ROCK 3.0: Progress Report 09.21.13

Last night, I worked on sorting out everything in the layout room until about 11pm last night (for about two hours).

Today, I continued the effort.  I worked with my wife Carrie to rebuild the wire shelves (changing the shelf arrangement), locating photos and artwork, and the overall room design.  I worked for hours today cleaning the room.  Just about everything is put away in its new permanent location.

Hopefully, tomorrow, I will get everything hung up on the wall.  I will then take photos of the room to share.

ROCK 3.0: Progress Report, Electrical Work and Crossing Gate Signals

Last night, I spent some time assisting the Charleston, Roanoke & Eastern's president in some electrical work on his layout.  We re-crimped probably 12 loconet cables (some of the cables were reversed).  They are now all in the "data style".

This morning, I continued work on cleaning the room.  Everything is off the floor now and I'm starting to put stuff away in its rightful place.

I reviewed the track plan and anxiously look forward to laying out cork later this weekend.

After working with Marcus on all his electronics last night, that got me to thinking. To add some excitement to the layout, I plan on adding one set of lighted crossbucks with moving gates.  They are powered by two Tortoise switch machines.  The train will activate them automatically when it crosses over the Infrared (IR) detection.  The girls have always wanted this.  I have two other potential crossings that I might add another set with gates or just the flashing lights.  We'll see how it goes with the one set first.

ROCK 3.0: Progress Report 09.17.13

Nothing earth shattering to report, but I did make a lot of progress cleaning the room.  I was shocked how much I managed to clean.  Trust me, the room was a mess.  To save trips up and down the stairs, I cut lumber in the room.  That makes for a massive clean-up effort.

In other news, I've been looking at some trackside details.  I came across Century Foundry by Showcase Miniatures (from a listing on eBay).  They have some neat details to add to the realism.  I plan on running telephone/power lines on 3.0.

ROCK 3.0: Progress Report 09.16.13

This evening, construction consisted of assembling a Polly Pocket Race Track set for my daughter.  Oh wait, wrong report.

I worked on the layout.  I drilled the holes, ran the bus and loconet wires and installed six throttle jacks.  I began cleaning the room, but quickly realized that the vacuum wasn't working well.  I found another "cat" stuck in the back tube of the vacuum.  Once I cleared the the massive hairball, we were good to go.

Tomorrow, I will start on clean-up duty.  I'm really looking forward to getting the room cleaned up as it hasn't been fully since before layout 1.0 came down.

• Complete OSB table top
• Pre-drill holes in open frame benchwork for bus wires and loconet cable
• Identify and cut the openings for the DCC throttle jacks
• Clean the room and start placing wire shelves under the layout for storage.

ROCK 3.0: Progress Report 09.15.13

Today, I wasn't feeling to great (sinuses and such), but I did manage to complete one item of this week's To Do list.  All the OSB is cut for the benchwork.

• Complete OSB table top
• Pre-drill holes in open frame benchwork for bus wires and loconet cable
• Identify and cut the openings for the DCC throttle jacks
• Clean the room and start placing wire shelves under the layout for storage.