Our first meeting of the Fall 2024 Semester will be this Friday, September 13th at 8pm in the club room (N52-118). This is a great opportunity to get to know more about the club, discuss our upcoming projects (including System4), and run some trains. Hope to see you there!
The new circuit boards and the corresponding parts for System 4 have arrived! Help is needed assembling them so feel free to stop by the club room and help out with assembly!
March 25
John P persuaded John T and Chris to try some hand-laid track on the upper level.
November 4
More Progress on the upper level. A lovely new turnout!
October 28
This shows the state of Progress on the upper level. The metal blocks clamped to the plywood serve to damp the effect of nailing down roadbed.
May 27
The fans that cool the electronics for the Tetris game had been making an ominous rumbling sound for a long time. Examination showed that they were filthy, and one had a broken blade, which explained the noise. Replacement seemed like the best plan.
November 9
We received a message from the daughter of former member Eric Bott, who made the Coca-Bubblie sign back in his student days around 1970. It’s in a prominent location and continues to be admired. The visit she suggested wasn’t possible, but we hope she’ll call this picture to her dad’s attention.
September 03
Prajwal has deserted the chalets and glaciers of Switzerland for a few weeks, and of course the first thing he did at TMRC was get his European trains out.
August 31
This is the dollar bill acceptor from the Coke(R) machine, with a note saying “Coins only”. Time for a fix!
February 13
Some belated credit for David Lambeth of the West Coast Shops. He made these gorgeous silos for the chemical plant.
He also made a section of viaduct to connect with Andy Miller’s bridge in Killianport. This is based on the Lechmere viaduct just down the road.
Lots of Progress by Alex! Here’s some construction in East Berkmannville.
This is a small building--for East Berkmannville?
Here it is complete.
A small display unit to be used on the platform at Killianport as a train indicator.
Prajwal, visiting from wherever he is these days, was impressed.
Now it has our text on it.
John P did some more cutting of plywood for Level 2. Working out in the hallway means cleaning up is easier.
Level 2 above East Berkmannville, with junk already in place. The front-to-back depth is 20 inches, which was acceptable by consensus of TMRC members in the room.
New steelwork to support the plywood, involving hard-to-find “cone nuts”.
Another of Alex’s projects--a walkway outside the roundhouse.
And another of John P’s--more LED lighting as Level 2 progresses.
We were favored with a visit from members of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Model Railroad Club, and we traded a couple of freight cars with them. Note that one car is finished and weathered, and the other is “some assembly required”. Their railroad is the Rochester \& Irondequoit Terminal.
November 21Yes, we do remember how to do a Progress Report!
The Saturday before Thanksgiving is usually Open House day--and it was reasonably succesful.
John T is making an N-scale display layout, and John M helped out.
John P put together railings for the Pettengill Circle area, and John T helped him install them.
August 28
Alex assembled a storage tank for the chemical plant.
A calamity occurred when John P attempted to add new tracks to the layout file. The computer became unable to run the graphical part of its program. The screen looked like this.
June 3
A new block card and O the horror, it has a cold solder joint.
Survey work on the upper level. Build track first, then measure it to make an accurate diagram.
December 6
Howard’s skills with repair of intricate mechanisms were called upon to fix this grabber which someone left in the clubroom, but he said it wasn’t worth the trouble.
A touch screen for use with our new Raspberry Pi hardware.
November 12
After years of annoyance, John P decided to remove the “Magnetic Storm” uncoupler from Gifford City. Here’s the worksite ater the uncoupler was removed.
A replacement wood slab has been glued in place, and putty spread around the edges.
October 31We didn’t get around to any Progress Report in October, so we’ll tell a big lie about the date on this one: maybe it should really be Nov 1.
Eliza made a very welcome visit after a long absence. She’s now an employee of the Institute, and so eligible to be a totally official TMRC member.
We had a visit from a very large number of people.
September 03
A praying mantis was observed in the hallway.
August 07
We have been generously given some second-hand models, which Alex has volunteered to evaluate and sell on eBay. Here he is attempting to get a loco running on the wheel-cleaner, under John M’s able supervision.
July 02
The next block card (and the final one, using the present circuit boards) is under construction.
June 04
Luis has finished his tower, allowing for a few fixups. And is that paint job adequate?
May 28
There’s now a 3-way turnout in the paper mill area on the upper level.
April 16
Dillon thought that the workbench needed a new coat of paint, and he enlisted new member Natasha to help apply it.
March 01
John P got the new shelves started--after several trips to the big-box hardware stores in search of suitable anchors and fasteners. Already the clutter on the desktop has been reduced (until more clutter arrives and the old stuff remains around, so we’ll have a cluttered desk and shelves). The shelves are temporary and were made from a nice big piece of particleboard out of the trash room.
February 01
The Operating Session that we planned didn’t turn out as expected. A fair number of people took it as an invitation to come as spectators.
January 11
An attempt at creating a transition rail from code 70 down to code 55, by crushing the rail. This doesn’t look pretty, but there is hope for the technique.
December 14
New ties for new track! A review of the likely operation of the paper mill showed how much we need a lead/engine escape track. That’s what’s going in here.
November 3We had a journalism student from BU come over and take some pictures a while back - here are the results! All photo credits to Poncie Rutsch
Discussions continue as to how to proceed with the track laying on the second level
October 2
Dillon has been laying ties in the paper mill area on the upper level.
September 4
For the first time in living memory--we’re getting the floor cleaned and waxed. But there’s work to be done…
August 17
Somebody asked how we do occupancy detection. It’s easy--a 38K resistor on one wheelset of each car, attached with conductive epoxy. If you look carefully, you can see that the wheels on the far side of the car are insulated from the axle by a black plastic sleeve (the other wheel is pressed onto the axle and is in contact with it) so our resistor is installed so as to bridge the insulating sleeve. Thus there is conduction from wheel to wheel via the axle and the resistor.
July 24
Veteran member Richard Greenblatt and new member Prajwal Mohanmurthy are working together on trying to understand the System software.
May 01
A photographer stopped by to take some amazing pictures of the layout. All Credit goes to Bruce Horwitz Photography. Reproduced with permission. “Roundhouse”
April 21
Yet more progress on the upper level--ties are down!
March 21
More progress on the upper level--tracks for the Cental Vermont loop branching off the helix.
