More photos, and progress at Vance

So, I thought I'd start with a few photos of my wiring panels. Here's a photo of the 1156 lamps above the Durango panel. For my wiring, I've been putting an automotive 1156 lamp on every block, and wiring the panels so the main feed (from the command-control system) goes to a terminal block, gets distributed to a bank of 1156 lamps, then (from each lamp) goes to the block feeder on the terminal block.


Here's a shot of the entire Durango panel. It's mostly empty, since all that's wired so far are the power busses and some of the blocks. Each area of the layout has its own panel, feeding blocks in that area. Each panel is feed from a 4-circuit power bus that runs around the layout. One of those circuits is the main feed from the command-control system, the others (yet to be used) are for 12v and maybe 5v power.


I use the area under the layout for household storage (and cave-exploration by my younger kids!). So, to keep that space accessible all of the panels are hinged, and fold up when I'm not working on them. Here's the Durango panel in its UP position.




And the last show - here's the end of the Ridgway staging tracks, where they terminate in the laundry / furnace room. There's a laundry sorting table (and old counter top) along the wall, and both the lower main and upper main / staging tracks run right along the edge of this sorting table. Because it's often filled with clothes (we do have 3 kids!), I enclosed the tracks. There's plexiglass on the sides, and the top of the staging level is a lift-off piece of bookcase shelving. So - trains are protected, and the shelf is handy for more clothes sorting. Eventually I'll paint and finish this, but for now it's at least protected and the tracks are functional.

I had a good weekend, thanks to my wife who wouldn't let me work around the house and made me just relax. I finished cork roadbed for Vance Jct and the beginning of the wye into Telluride, extended cork roadbed about halfway to Ophir, and rebuilt a moveable section of layout where bridge 46-E will (hopefully) one day reside. This is a pull-out section I needed for access, and getting the drawer slides and alignment issues worked out was a highlight of the weekend's work.