Rock City Railroad News!
JUNE, 1999
Hello railfans, how's it going? The Railroad is coming together with leaps and bounds. We had an openhouse last month with about 40 - 50 people showing up throughout the afternoon to see the railroad and, of course, enjoy the free beer and burgers. It took a lot of work to get everything running in time, but I made it. The Z layout now goes all the way around the garage, and the Z stuff I got in the recycler is wonderful. I sold the layout and 8 engines, but kept the other 20 engines and about 20 cars and tons of accessores. The Z railroad is now the best stocked.

Since the openhouse I've decided to re-do both the N and Z control panels. The N panel was already half done, but I decided to scrap it, and I'll probably scrap the HO panel for the same reason, is that it's too complicated. I had unwrapped the lines into a single straight line, and put the switches all in a row, just like the books said. Unfortunalely it's too hard to figure out the connection between the straight line and the dogbone loops. I built the thing and still can't figure out which switch to hit before the train gets there.

I'm going to make the new control panels bigger, showing the dogbone loops as they are. The switches will be where they are on the loop as on the actual layout, so a novice can even figure it out. The new control panels will be up on the web soon.

I'll also change the pushbutton switches with "momentary toggle" switches. They will also make the layout less confusing cause it only takes one switch instead of two. I'm putting two small grain of wheat bulbs, red and green, in a small hole exactly where the switch is on the panel, and putting the actual momentary switch next to it. The number of the switch is wedged between the light and the switch to tie it all together.

I am also remodeling downtown, adding a Z section that's close enough to touch easily, and an N section, that's also close enough to touch. This will make it easier to put trains on the track as well adding much more detail to downtown. Now each scale will have a downtown station. I'll be working on Downtown for the next month or so.

After getting the new control panels up and running, and downtown finished, I'll work on finishing the St. Louis Z section, and then have another openhouse. Probably this fall. Following that, the next project is to pull the sides of the layout 3 inches from the wall to add a row of Z buildings on both sides in the far back. The next project after that will be to finish the mountains and rocks the rest of the way around, and then, to put helix loops down underneath each big loop, leading to a big staging yard. underneath the current yard. All this on top of wiring the two new control panels

I guess I've got work cut out for me.