February 13
The last Progress Report showed the start of conversion of the diamond crossings on Section 14 of the helix to use movable frogs. This shows the full set of points and the mechanism which drives them. Phosphor-bronze wire in various sizes, purchased at the recent Springfield show, has been very useful in building this.
January 2
We have purchased a new power supply especially for under-layout lighting. With 8 Amps output capacity! (A single string of 8 LEDs draws 320mA.)
December 1
Alex constructed a small building and installed it in F-Yard.
November 14
Alex and John P have installed the LED light bars (seen in previous reports) in Berkmannville.
October 3
Progress today was on Section 14 of the helix, again--see February and March of this year. With trains now able to climb the helix, it’s time to wire the track in this area. So, here’s the electrical diagram, with 27 feed points.
September 15
No progress reports, but much Progress! David Lambeth visited and helped out with Activities Midway. He put new member Alex to work planting shrubbery, using precision tools.
August 8
John M continues to work on a new crossing signal for the Activities Midway. He’s making it about 50% of the size of the old one, so here measurements are being made.
July 18
A few recently purchased items. The DeWalt drill is back in action, after suffering the simultaneous meltdown of the battery and charger. And now we have a spare battery!
May 9
This shows Progress occurring across WIndsor St, in the former parking lot (much missed by car owners).
April 4
The next phase of Level 2 construction required the production of sawdust, which took place out in the hallway in order to make cleanup easier. This is “experienced” plywood.
March 3
Very little happened tonight. Here is Eliza’s TV truck with a functional electronic package. You can see it in action at our Youtube page
February 1
We start with some pictures for our far-flung members, to show certain features of benchwork as an aid to layout design. Here’s a hole.
January 4
This shows the proposed new benchwork construction method for the upper levels. It combines slotted angle with UnistrutTM channel. Apart from the use of clamps to join the wood and metal, there are some makeshift fasteners holding the parts together. We will get proper UnistrutTM parts in due course.
December 3 Oh my, such Progress!
For the first time in many years--a new section of helix was made and installed. No track yet. Note the ultra-long nut-runner. Custom made for TMRC in the distant past.
November 5
This is the “minimally invasive” design with the two routes kept to minimum width, and as far back as possible.
October 1
Eliza is adding a blinking red roof beacon to her TV broadcast truck. With actual electronics!
September 7
Under construction-- a timber grade crossing at the chemical factory. Not paved like the one shown earlier because it’s too difficult through a turnout.
June 15
One of the switch machines at the chemical factory is operated by a hobby servo. There’s a video of it available at this address. The turnout is operated simultaneously with another that’s moved by a Tortoise machine, as is quite obvious on the soundtrack!
May 14
Switch machines have now been installed at the chemical factory (they are mostly in better focus). .
April 1
Here is the exhibit at the Compton Gallery, featuring our train. The MIT Museum staff added some mid-1960s pictures to the background--that’s Peter Samson, Harriet Kang and an unknown person above, and an Open House scene below.
March 2
Eliza and Mike worked on a new communication project.
February 5No pictures unfortunately, but the evening opened with visits by veteran members Pete Samson and George Mitchell.
Governor Stunes shows new member Eliza how we maintain locomotives.
January 26
Virtual progress! We’re planning the upper levels of the layout with the help of Google Sketchup. Here’s the triple-track ramp that rises from the staging yard. Yes, it has correct Code 83 rail sections and ties every 0.2 inches.
December 11
Something new from the Operation Committee. We’ve made up special slips which can be inserted in car-order pockets, to tell operators to hold cars for repair work.
November 3
In preparation for Saturday’s Operating Session, trains and car cards have been arranged.
October 27
Trackwork in the chemical plant area now includes complete turnouts.
September 8
Following a summer of torpor, TMRC has once again become the hive of activity that’s its usual state. Here’s Progress on the trackwork at the chemical factory. It’s our first major installation of track done with Code 55 rail.
July 7
Alex has decided that maybe a hobby servo would be better for his project than a stepper.
June 5
Ties are down in the chemical plant area, and John P is attempting to making them look weathered and neglected, by painting them gray before staining with brown.
May 3
The Operating Session took place as planned, and we generally agreed that it was a success. Here are Bill and Alex dealing with paperwork.
April 3
We saw some nice-looking industrial buildings at the South Shore Model RR Club a couple of weeks ago, which turned out to be the “Radical Flats” series made by Kingmill Enterprises. We ordered a few, and we’ve started assembling them.
March 3
Today we arrived to find a note saying “Machine broken” on the Coke(R) machine. The trouble proved to be a broken coin chute, which had caused a jam. John M removed the damaged part.
February 20
Eat your veggies. Thanks to Alex and his friends for importing the vegetables from Germany. Somehow they got past the fruit-sniffing dog at the airport.
January 2TMRC now owns a steam locomotive, our first in who knows how long (except BITCo #1/2, which seems to have wandered away).
It’s the Bachmann Spectrum model of the Baldwin 2-8-0 (“Consolidation”) which was made in more or less the same form for many railroads, and used from the beginning of the 20th century until the last steam locos retired. Our engine is undecorated, ready to have TNP markings applied, and maybe some weathering done..
December 9
A simple attempt to use the Club’s venerable Pink Elephant to clean up some loose scenic material led to a teardown of the said Elephant, and replacement of the on/off switch and the power cord.
November 25We had an excellent Open House on the 21st, and maybe someone will post pictures from it. And there’s Progress!
New member Alex Keck worked on assembling a brass switch stand kit. With tonight’s effort, he has reached his required 10 hours of work for the club, and we gave him the secret combination to the clubroom door.
September 23
In order to prevent the points of this turnout from occurring on a bridge, a gantlet section was installed. This is based on a prototype in Bellows Falls VT.
July 15 Michael’s latest in freight car assembly. This time it’s an Intermountain cylindrical covered hopper kit. The “Chesapeake” is the Chesapeake \& Lake Erie, the railroad of the North Shore Model Railroad Club, where we have many friends.
The brake components are very small and precise.
June 13 First progress report for almost two months! It’s shocking.
Michael Stunes has been assembling a couple of Red Caboose brand freight cars. He says there are plenty of fiddly parts, but he’s not afraid.
April 1
John M worked on the steel warehouse in East Berkmannville.
March 7
A new doohickey for a Tortoise(TM) switch machine! To replace one that, um, unfortunately became lost.
