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Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Minutiae


The SNR is pleased to announce the completion of a couple of infrastructural trifles I've been intending to get to for like, years.  These are nearly meaningless as well as unphotogenic, but come celebrate with me anyway! 








1.  East Segway Interlocking -- Occupancy Detector

If you've ever crewed a helper engine, changed road power, or operated the yard at Segway before, you'll recall how impossible it is to tell when your consist has cleared the interlocking at EY tower.  This is because the eastern extremity of East Segway is located:

  • behind the diesel house, 
  • around a bend, 
  • through the trees, and 
  • inside a concrete block wall.


You're never quite sure if you're going to throw a switch under your locomotive, 
without hiking to the other side of the wall for a visual.   





 
 

But no more!  With the addition of one optical detector from Azatrax, the crewman can now tell from the panel when the interlocking is clear and the switch to the main may be thrown.






      

Installing the detectors from underneath the diesel house, through the benchwork, and behind one of the only non-removable hillsides on the property, was a bit like building a ship in a bottle.  Each stem had hot glue liberally applied to it, and then was placed by feel and held until set.  

This was an iterative approach however, as the first attempts ended with my fingers glued together, or, with the sensors glued to my fingers but not to the layout.  Eventually a proper placement was achieved though, successfully illuminating the new panel indicators when the primary switch is fouled -- and successfully clearing when not.  






I was so pleased I added a repeater on the main yard panel while I was at it. 










2.  Della St. Crossing Flashers -- Re-Configured West Detector 

I put out a call a few weeks ago for an Atlas telephone shanty, should anyone happen to have had one in his junk box.  Bill Doll (Forest Park Southern) stepped up with a unit from a prior layout (thanks Bill!).  If you were on that email, you might be wondering what it was about.  Well here's what I did with the shanty and why.






As above, it has to do with optical detection.   I love Azatrax flasher circuitry and detectors, and have installed them at three separate grade crossings.  

Azatrax allows you to configure the infrared LED emitter/collector pairs in either across-the-track mode, or between-the-rails mode.  In the former, breaking the beam trips the detector.  In the latter, connecting the beam -- by having it reflect off a car chassis -- is what trips the detector.


Initially I liked how clean the between-the-rails mode kept the surroundings, and so wired all the visible detectors this way.  It was not long, however, before I began pulling these back out, and re-configuring them for across-the-track mode.  The primary reasoning was twofold:  across-the-track 1) is significantly more reliable and less finnicky, and 2) accommodates multiple parallel tracks with one detector.







I reconfigured every last pair except one -- the west remote detector on the mainline in St. Amour.  This was primarily because I couldn't find a good disguise for the collector, which would just be hanging out there in space between the main and the yard, with no room (or reason) for a building, outbuilding, or pile of shrubbery.  

This meant that for years, Della St. motorists have been unprotected from trains moving eastbound on the secondary track.  And even on the main, sometimes the engines are halfway to the crossing before the detector gets a good reflection off a car chassis and trips.

Well I finally got a fit of inspiration -- the one thing that would both work and fit (and be plausible) would be a skinny telephone shanty like the Atlas.  So I went looking for one -- and here we are.  







In the new across-the-track placement, the collector just keeps an eye out through the window in the shanty, 
and the emitter is hiding in the woods.







A train approaching Della St. now trips the detector even while on the secondary.







In the Company's two-tone green paint, and at an SNR level of compression, 
the telephone shack might even pass for a yard office.  










3. Rodentia

As if destroying my smoke at the Basin refinery wasn't bad enough, the mice have now, for no apparent reason, chewed through my delicately-strung barbed wire.









"Enough is ENOUGH!

I have HAD it

with these MOTHERf____in' MICE

on this MOTHERf____in' LAYOUT!"


-- Samuel L. Jackson, Snakes on a Plane



Bet you didn't know Sam was a model railroader.  😉   (To see the actual clip, click here. [PARENTAL WARNING].)

The irony is, it's the snakes that are missing from the equation in this case.  The black rat snakes which ordinarily patrol the woods around the house so diligently seem to be on sabbatical, so the varmints are free to set up shop in the basement.






The little vermin can't resist raiding the scrap wood piles at Slim's Cooperage -- 
which used to look a lot more like lumber cutoffs and less like mulch.  But no real loss there -- 
and it makes Three Rocks the ideal location for countermeasures, which have been effective.






Just wish they hadn't sampled the barbed wire across the tracks.  That was all strung in continuous threads and super-glued, so repair is going to be a project!  Why.  Alas.








👉 Well thanks as always for reading, and let me know what you think!
   















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