Monk Subdivision - Lessons Learned in 3 Months

In January 2024, I wrote in a post that Mike Confalone was right about his “Act first, think later” approach (https://hedley-junction.blogspot.com/2024/01/monk-subdivision-mike-confalone-was.html). Sure, Mike isn’t a reckless modeler as he puts a lot of thoughts into his work, but the ideas are always tested in the physical world and if they fail or lose their purpose, they get adjusted, fixed or replaced by newer ones are better.

I’m have been following that mantra for more than three months now. Going down to the basement, leaving the computer behind and working my little share each single day since then. What I have in front of my eyes now is a functional layout, sufficiently wired to be operated and with basic controls, both DC and DCC. I also have a large bridge already in place.

In my previous “life”, I would have worked by basically doing nothing for months, working like a madman a few entire days, then hit a roadblock, go back to that forsaken computer and find a new funny train related distraction until I would change my mind a go back working on the layout after forgetting the reason I was working on it.

Relying only on will power alone is a sure plan for failure. Only discipline can help to achieve results. As I will state in a future post, I still have a lot of things to do before starting scenery, but at the same time, I wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t put a few minutes each day on the layout.

And don’t believe it was a walk in the park over the last few months. I made a lot of mistakes, had to demolish and rebuild from scratch. Wiring had to be modified more than once to get it as clean as possible when it will be time to expand it. On my bucket list, there is a lot of rebuilding in my future. But when done piece by piece, step by step, everyday, it’s no longer a dreadful chore but simply leisure.

Part of me want it perfect, particularly the running qualities and the scenery, but I need to take my time and work on it a little bit everyday. I had planned for the layout to be fully operational by mid-September and I reached that point by early October due to some technical issues with the lift bridge. It may not yet be steam power friendly, but it is for diesel power and I will take that win any day!

Monk Subdivision - Adjusting the Staging Yard Lift Bridge

Adjusting the staging yard lift bridge wasn’t an easy task, but when decomposed into discrete steps, it was much palatable. The first steps was to remove the end tracks on the bridge itself to resurface the warped plywood surface. They were all soldered and wired with feeders. Thus I took my time, over two evening to prepare everything.

Resurfacing the plywood was much easier than thought

Then the surface was sanded down with a rotative sander and final level adjustment done with wood putty to ensure a perfect surface. It took three adjustments, but I got it right and sealed everything with a good coat of paint.

 

Perfect vertical alignment for improved performance

Then tracks were relaid, resoldered and rewired in place, assuring a good alignment to prevent derailment.

 

When done, I took care to finalize the bus wiring and gather all the wired together in a bundle. This was to ensure no wire would get entangled by repeated action of the bridge lifting motion.

 

A simple surface bolt took care of lateral position

I also added a small bolt to secure the bridge lateral position. This was required because I observed some lateral play that could be about 1.5mm. That is a huge misalignment! I found out by accident when a steamer hit the rails full speed and got its rods firmly stuck. This is some really nasty mechanical stuff. I went to the hardware store and tested several surface bolts until I found one that had minimal slack in it to ensure perfect alignment.

 

Adding a MDF guardrail for peace of mind against accidents

Finally, I added a piece of MDF to act as a guardrail to prevent trains to plunge on the concrete floor of doom. That takes away some stress to run expensive rolling stock!

Now, I have reached a point were most tracks have been laid and are functional. I only need to address the faulty trackwork by the curved turnout located on the superelevated spot. Once this is done, it will be a matter of adding the team track and coal track in Armagh, followed by installing a few tortoises and additional wiring. I must admit I'm a little bit afraid of running trains when there is not terrain to catch a falling piece of rolling stock. It doesn't take a lot to have such an unfortunate accident and I'm not willing to take that risk.

I must admit I'm not writing that much because I feel these nuts and bolts articles are far less interesting than scenery, planning or simply modelling. I have been working on a few rolling stock projects in "secret" too, but I'm waiting a bit before sharing them since I want to focus my efforts on what matters right now.

Monk Subdivision - Fine Tuning the Tracks

The loop of track is in place; it is wired and functional. The first train even made the inaugural run. What’s next?

The first train to ever complete the loop

That’s a good question. Part of me is wanting to dive direct into scenery but it cannot be done yet until running has been assessed. Until I can prove a large 2-10-2 or 4-8-4 steamer, a 16-car long passenger train or a 35-car freight train can navigate safely and reliably over the layout, it would be foolish to ballast the track.