February 4
Alas, on Saturday we said goodbye to David Lambeth, who is off to California. He said, “This isn’t the first time I’ve left MIT, but it’s the first time I’ve managed to leave with a degree.” Hmmm. Here’s David loading the Coke (TM) machine for the last time, helped by Quentin.
January 10We were supposed to have an operating session and a club meeting tonight, but we were so busy with other projects we did neither. Our visitors from RailRun must have been scared off by the snow!
Some operating was done, actually.
December 06Running some trains on the nice, clean, post-open house track.
November 15 Tonight was clean-up night at TMRC in preparation for next Saturday’s open house. The club room is cleaner than it’s ever been, we think. Every semester we clean a little harder and discover even more junk than the semester before. Here’s some progress from the past month that hasn’t been reported yet: David L. installed backdrops all the way across the bottom of the tower, from the freight yard at the new Madlinger Chemical building to the ladder behind Comfort Candy and the Digital Widgets offices. He also painted the underside of the tower sky blue, a messy but necessary process. The notches in the backdrop are for a loop of upper level track that will come from Tuckerton. Quentin added a switch to the working crossing gates at Middle Heights. This switch performs the vital function of shutting off the crossing bell when we get sick of it. John Purbrick has been extending the cut between Berkmannville and East Berkmannville with some new retaining walls and underbrush. Our car cards now reside in neat card pockets on the fascia. The pockets are attached with industrial velcro, so they can be removed if necessary. David L. built the pockets, John McNamara added the labels, and John Purbrick has been painting the cab jacks yellow to make them easier to find. Another recent improvement courtesy of JP has been the extension of a retaining wall and weeds along the front edge of the freight yard as far as Killianport commuter station. Gifford City now has a new fire station! This is the last of several attempts to kitbash a building to fit this oddly shaped lot, a challenge that caused the firehouse to be one of the last buildings to be completed in Gifford City. November 22 Many thanks to everyone who came to our fall Open House! We had lots of visitors, including an unusually large group for the evening portion thanks to word getting around a few model railroader newsgroups. In addition to several trains running around the mainline and the two camera cars, we also used the new throttles to do some switching in the freight yard and run a train around the layout manually amid all the other traffic. A few lucky young visitors got the chance to handle the throttle, which must have been quite a thrill! Continuing a trend that has been going on for several years, the number of problems we encountered was fewer than at the spring Open House. Only a couple cars or locomotives misbehaved, and only one (very hard to reach) switch gave us any problems with the trackwork. The system did well, except for a couple incidents when reversing one train to re-rail its cars caused the following train to become part of it. Genya was our tireless operator during the afternoon session, helping to keep the trains running. Thanks also goes to Tom, Quentin, Hugh, John Purbrick, Bill Onorato, Andy Miller, and David Lambeth for helping out. Special thanks to John Shriver for getting the trollies ready. Photos from the Open House:
October 4
We agreed to open the club to a group of alumni attending a party at the Museum. The party was held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Smoot marks on the Harvard Bridge, and Mr Oliver Reed Smoot himself honored the club with his presence. David added some Smoot marks of our own.
September 17
David Lambeth has renovated the old “High Rise” section of Digital Widgets, with white LEDs undreamt of when Rodger Doxsey first made the building.
June 21 How did we manage to make so much Progress on the shortest night of the year?
David Lambeth assembled a vast number of new storage cassettes for spare rolling stock.
April 5 Testing locos in preparation for the Open House on the 26th. April 19 Plenty of progress but a paucity of pictures to prove it. For most of the night the club room was occupied by only students and recent students. There hasn’t been an all-student meeting night in a long while, if ever. David Backus, Quentin, Genya, Thomasz, and David Lambeth were all present tonight. The first order of busines was to recycle five large bags of old, sticky, disgusting empty soda cans. David Backus, Quentin, and David Lambeth spent over an hour at Star Market feeding cans into the machine. It took so long mainly because the same poor supermarket employee had to keep coming back to fix four or five cases of full or jammed machines. Results: 673 cans and 82 bottles recycled, and an extra $36 revenue for the club. With one week to go until the open house, it was track cleaning night. David, David, Tomasz, and Quentin polished the entire main line, including hidden track, and David L. wiped down the visible main with conductive hair clipper oil to remove the residual dirt. David and David tested locomotives in preparation for the open house, and David L. made several new car storage trays to hold some of the passenger equipment. Meanwhile, Tomasz, Quentin, and Genya were fiddling with the system and the prototype for the new hardware cabs. They debugged the software which talks to the h-cabs and prepared upgrades to the cab driver. After the open house, the new h-cab will be able to work anywhere on the layout, not just on the test jack. The final event of the night was preparation for a floor waxing. David and David raised the soda cartons off the floor on 2x4s to keep them from being damaged. Chairs and trash cans were gathered by the computer desk and everything on the floor either got put away or shoved deep under the layout. David B. swept up the loose dirt and trash. April 23 The floor cleaners who were supposed to wax half the room last night never made it into the club room. It seems the good folks at facilities no longer have any sort of key that can get into our club room. The waxers showed up, saw the “Be back soon!” note from last Saturday’s dinner, and waited around in vain. Tomasz had been having some difficulties running trains: blocks that wouldn’t reverse, switches that wouldn’t throw. He and JP spent a while digging around for the culprit. It seems last Saturday’s experimentation with the hardware cabs threw some breakers controlling the area around the freight yard. Once those were reset, the layout was running smoothly again! Tomaz and David L. ran trains to test a few more locomotives. The train of ten autoracks turns out to be too heavy for most engines to pull up the helix by themselves. For the open house that train will have to be split or double-headed. The grade crossing in Middle Heights kept knocking cars off the track because the sidewalks were so close to the rails they literally picked up the sideframes of passing cars and threw them aside. For future reference, sidewalks should not extend inside the loading gauge, just like anything else. A couple of freight cars had problems and had to be fixed. It’s really difficult to tell what’s wrong with a car just from watching it derail or uncouple. More than likely, a tutorial on how to troubleshoot cars and locomotives will be forthcoming this fall, to shift some of the burden off David L. Saturday’s room cleanup continued, with the couch going under Middle Heights and the trash cans, bunkies, and remaning chairs being picked up. Unfortunately, cleaning up the floor seems to have cluttered the other horizontal surfaces in the room. Now we have to clear those before Saturday. The happy ending to the mishap with the floor cleaners is that they returned at 11:00 and stripped and waxed the whole floor in one night. The dull, dirty, scuffed, and stained floor that we had all become accustomed to is now bright, shiny new. Everything is looking fantastic for Saturday’s open house!
