Daily Archives: April 27, 2020

Layout Update 4/27/2020: Bethesda Nearly Complete

Model RR, News

After another marathon weekend of working on the layout, I’ve made some great progress. Nearly all of the tracks in Bethesda are in. All of the drops are wired and nearly all of the turnouts have Blue Point manual switch machines installed. I cleaned off the table to get a look at the overall layout:

To orient you, the view is from the south end of Bethesda, looking Northeast. At the top are three turnouts with sidings going to Griffith Coal & Consumers, assorted warehouses, and the long passing siding. From the passing siding, the first turnout goes to Maloney Concrete & Frito-Lay. The second track which extends through the yard is the team track as well as a siding servicing Devlin lumber. On the right is a short siding serving Einsinger Mill & Lumber Co.
A B&O track chart to assist. Note: some tracks don’t appear here, as they had been removed as they were taken out of service. You can see their “ghost” if you look closely, though!

I couldn’t resist doing a bit of operating. Man, this felt good!

Additional Projects

One thing that has really struck me is that over the span of eight years working on this project I have accumulated a lot of stuff to put this layout together. Much of it is piled beneath and around the layout itself. As I work, stuff gets shifted around. I’m at a point now where I have pushed myself out of my comfort zone to try new things. Some of these things include simple things like soldering feeders to the bottom of the rails instead of the sides up to more complex things like hand-building complex curved turnouts. I couldn’t do this without help and encouragement from friends and family who push me forward and answer all my stupid questions.

Lately I’ve been learning how to install turnout machines. I mentioned above that I used Blue Point switch machines in Bethesda. This decision was primarily based on the fact that I owned five already (that I had in a box of turnout stuff) and I realized a fascia would be nigh impossible with the way this section of the upper deck of my layout is built. There is no real room above or below it for toggle switches, I don’t want to cut big holes in the benchwork, and I don’t want to protrude out. Solution? Blue Point turnout machines. They use a push-pull rod/handle and can sit right on the fascia with minimal intrusion. Perfect. I’m quite happy with how they have been working for me. Bonus, I can wire the turnout frogs right to the machine.

Another project that has been in the hopper for a while are eight Iowa Scaled Engineering MRServo-1 units I purchased a couple years ago. (unfortunately, this product has been discontinued!) These nifty little things use a board that controls a micro servo mounted to a 3D printed chassis. Wiring up a DPDT switch and attaching to a power bus gives you a nifty little slow-mo turnout controller. They have a few different bases including a slim profile one to allow for remote installation in tight spaces. The MRServo units came in three types with additional features. This is the most basic of the three, featuring only turnout motor control. For now, it’s all I need. I plan on adding a Frog Juicer eventually to handle the frogs. These MRServo-1 units will be used on the upper deck from Chevy Chase all the way up to Georgetown Junction, as there is ample space below the track to install a fascia with toggle switches.

Power bus wires were run throughout the upper deck, both sides. I picked up a bag of inexpensive terminal blocks via eBay a few years ago and they are tremendously useful for projects like this. They can easily be trimmed to fit whatever size you need and held in place with a screw.
I made a temporary fascia panel for the switch mount.

I am progressing my way through projects that have loomed over me for years. It feels great to burst through and make real progress on this layout and I’m learning so much along the way. I ran a train all the way from one end to the other with no issues whatsoever. Like so many things, when you break a project into smaller pieces it takes away some of the mystical difficulty, making it a bit more manageable. I have been crushing these small hurdles left and right. I am hoping to have a video in the next few weeks showing off the progress.

And then, once the upper deck is done… it’s on to the lower deck! Woah!! But first, I gotta do something about all that JUNK! (ha)

Pic from January but it looks virtually the same. The price of progress. Some day that will be Georgetown!