What's New on the PRR Panhandle 2.0?

The Eastern Approach fascia is partially installed. All 5 push-buttons for the affected switches are installed. Four are operational (one needs the actual switch to be installed – a future step).  The fascia is attached at the bottom edge.

 

This is the prototype in the area of the stone arch. The backwater is in front of it.

In this next photo of the model, the backwater in front of the stone arch can be seen. I will use plastic wood or filler to make sure the plywood bottom is water-tight. Then it will get some paint, scenery, wildlife, vegetation, and ultimately some Woodland Scenics Deep Pour (Murky) water. I will use trees and undergrowth to blend everything together, hopefully representing the prototype. Below in the edgewise view it can be seen that the top of the fascia still needs to be attached.

More when I know it.

George

Great question, Brian.

I am operating the switches with the DZ-2502 push-buttons and the CAB-1 remotes. 

The Atlas 205 slide switches are simply there as debugging aids.  The DZ-2500 switches are serial devices.  They are daisy-chained along a DZ-2001 Data Wire Driver.  If one of them gets its programming scrambled or loses its identity, the whole chain will stop working.  At that point, finding the problem child is a huge game of "swap". 

The Atlas slide switches allow me to divide the Data Wire into shorter segments, each of which controls 2-4 DZ-2500s.  That means finding the malfunctioning DZ-2500 will be much simpler than debugging a chain of 20 switches.  With 42 switches on the layout, this really isn't a luxury.  It's a necessity.  These problems do happen.

George

Thank you.

George

I’ve also been thinking about the depth of Standard Slag below the top of the bench work. That is going to be 6” and I have also determined the slope as well as spacing for the components of the slag dump. That depth is driving the placement of the fascia for Standard Slag. Here's a look at some steel walls that I made for Panhandle 1 and will reuse here.

The angle of the slag dump has created a bit more room for the Weirton Junction Yard. I am thinking about expanding it from 5 tracks to 7. This will be accomplished by cutting approximately 2” off the straight leg of each O64 switch. Track centers would end up being around 4.5” apart. There is also a potential improvement to future operations. More freight cars bound for Weirton Steel could be dropped at the yard and then pushed in by the Weirton Steel switchers, as was done in the prototype. That will make for more interesting operations as they will have to be careful not to block the main line for extended periods of time. Should make life more interesting and force engineers to pay attention to the signals (block occupancy).

Here are the before and after versions.

More when I know it.

George