tance as the trains were passing them by. In the end, though, they were just too close to each other to look right, and now they are 80 feet apart, which is close enough for me.
Designed for 24-hour operation Our prime goal was to have 24-hour operation by era-appropriate timetable/ train orders, so the layout was designed accordingly. For example, the O&N has a separate dedicated layout lighting sys- tem, applying lighting “directly on the stage.” These are No. 1156 auto lamps wired in series in some thirty strings of 11 lamps each, and they operate on banks of dimmer stepper motors. Those motors are all coordinated via computer to a fast time system using 6:1 motor speed analog clocks, which were modi-
fied from inexpensive wall clocks by a clock repair specialist. I separately light these by LED’s so the operators know the time regardless of the layout lighting. Another help in “evening hours” oper-
ations is that each station location has a separately lighted aisle name sign in the fascia, helping everyone know his or her location in the dark. Finally, we use radio-equipped Digitrax DCC throttles so we don’t trip over the cords in the dark. Over the years, Ed Scott, Rick Mniece, Bernie Messenger, and Ken Cameron, all operations gurus, have added their expertise and interest into generating a fun-filled 1948-era, Class 1 bridge line operation based on timetable and train orders.
Mainline turnout control is unique to this layout. I designed and built
homemade slow-motion turnout motor controls that also feature bi-color LED’s within the manual control to give “night-time” turnout designation (green for straight ahead, yellow for di- verging route), switch positive frog po- larity, and send an output to the com- puter for input for lineside signals. My buddies smirk as it all works off a sim- ple lipstick tube, but that’s a whole oth- er story about my own crazy idea. At this writing, the O&N is more than two-thirds signaled using Oregon Rail Supply kits either built as de- signed or by kitbashing components. They work great and the effect, espe- cially in dark hours, is super. The coor- dinated lighting to scale time, the sig- naling, block detection and setting up of operations is all done through the computer and is due to the wonderful products and inspiration of Dr. Bruce Chubb, and locally through the hard effort and interest of Ken Cameron and others in the J/MRI users group. Motive power and rolling stock reflect the period and locale. Schenectady is served by the O&N by a branch line on the Southern Division, so the locomo- tives are all Alco. The O&N runs late steam with sound-equipped Bachmann Spectrum Consolidations and light and heavy Mountains, as well as a few Broadway Limited Inc. heavy Mikados. The line’s road diesels, RS-1’s and RS-2’s by Atlas and Kato respectively,
are
awaiting the paint shop. Occasionally, a NYO&W diesel built by EMD shows up, along with visiting NYC power, but who can blame me for that? Fellow modeler Dave Babson works non-stop in getting rolling stock built and on-line by adding detection resistors to the metal wheel- sets and getting conformity to NMRA weight and Kadee coupler standards. We all benefit from his efforts.
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
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