March 6 David L made a mockup of the proposed helix between the 2nd and 3rd levels. It dominates the scene at Middle Heights. James and Hugh dropped in. We hadn’t seen them for quite a while. At this moment they seemed to be looking heavenward for inspiration. David has also been putting together conductive wheelsets. He has quite a production line going. March 17
A grade crossing and ground clutter in Middle Heights.
February 16The theme for this week is PROGRESS.
There was much Progress in East Berkmannville, pressed ahead by Adam, Quentin and David L. “Gentlemen, shall Progress occur here?”
Adam says there are lots of pictures in existence showing him bending down to work on something. So we rearranged gravity to let him stay upright. Progress promotes paraphernalia’s proliferation.
January 5
Progress for tonight was WEEDS. A lovely new patch of WEEDS has appeared between the main line and the bulk transfer siding across from F-Yard. Also, last weekend (which was actually in December ‘07) the aforementioned siding was subjected to tectonic forces which lowered it relative to the main line and changed its slope from downward to level. This has the effect of ending the unpleasant habit of cars rolling from the siding down onto the main line. It also gives a more pleasing appearance, with the difference in levels making a visual separation between the main line and the siding. And it creates an attractive location for WEEDS. Genya did some programming which was “somewhat technical” but “related to Java 1.5”. It had nothing to do with WEEDS. Bill stained ties on the extended industrial siding at the back of F-Yard. Again it featured no WEEDS.
December 15 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2007/12/../../../imagese221.tcl?year=2007&month=12&day=15) Although we haven’t posted progress reports for a few weeks, there has been progress. David L has constructed several buildings in Berkmannville, and John P’s warehouse has been added too. Berkmannville is shaping up as the New England mill town it’s intended to be, crammed into a valley with a river and (of course) a railroad. Quentin worked on a building and scenery in Middle Heights. He filled in the missing scenery closest to the road, and he added LED lighting to the small building. Genya worked on software involving train direction. We got a Bachmann 44-tonner. It is So Cute.
November 03The first of the new cab drivers (i.e. the boards which interface the walkaround cabs to the communication bus) is complete and installed. It replaces the ever-unreliable unit 240 at the east end of the freight yard, and there was much rejoicing. Note that in this design the expensive RJ45 connector with LEDs is replaced with a plain one, with the LEDs on the side. Tom cut ties for the new track in East Berkmannville, and not his fingers. November 17 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2007/11/../../../images2ce6.tcl?year=2007&month=11&day=17) We had a very successful open house. As often happens, there were people waiting outside when we opened the doors at 2. It was quite hectic for the first couple of hours as we discovered all the track we had forgotten to clean and found problems with the locomotives and cars on the trains we ran. By the time we had finished dinner and reopened at 7, though, we had most of the kinks worked out and things seemed to run well. Over a hundred people came to see our layout, which is typical for the fall. The system worked flawlessly, allowing us to run six trains at a time for most of the afternoon. We also had both camera cars up and running, broadcasting live video from the tracks. There were a few derailments and train breaks. Only one looked like it was due to intruding fingers. The kids did a much better job of keeping their hands off the layout than in past years. Considering how many trains we ran and that most were much longer than usual, the rolling stock behaved quite well. The big rock face at the viaduct was a big hit, and the newly-scenicked Middle Heights area proved to be a popular place for train watching. We ran under the spotlights after dinner, giving the layout an appropriate “evening” appearance. Club alumn James van Bokkelen showed up for dinner and stayed afterward to fix some track problems we had discovered earlier in the day. Most of the active club members were present for at least part of the day, including some we haven’t seen much recently such as James Knight. Overall the open house was a big success, and we showcased our work to many people from the local community. John Shriver also worked on the two Brill streetcars, cleaning one and bringing the other one home for some overhaul. Finally, a new feature was added to the System to, when possible, reduce damage to cars and couplers due to deceleration. When a train is ordered to stop on red, rather than stopping immediately, its speed is gradualled ramped down. The train should still stop within two car lengths of the block gap, but the cars should experience less deceleration. This feature doesn’t apply at very high speeds, as it is important that trains stop before crossing the next block gap. November 21Tonight half a dozen people showed up despite the looming holiday, and a considerable amount of work got done. David Lambeth went around the layout repairing track problems that cropped up at the open house, which included replacing a section of flextrack by sticking his head through the tower ladder. Genya glued down the part of the Berkmanville passenger platform that was sticking up and hitting the trains. John McNamara and Andy Miller schemed up a way to build a difficult hill on the east end of Middle Heights. John Purbrick continued work on his new warehouse building. Genya also devised a train-break detection system that should fix a problem we had at the open house. Since the plan is to have all cars occupy, if two or more unoccupied blocks appear in the middle of a train the train will get a red signal. This allows the operator a chance to reconnect a split train before the front end races halfway around the layout. New member Ben Kaduk came by and worked on the Gifford City firehouse. The firehouse now fits neatly in place on the layout and needs only a roof and some detailing to be complete. Our soda supply is now fully stocked. Star Market had coke on sale this week and David Lambeth took advantage of it by carting off sixty cases. The supermarket staff don’t seem to mind when he walks in with the TMRC handcart. Sixty cases may seem like a lot, but after the open house and four normal days of sales it took fifteen cases to refill the coke machine today!
October 07Adam spent much of the evening building better black holes. The picture shows (from left) Adam admiring his handiwork, Hugh queietly surveying tthe scene, David B. admiring Adam’s black hole, Genya, doing who knows what, and David L. looking in an insufficiently black hole that Adam has yet to address. David B. contemplated what to do with the long neglected lumber yard area. David L. worked on a variety of things. Bill worked on sidings behind F-yard. Tom prepared to list some recently donated items on eBay. There is an incomplete plan to have an operating session on October 20. This may or may not actually happen.
