Friday, October 02, 2020

Yrbi and Layout Updates

Yrbi

Things have progressed quite well in the terminus of the Yrbi branch line, known none other as the town of Yrbi. Just in case there is a question on pronunciation it is, YUR-bee. I came up with the name of Yrbi from listening to dramitized story by Louis L'amor on CD. One of the characters last name in the story was Yrbi.

 The grain elevator has been constructed along with one silo add on kit, both are Walthers kits, and placed in position. The yard ladder, spur tacks for the grain elevator, and a runaround track have been installed. There also was enough room to install tracks for two more industries for the town of Yrbi. These industries have not been decided on as of yet. It is planned that operations for Yrbi will be provided by a local switching job that will run to the interchange at Yrbi junction in Duran. The local job will pickup/drop off cuts of cars from/for mainline trains from/for destinations north and south on the mainline then return on the branch and switch those cuts of cars for the local industries at Yrbi. No mainline trains will be allowed on the branch. Turnout control will be provided by ground throws that are reachable. For the non reachable turnouts I plan on using Fast Tracks Bullfrog turn out controls. https://www.handlaidtrack.com/bullfrogs These will be used for the turnout ladder for the spur tracks for the grain elevator. I also plan on using these temporarily where needed on the mainline until automation for the mainline turnouts can be installed.


Town of Yrbi.





Yrbi grain elevator. I still need to construct and paint the head house for the add on silos on top, (missing in the picture).






Two views of the future industries, a close up and a view with the runaround and grain elevator spur tracks to the left. Notice the under the track uncoupling magnets in the top picture.




Close up of the yard ladder for the grain spur tracks. These turn outs will be controlled by the Bullfrog manual turn out controls mentioned earlier. This view also offers the view of the under the track uncoupling magnets too.





A close up view of the end of track bump stops that I'm using. These are made by Peco and are super simple to assemble and install.


There will be other additions added to the grain facility when they are constructed and I can figure out how to fit them in the space I have. I plan on putting a grain bin with a conveyor leg and a grain dryer, along with propane tanks to supply the fuel for the grain dryer. The propane tanks will add to operations by supplying a LPG tank car to transfer propane to the propane tanks.



Layout

After purchasing two Digitrax DB210 boosters, I have also completed assembly of the power station for the third power district and wired it in and provided the loco-net connections as well. It took me severals hours to trouble shoot a problem I was having with the booster when I got it installed.  I finally found the problem, it was due to a bad crimp on one of the loco-net cables from district two. When you purchase a command station from Digitrax they supply, (or at least it came with my command station purchased years ago), an LT1. This little device helps those of us that make up our own loco-net cables, to make sure they are assembled correctly. Had I used this little device I could have saved myself several hours of frustration and scratching my head wondering what was going on. Live and learn, every loco-net cable from now on will be checked before installed.




Power station for district three.





Digitrax LT1. 
When loco-net cables are assembled correctly and there is a throttle plugged into the loco-net there will be four LEDs that light up. The LT1 is also used to check Digitrax decoders to make sure they are good to go before installed in a locomotive.


That about does it for this post. If you are enjoying the Blog, please comment and let me know.

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