Inaugurating the staging with a proper mixed train

Several key issues have been identified, including the following:

1) Superelevation is neat but it doesn’t like to start after a turnout. I haven’t experimented that much with it, but I reckon that you need at least 12 inch of flat track on both sides of a turnout. This is the only way to make sure locomotives with long rigid wheelbase can navigate them without derailing. In this case, my BLI ATSF 4-8-4 with its huge drivers is a perfect candidate for testing.

Vertical transition and patchwork of track near a turnout isn't a good idea

2) Superelevation on very broad curves add very little. In this specific case, I’m talking about the broad curve at Langlois station, in front of the feed mill. I made the superelevation half what it is elsewhere, but it still look silly. The reason is simple; this is a switching spot and having your freight train partially tilted doesn’t look good. It just looks like poorly laid track which induced unwarranted tilt. Also, that curve is so broad I gain virtually nothing from that superelevation. It's not high on the priority list, but it may be "improved" in the near future.

3) Superelevation on very sharp curves looks silly. This is the case of the 28” radius curve leading to the staging right of Armagh. For some reason, the trains look far too much tilted on this curve, as if they were going to fall. Visually, it’s not pleasing at all and mechanically, it induces the aforementioned issue with transitioning with the turnout. While superelevation is desirable, I think it should be half what it is there.

This superelevation may be reduces... maybe not

4) At the culvert, between Langlois and Armagh, there is a slight grade. Nothing major, but it’s there. Visually, it had a little bit of interest because in real life, there was a grade there. The issue is the grade isn’t constant vertically, which induce some optical effects that don’t look good. I will need to rework my risers there.

The plywood creates a sounding board and must go

5) The next issue is linked to the previous one. I used plywood to create a flat surface at the river level for the culvert, then screwed the risers on it. This created a dreaded soundboard. When trains run over that section, a very loud noise is unheard, which is really bursting the suspension of disbelief. I will need to remove that plywood as much as possible and rethink the way risers are fixed. Not at easy task, but a necessary one.

6) Elsewhere, the tape I used for superelevation isn’t always perfectly located under the ties. This variation causes trains to wobble a little, which is unsightly. The same also happens here and there because nailed track is not always perfectly laying flat on the cork. When ballasting, there is a risk of gravel going under the lifted ties and making these deformations permanent. Tracks will need to be secured with latex caulk before adding scenery.

7) The staging yard lift bridge is sitting a little bit higher than the yard, which created a substantial height difference at rail head. This is a likely source of future derailments. My idea is to either rise the yard tracks or find a way to lower the bridge. It is my suspicion that the later is probably easier and won’t add further vertical deformation along the route.

This is almost 1mm vertical difference between the layout and bridge!

8) Team tracks and sidings in real life often sit lower than the mainline and I wonder if I should implement that everywhere on the layout. It is visually interesting, but that vertical transition could create issues at the double ended team track in Armagh. I can already imagine a lot of running issues raising from such an aesthetic choice. It can work at Langlois station, but I am more doubtful at Armagh. Had the track been 10 feet long, it wouldn’t be an issue, but when shorter, it becomes a roller coaster of poor decisions.

9) Finally, I need to test if all the staging tracks have a good geometry that works well with long trains. Lots of curves there which will inevitably reduce the pulling power of locomotives. Also, I need to identify which ones are best for passenger trains or large steam locomotives.

Nothing beats the feeling of a train running freely around the room

As you can see, there is a lot of things to figure out but I feel like brushing them away would be the perfect recipe to be disenchanted with the layout. Poor track always leads to frustration and untimely death of a beloved project.

So I guess I have still a lot of work cut for me!

Monk Subdivision - Sherlock Holmes and The Short

Yesterday, Jérôme paid a visit to the layout to run some trains… if we could troubleshoot the short circuit plaguing it. The first hour was spent trying to find out if there was something wrong with the wiring. Could some of the feeders or bus wires be inverted somewhere? Well, we did find two problematic feeders that needed to be moved around, but the problem persisted.

Next, we moved our attention to the staging yard control panel since we got short indication. However, when disconnected from the layout, it was perfectly fine. Using a multimeter, we investigated two Peco curved turnouts. They were electrofrog and could have been insulated incorrectly. Alas, they were fine… I even went so far as removing one, just in case. 

Then Jérôme started to probe the screw connectors. Most of them were shorted, which meant something wrong was going on with the tracks. Pushing forward the investigation, our attention turned to the staging yard lift bridge. Even when disconnected, we got shorts on a few tracks. This would became the focus of our attention.