September 9We planned an operating session, tested cab interface boards, tried unsuccessfully to find a partially completed building, had two separate groups of visitors, Quentin fixed the Green building Tetris in a way even he doesn’t understand, David L. used some power tools without incident, Adam marveled at the light control system, David B. made unrealistic plans for a very cool track cleaning car, and Quentin looked up obscene computer names on campus. By TMRC standards, this was a hell of a night!September 24 Various small jobs were undertaken tonight, but applying black paint to the back of the mountain (with the objective of making the tunnels darker) was obviously lots of fun! Nevertheless it was an exacting job, requiring serious supervision. Old-timers will be happy to see the Pink Elephant still on the job. And Tech Talk being used appropriately. September 29 A committee of experts tested the freight car fleet in advance of future Operating Sessions. This involved checking weight, couplers, wheels, rolling friction and electrical resistance. Note the test track and weighing scale.
August 18 Not much to report, but there isn’t much occurring on these hot summer days. The tracklaying crew has extended the siding in Middle Heights to serve the new industry: a paper recycling business. To the annoyance of local citizens, the grade crossing was immediately blocked by switching operations.
July 11John Purbrick has built a mechanical kludge which he humbly states is “rather complicated” even by his standards. He installed it in the clubroom and then left for England without telling anyone what it does or where it is! He did say there’s one small clue. If people don’t see it, they’ll have to do without. July 28Andy Miller worked on some painting. Tom and John McNamara stocked up on soda at Star Market, and fixed a problem with the portable layout which is brought to the Activities Midway each fall. It appears that a rail joiner was left out in one place, leading to poor continuity across the resulting gap (which was so small as to be almost invisible.) There was evidence of an attempted repair involving what looked like a piece of aluminum cut from a soda can; the work was shoddy, even by TMRC standards (which is to say, it didn’t work.) A wire was soldered along the side of the rails to fix the problem, and the layout now appears to work properly. A rather selective power outage, possibly caused by severe thunderstorms this afternoon, resulted in a change in the usual dinner plans. The blackout affected the building housing Royal East, and the building housing Chicago Pizza, which are two blocks apart on opposite sides of N52. No other buildings appeared to be affected.
June 3Our humble web pages has been selected as the Webmasters’s Choice for June 2007 by the National Model Railroad Association. Welcome to everyone who has found us through that site, and enjoy your visit. June 9Quentin and Tom tried to debug the Green Building Tetris game. The game responds very slowly to button presses when using the controls in the hall, but plays fine using the controller that connects directly to the game electronics under the building. There seems to be a communications problem in the serial network that the game and lights controller connect to. June 13 The upper-level tunnel mouth and retaining wall in Middle Heights are installed, and Andy Miller’s road across the lower-level tracks has been extended. A former club member has donated several boxes filled with antique models. These have been stored for almost 30 years, and appear to range widely in quality, but some should fetch a decent price on the secondhand market, and we may keep some for the second layout level, to be built some day, or so runs the legend. One Marklin locomotive was taken away by John McNamara in order to test it on a layout owned by a friend. John Shriver finished hanging the running wire for MITCo. The picture shows one of the club’s trolleys on the first full loop with the pole up. There is much adjusting to do, and wire needs to be hung over some non-functional tracks that run off the edge of the layout. John McNamara posted a System 3 Debugging Guide to the web page. June 27 Andy Miller has installed some attractive grade crossings in Middle Heights. But Andy, are the flangeways wide enough? He also had the railroad’s name engraved in a plastic plate, which he’s now built into an Art Deco bridge. A decorative motif of eagles with upraised wings was proposed, but the eagles couldn’t be found.
May 12John McNamara and David Backus purchased a heroic amount of soda for the machine, which is now filled again. Adam worked on pouring water into the river area he’s been working on for quite some time now, and started planning a farm scene for the end of the Berkmannville/staging yard helix. Tom added a layout diagram to the TNP web page (the diagram was originally made by JP), along with a new page describing how our camera cars work. May 16Andy worked on some scenery in Middle Heights. John Shriver continued to hang the overhead trolley wires. Quentin acquired a new laptop off reuse for the staging area and installed it. May 19 It’s the end of term and we had a quiet evening, with a pizza instead of General Gao’s chicken. Ably supervised by John McNamara, John Purbrick continued work on the “uphill” side of the track at Middle Heights, beginning by doing a traumatic disconnection of a switch machine, which necessitated a spliced cable. As often happens on model railroads, we seem to be heading for some “geographically unlikely” construction. Tom arrived in time to make the pictures look better.
April 7 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2007/4/../../../imagesa4d9.tcl?year=2007&month=4&day=7) The big news for the evening is the great progress seen in the valley scene. Adam has been working on this area for quite a while, and managed to trick his parents into coming to MIT to help out. The three of them spent time Friday, Saturday, and plan to continue working Sunday. They have cast and installed a large number of rocks, patched in the gaps between castings, and colored the rocks a pleasant brownish grey. See the gallery for more pictures. David Backus fiddled with his DCC locomotives and contemplated what would be needed to add DCC capabilities to System 3, eventually talking Quentin into working on the software aspects. Andy painted some cars. David and Adam discussed the upcoming operating session. Tom took some photos and video of the MITCo system and the camera cars used by the club. April 10John Purbrick and Tom worked to fix problems with the plug-in cab interface boards in advance of the upcoming operating session. John McNamara and Adam went shopping for soda, buying a truly heroic amount of bubbly and refilling the maching. April 13 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2007/4/../../../images4f49.tcl?year=2007&month=4&day=13) Tonight we had an operating session, timed to coincide with MIT’s campus preview weekend, which is when pre-frosh come to visit and see what MIT life is all about. A bunch of trains were run, including long-distance passenger trains, freight and local switching. The system was a bit twitchier that we’d like, but worked okay, except when it would freeze up. Some additional problems were attributed to operator error. Two pre-frosh participated and learned how to run trains, and several more popped in to see what was going on. All in all, it was a rousing success, so our thanks go out to Adam for organizing the event, and to everyone who participated. April 14It was quiet at TMRC tonight. Bill worked on a few scenery items. Genya fiddled with the server, fixing a few bugs. John McNamara took the initiative to start documenting troubleshooting procedures for System 3. Tom took a few pictures which will end up on the web page some day, and reorganized some club-related files on the Windows PC. April 21Andy worked on a new building for Middle Heights. Making a rare weekend appearance, John Shriver fixed up the pink elephant, and used it to clean some of the dust in Gifford City. Tom cut down the fascia panels in the area aaround the newly finished river area so visitors next weekend will be able to see the scene, and took some photos for ads promoting the upcoming open house. April 25John Shriver worked with the pink elephant to clean up Gifford City and other parts of the layout. John McNamara consulted about the system documentation he is assembling. John Purbrick and Andy Miller worked on scenery in Middle Heights. Winston worked on the fire station for Gifford City. James showed up and poked around in the computers. Tom did some clean up in advance of the open house, which is only three short days away.April 28 Our 60th anniversary open house was very well attended. This is due in part to our participation in the Cambridge Science Festival, and in part to out next door neighbors (MITERS) participaring in the same festival. Crowds were consistently above average throughout the afternoon, and were well above average for the evening session. The system worked well, and there were fewer derailments due to visitor interference than in the past, probably due to the recently installed plastic guards in front of F-yard. We operated with the main lights off for some of the time, which led to some “moonlight” effects. As an added bonus, club friend Dick Lord stopped by and brought an odometer car of his own design and construction. The self-propelled car measures the distance it has traveled using an encoder on the flywheel attached to the motor. The battery visible in the picture powers the measurement electronics and display only (it is separate from the track power that drives the car.) We finally know how long the first level mainline is: 3.91 scale miles on the outer loop, 4.00 scale miles on the inside. Most of the difference of 5.43 real feet is in the area under the tower: the inside loop goes around the tower, the outside loop goes past it in a straight line. (The photo is a composite of two pictures from the two loops around the layout.)
