My very first Ops Session...

Things have been a little quiet on the layout front at the moment as we are doing renovations to our home which are taking up most of my spare time, so its basically ground to halt.

However I did get the opportunity last weekend to participate in my very first Ops Session outside of our own layout.  My good friend Brendan Dennis held another shake down session on his D&H - N Scale layout - http://dh2ndsub.blogspot.com.au

I had the opportunity to operate on the Whitehall Yard with another operator John, we were tasked with the North & South switching of the yard operations.  I must say being a yard master is great fun and really gets you thinking, Brendan's Whitehall Yard is around 3m (10') long incorporating an engine facility, yard leads, run arounds, caboose tracks, seven (7) tracks and a passenger siding to the south.

I really enjoyed operating the yard with John, and the session went really well, Brendan's layout is seriously impressive and the amount of work and the stage he is at presently is amazing for the short time that he has been working on it.

As I won't have a full size ladder yard on the JL&T I look forward to spending some time switching Whitehall in the future.  

Big thanks to Brendan for the invite, and for a great insight into Ops Sessions!

Jas...

Another SE8C almost complete...

Well today I started the process of making another five (5) SE8C boards.  The process is relatively easy now that I have made three of them.

Another four to go and then it will be onto wiring all the push buttons for the fascia's.

Jas...

YouTube Live Streaming - Wiring - Digitrax SE8C Board...

Just for fun and to see how it works, I'll be live streaming the wiring of a Digitrax SE8C board.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2eLFnw4vqQ

Starting in about 20 minutes.

Jas...

Final stretch of Tortoise Installs...

We are now finally into the last stretch of the Tortoise Motor installs, the northern area of the layout is the last section to receive them, and also one of the most dense concentrations of them too.

The majority of the motors are for passing sidings & crossovers.  I have installed three along the back edge of the backdrop for the small spurs for a couple of industries as it will save operators from having to lean over the bench work.

As can be seen it is fairly busy underneath this section and will get even busier when all the wiring for the push button fascia controls are added too.

Once this action is complete it will be onto installing the remaining SE8C's and wiring in the push buttons and Tortoise's.

Jas...