The problematic situation as discovered

After a while, an idea crossed my mind. Could the soldered PC board ties used at the ends of the bridge be the issue? Well, it was. At first, we suspected solder bridging the gap in the copper foil, but it wasn’t the case. Then, the real problem reared its ugly head. The PC board ties are secured in place with two nails at each end. While the copper foil is notched on top to prevent shorts, the plating under it is continuous. When you drive a metal nail through the tie, it bridges both copper layers, creating short. 

Our solution was to add an insulating notch on top

The solution was easy and I simply removed some copper at one end so the nail could no longer be electrified. In hindsight, I should have notched the copper plating underneat each tie. Once you know the issue, it is extremely easy to remedy, but tracking it took several evenings, and finally two brains. Since I’m not that proficient with electricity, I was suspecting my wiring was wrong, but couldn’t figure out the mistakes. It would have been hard to think the PC board ties were the main issue… or should I say, my way to secure them.

A notch should be made in the bottom copper plating first

With this problem figured out and troubleshooted, I can now complete the basic wiring and start to improve track geometry. I can still see a few things that bother me, including superelevation at turnouts, running noise over plywood and some vertical alignment issues here and there. If I was running only diesel locomotives, I wouldn’t care that much about it. However, large wheelbase steamers don’t like it.

Monk Subdivision - Running Trains! Or Almost...

My posting rate isn't that stellar due to a simple reason. Is wiring really an interesting topic?

A week ago, the long weekend was an excellent occasion to get immersed with the layout work and try to make things happen, which means to be able to run a full train all around the room. On Friday, I was able to finish the laying the main staging track until I ran out of track. Then, the next day, a few other sidings by purchasing some remaining track stock at BV Hobby. I didn't expect running low of track and joiners, but sure I did and I scavenged everything I could to make the project progress waiting to gather everything I need to finish my work.

A classic 1970s MLW CN consist over Abénaki Bridge

To celebrate that milestone, a prototypical 1970s CN Monk Subdivision diesel consist was assembled, with two Bowser Big Alco and one RS18. It truly made the concept shine though it was too soon to run around the staging track since it wasn't wired yet.

And since then, my life has been all about wiring track, soldering feeders and running bus wires under the layout. I'm using screw terminal blocks with connectors. It gives a more professional look while being much easier to work with and move around. I know I have already some trouble shooting ahead of me and not having to unsolder everything will be quite helpful.

This sums up my modelling life since two weeks

To be honest, I have a big picture of how wiring should work for the layout, but I'm kind of figuring it out directly under the layout. My approach is simply to do small sections according to my operating logic and come back the next day to extend it.

I also have been working on a control panel for the staging yard. The concept is to have each staging track fed individually and controlled by a switch to turn it on or off. I have many reasons to implement that system. First, I don't want all train loco running for no reason, particularly with DCC and sound. Second, I'm using my NCE Pro Cab DCC system which isn't designed to handle a dozen of locos under power. Thus, I figured out the best thing would be to store a train after it had made its appearance, shut the track off, turn on another track and run another train. This is also a way to reduce the risk of runaway trains in a room I'm rarely standing in it.

Ugly but efficient, I like the feel of old metal toggle switches

The panel is simply a scrap piece remaining from the 4' x 8' project. It may be replaced in the future by something more aesthetically pleasing, but right now, it is doing its job nicely.

I also implemented another safety device for the staging yard lift bridge. With a single micro switch, it controls the common bus wire directly from the source. If the bridge is open, all tracks in the staging yards are without electricity. I didn't want to only cut off some short sections before the bridge. My reason being that I'm not always standing in the staging yard and can't really see what is happening. On the main layout, everything is easy to monitor and the bridge there can be left opened without stopping operation if in "switching layout" mode and not running the entire loop.

The temporary train control station at Armagh

I've yet to see how much time will be required to finish up the layout, but it's progressing at a steady pace. I would love to see trains in action soon, but time will tell... and may need much more wire than I anticipated and some troubleshooting will require my attention. I also ran out of wire only to find out it is no longer available. If you have been following copper wire costs lately, I can confirm that the type of wire I uses has almost doubled price since 2024. My answer to that was simply to install more terminal blocks and plan better my feeder location. That way, I have been able to reclaim enough 18 AWG wire to make all the feeders I need for the staging yard. It will only be required to purchase some bus wire later on.