March 10 Tom finished installing the last of the plastic fence that surrounds the layout. These removable panels serve to keep trains on the layout in the event of especially bad derailments and more importantly, to help keep small hands off the trains during open houses. The final panels were installed in front of the freight yard, which is an are where we have experienced many derailments due to problems with 0-5-0 switchers in recent open houses. Adam worked on more of the rocks in the river/mountain area. March 17David Lambeth returned for a brief visit and worked on the newer Digital Widgets building next to the tower that he installed during his last brief visit. Tom installed benchwork for new sidings in Berkmannville. Hugh quietly went about something or another. Adam did some rock work. The club was visited by a small group of alumni. March 21 John Shriver worked on the trolley wire, which is nearing completion. John McNamara worked on rocks in the river area. And, rounding out the John Trifecta, John Purbrick worked on scenery in Middle Heights and updating the CAD drawing of the track plan for eventual inclusion on our web page. Tom contemplated track layout in Berkmannville and discussed updates to the web page with John McNamara. March 24Quentin and Tom worked to update the web page, fixing a variety of broken links and adding a picture gallery function that James didn’t start working on a couple of years ago and updating some specific pages, including the links page. John McNamara’s capacity for nitpicking came in handy, as he identified many problem areas and problem english that would otherwise be hard to find. The biggest update is that pictures in the older progress reports will now show up properly. March 28Tom and John McNamara worked on updates to the web page. John Purbrick showed, did some scenery work in Berkmanville, and worked on a track diagram. James helped a bit on the web page. His main contribution was to suggest that the web based store be replaced with something much simpler.March 31Tom made numerous revisions to the web page, including a whole new page about the TNP and a page to make some older progress reports and picture galleries available again. These have been hard to find since we changed the format of the progress reports a few years ago. Bill brought in a bridge for the new sidings in Bermannville. JP did some scenery work and had a filet ‘o fish sandwich. Hugh appeared and disappeared in a very quiet manner. A number of children, young and old, who were attending an event at MITERS stopped by when that ended, as did a couple of recent students, and a man and his son visiting from Tokyo.
February 3 We had a very successful and well attended operating session tonight. According to Adam, who organized the event, 97 moves were completed, with only one lost car. Thanks to publicity from the MIT home page, several visitors showed up to run trains (or just watch) in addition to the ten or so club members who participated. The session was organized to favor enjoyment over accuracy, so there was no strict timetable, but participants ran a mix of passenger trains, through freight and local service. Plans for future operating sessions were discussed as well, with tentative plans made for another operating session during CPW, and maybe one before then as well. The club smiles upon Adam for organizing the event.February 10 Adam and John McNamara worked on rocks in the river area. Since John recently bought a large rock mold, there was a discussion about buying a larger plaster mixing container. We normally mix plaster in a rubber bowl of the sort used by dentists and orthodontists to mix plaster for taking impressions, since it is easy to clean out the leftover plaster. These bowls are usually sized to make a mouthful of plaster, which isn’t enough to fill the new rock mold. David Backus put detail parts on a Frisco locomotive of his, and discussed getting a locomotive for local switching service (something like a GP-38) with Bill. Genya poked around in the code for the System 3 server. Tom worked to fix up the Windows PC, which recently got a new, larger hard drive.February 17 David Backus worked on his new/improved test track which is nearing completion. The soda machine was full, thanks to Adam making a shopping trip. Adam also worked with John McNamara on the rocks in the Green river area. Tom contemplated the few remaining areas needing track and scenery in Berkmannville. February 24 Adam looks quite proud of himself in the attached picture despite the fact that he mostly spent the evening making a mess, experimenting with colors for the rocks and water in the picture. JP did some work on the draw bridge. David Backus worked on some of his personal locomotives, and gave some thought to adding DCC to the control system. Winston and Spencer worked on the GC fire station and industrial buildings in Berkmannville. Tom came up with a more or less final plan for the track work in one of the remaining open patches of plywood in Berkmannville. Bill was generally helpful to everyone, contributing helpful advice to pretty much everyone from his vast pool of experience.
December 2David Backus worked on a new and improved test track, with integrated power supply and meters for both volts and amps. This will be of use when testing dead and dying locomotives. Genya worked out some bugs in the server. Tom and John McNamara took a trip to replenish the clubs dwindling supply of fizzy lifting drinks.
