now have a choice to make:  Do I keep the front fascia as-is and just sand down and repaint this area or should I panel over it?  It doesn't seem like such a big deal here with these holes, but I also have to address the big rectangular area that was removed for the DCC panel that I will no longer be using.

Looking Forward

Well, there you have it; a partial success with some prospects for the future.  It's interesting to see how things have progressed.  Hopefully, with each evolution and change of plans, I get closer to finishing something I'm happy with.