November 4 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2006/11/../../../imagesc2a1.tcl?year=2006&month=11&day=4) This morning and afternoon 12 TMRC members went on tours of three rail related facilities in the Boston area. The day began with an adventure on the T. After a short debate we got on the Red Line at Central Square rather than Kendall Square. Then we found out that the trains were only running as far as Kendall Square due to work going on at Charles/MGH, so we got a shuttle bus to Park Street. Eventually we arrived at the MBTA subway control center on High Street in downtown Boston, where we were able to see how their display and control system compares to ours and ask lots of questions about the way the different subways lines operate. We then found enough time before our next scheduled appointment that James was able to sweet talk Amtrak into giving us a tour of the control center in South Station. This center is responsible for Amtrak traffic from Boston south into Connecticut. We met with people responsible for dispatching, power distribution and maintenance and our hosts patiently answered all the questions we could come up with. We then took the green line to Riverside to visit the T maintenance facility there. This center is responsible for heavy maintenance and overhaul of three types of Green Line equipment (LRV, Kinki Sharyo and Breda). Our host took us around, under and through cars of all three types and pointed out various electrical and mechanical systems on the cars. We also got to see the area where retired and wrecked cars are stored before being scrapped. Our thanks to everyone at the MBTA and Amtrak who made today’s events possible.November 18Oh boy, fall open house! Today was our fall open house. There were many, many visitors, mostly kids, during the afternoon session, and fewer visitors during the evening session. The system worked well for the first hour, then died a horrible death at 3 pm sharp. It took Tom and Alvar about 20 minutes to track the problem to a failure in the f-yard cab interface board. There was much rejoicing from the younger visitors when trains began moving again. The A-unit of the Aaron Burr developed a short after a couple of hours. The trains were otherwise fairly reliable, which either means we’ve fixed the defective rolling stock, or we’ve pulled them all of the track by now. New t-shirts have arrived and are available through the web store or in the club room. November 29David Dalrymple stopped by with his advisor and talked to Tom about plans for a control system for the trolleys. This will involve some version of Internet 0, which is a research project in David’s lab. Adam and John McNamara worked on scenery in the river/mountain area. After some debate on the best way to glue it down, much ground foam was deposited. John Purbrick worked on the drawbridge mechanism he is assembling for the river in Gifford City. James showed up and worked out some bugs in the double-crossover, which he claims is now in proper working order.
October 14John Purbrick installed a pair of trees near a siding he has been working on for quite a while. With the installation of these trees, salvaged from the old layout, the total number of trees on the layout has now reached 10. October 18The club was pleasantly surprised to get a visit from James, who hasn’t been seen for a while, having apparently succumbed to the pressures of real life. He examined the club’s PIC programmer and pronounced it broken without identifying a specific cause or suggesting a solution. There was also some discussion of how DCC might be added to the system. In principle, this is easy: system 3 block cards include a two-pin header which can be connected to a DCC booster. The question to be answered was whether the built in occupancy detection circuit can work with DCC, and apparently it can. This should make it possible to have the system run both DC and DCC trains at the same time, which would be a unique capability.October 21Quentin and Tom tried to figure out the bizarre behavior of a pair of prototyping boards, and identified a short circuit on one and missing components on the other. Quentin is working to build a controller for lighting in and around scenery (streetlights, traffic signals, building lights, etc.) Genya worked out some obscure bugs in the server code, and, we hope, fixed them.October 25Lots of soda showed up in the club room, thanks to the combined efforts of Andy, Alvar and Tom, so we are now fully stocked on everything for once. Tom gave serious thought to updating the web page status reports before deciding not to and fixing the brakes on his bike instead. As a result, it should be expected that any status reports for October will be more fabricated than usual. John McNamara worked on the left side of the mountain scene. Andy worked on scenery in Middle heights. Tom did a bit of trackwork in support of Andy’s project. October 28Adam worked on rocks in the mountain scene. He is currently working out how to paint and otherwise complete the rocks, as well as what to do in the areas where there are no rocks. Genya worked on system 3 software, trying to squish smoe bugs that show up in unusual circumstances. Tom put down ballast on a short stretch of track in Middle Heights, updated the web page and planned a t-shirt order.
September 1TMRC participated in the Activities Midway today. This is a chance to recruit new student members, something that is always important. Davids Lambeth and Dalrymple and Tom helped to set things up. We brought the portable layout and Green Building Tetris game with us, and had a computer running the SCab program to allow remote operation of the layout. We did not try to have live video to accompany this as we have had trouble with the available network bandwidth at the Midway in years past. We also brought the crossing signal, which attracted no undue police attention this year (unlike the last two years). Unforunately, the control system for the portable layout was not working correctly, leaving Tom to explain to prospective members how cool it is when it does work. With a bit of luck we’ll remember to fix it before the next midway. Adam showed up during the midway and helped to take everything back to the club. September 2Adam tested out his new HO scale steam locomotives and reported great progress with his live steam engine. He also experimented with the use of crumpled aluminum foil as a rock mold, getting decent results. JP is still trying to fix problems with the touch screen controller for F-yard that started when it was accidentally reprogrammed a few weeks ago. Tom attached detail parts to the Kato Amtrak equipment given to the club by Hiroshi Kato himself. The trains look great and run even better, but have a tremendous number of fiddly little parts that need to be attached, which took much of the evening. Bill worked on a building to go in F-yard near the tower. On a sad note, a discarded Coke machine was seen by the dumpster; it was a larger model than the clubs machine, but numerous important parts had already been removed, like the refrigeration unit and some of the bits that dispense the cans. While there was some foolish talk of taking it to the club room for some poorly defined purpose, cooler heads prevailed and we let it rest in peace. Until that is, the fraternity next door decided to beat on it with sledgehammers. Oh the imhumanity! September 9 David Lambeth continued working on the new building for the area next to the roundhouse, including paving the area around the siding. David Dalrymple worked to develop plans for project he can do with his lab, the Center for Bits and Atoms. Tom considered plans for the currently undeveloped industrial areas in Berkmannville and made mockups of some track plans for the area. September 16 Quentin, David and Tom discussed projects to incorporate David’s research on something called Internet 0, which is a way to connect small devices using the TCP/IP packets. The leading candidates are an automated control system for the trolley system (currently controlled by a DC power pack), and a new control system for the subway (currently controlled by nothing).September 20 Tom and Adam discussed plans for a 60th anniversary club car. The leading candidate right now is a covered hopper, which can be ordered in relatively small quantities (as few as 50) from Accurail. The markings would probably be close to the regular TNP scheme, with a smaller logo about the clubs 60th anniversary. The anniversary and club logos would be less prominent than those on the 50th anniversary car, which featured a big gold banner with the number 50 in it. We don’t want to overdo it, or it will be hard to top in 15 years…September 23 There was a large pile of soda in the club room (only partially shown) thanks to Adam, who took full advantage of a sale at Star Market during the week. Adam consulted with Bill about the best way to build the rocky hillside he has planned. The new approach shows promise. Quentin and Tom talked about possible projects, focusing on ways to control building lights. Trains were run, including the Adams steam locomotive and heavyweight passenger cars, and the club’s new Kato Amtrak equipment. The system was somewhat mischevious, with a circuit breaker tripping for no good reason, and doing its best to stay tripped. September 27 The club received a few visitors and trains were run. John Shriver continued hanging trolley wire in front of the passenger station in GC. John McNamara did some work on the scenery in the mountains. Hugh paid a quiet visit wearing bedroom slippers because he didn’t like his new shoes. Quentin stopped by briefly before heading off to work on problem sets. Tom updated the progress reports which had gotten rather out of date.
August 2Anthony Rizos stopped by to discuss plans for promoting the club to incoming students. Tom and John McNamara went on a soda buying trip as we were sold out of everything except diet, and frankly, who wants that. Hugh attempted to figure out how to use SVN, which is used to store and maintain source code for the various bits of the system. The system wasn’t working for unknown reasons. The network appears to be working, except the server doesn’t see anything on the block card network. Tom attempted to blame this on Hugh, with limited success. August 5Tonight it was quiet at the club. We had one visitor, who was attending an event upstairs. The system is still being bad so trains aren’t running. August 7The System is fixed. The problem was a bad solder joint in the outgoing data channel from the server. Because the server won’t recognize any card which doesn’t respond to a status request, and it needs the outgoing line to send such requests, it was ignoring all cards except the IMP. The solder job in question was done on July 26, when we suffered a severe breakdown, as previously described. So one thing leads to another. We think it’s all fixed now. August 30Tom, JP, John McNamara and Tomasz helped get the club ready for the upcoming Activities Midway, which is now only two days away. The Green Building was removed from the layout, and the dead lightbulb replaced. The crossing signal was taken down from the wall and the wheels were attached, and various bits and pieces for the portable demo layout were boxed up to reduce the amount of work needed Friday.
July 26The system was bad tonight. Specifically, when power was turned on, all the block cards set all their blocks to full power, resulting in some degree of mayhem. The source of the mayhem was traced to malprogrammage of the block cards. One feature of the items on the block card network is an ability to load new programming over the network. Normally this is a good thing making it much easier to update the software. Unfortunately, under certain circumstances, it is possible to accidentally reprogram all the items on the block card at once, with the same software, and with the same address. Apparently someone managed this feat last night while working on a wireless cab design. As a result, the block cards, and pretty much everything else on the network, were running the code for the wireless cab. In fairness to this person, this is the second time this has happened, indicating that perhaps more thought should have gone into designing the reprogramming process. In any event, Tom and new member David Dalrymple spent the evening crawling under the layout to reset each card individually so they could be programmed. (Cards can normally be reset over the network, but since they were all reprogrammed with the same address…) All of the block cards and the turntable were reprogrammed by the end of the night. Two of the cab interface boards were running an older version of the software that did not allow programming over the network. The rest will be reprogrammed once JP brings in the code for them. July 29John Purbrick brought in the source code for the cab interface boards and reprogrammed them, undoing the last of the damage wrought a few days ago. The system appears to be working normally now. Tom parked some trains that were still scattered around the room from Wednesday night.
June 10The club hosted numerous visitors today. Some were here for alumni weekend (classes of ‘61, ‘66, ‘76 were spotted in the room), some were in Boston for the weekend, and some were local people who just found us for the first time. We even had an MIT student stop by with a friend after seeing us in the MIT events calendar. All of this meant that little train-related work got done, but that’s okay. The good news is that the system and trains worked fine all evening (once the track and wheels were cleaned that is.) Even the trolley system ran without too much trouble after the speed was reduced to stop some intermittent derailments.June 24John McNamara worked on scenery in the Green River area, specifically the section that fits under the east end of the bridge. He is working on a way to fill the gaps between the ground and the bridge supports. Tom took pictures for a new layout tour that has been posted to the web page here. We also discovered a burned out bulb on the tetris game, which will be a pain in the neck to replace.
May 6The open house was held, and things went pretty well, with just a couple of exceptions. A circuit breaker tripped twice causing a loss of 12 V power to staging and Bermanville. Without 12 V power, reversing relays on block cards don’t work, and switches can’t be thrown, causing some amount of mayhem. As always, the afternoon session was full of kids, and these seemed to be grabbier than usual, leading to some derailments. Five trains were running on the mainline during the afternoon. In the evening, Alvar decided to see how many he keep running smoothly. The answer was eight. Unfortunately he tried to run ten trains, and got confused. leading to some incidents. The new blocks added last week helped things run more smoothly. May 10This progress report is full of gratuitous pictures, since we’ve fallen behind recently… Tomasz worked on wireless cabs. While he has figured out the basics of how to get the wireless modules to talk to the microcontrollers and each other, he hasn’t figured out why they don’t seem to transmit farther than about a foot. John McNamara worked on the viaduct area, specifically working out how to build scenery under the bridge and connect scenery in front of the bridge to the hillside already constructed behind the bridge. John Shriver continued the tedious and exacting job of hanging trolley wire. He is now down to the Bassex House hotel on the east bound track. Soon he will be making the turn back toward the trolley barn. May 20Tomasz worked to install a switch machine in the area where a chemical plant is planned. This switch was built at least two years ago, but the switch motors were never installed. John Purbrick worked on the fueling tracks in the engine yard, laying more plaster between the rails. The picture shows him shaping the surface of the plaster between the rails to slope down to a drainage channel in the middle.. Real fueling tracks are built with concrete like this to catch any spilled fuel. Tom fixed a minor bug in the SCab program that prevented yard display panels from automatically reconnecting to the server if communications are lost (as happens when the server is restarted). A second bug that caused problems with the automatic stop-on-red function was also fixed.
April 8Tom and JP tried to determine the cause of and solution to a curious problem with the IMP. Under certain circumstances (which seem to be repeatable) the IMP appears to reset and stop generating tokens, which causes the network to stop responding. In general, the IMP should never reset or stop generating tokens without a command from the server, and no such commands of that nature are being sent, which is what’s odd about this.April 12 Hugh Robinson returned, after a year in Australia. John Purbrick worked to add a keypad to one of the plug-in cabs that previously was almost buttonless. He has also been working to add more diagnostics to the firmware for the IMP, which has been acting a bit odd of late (though the root problem may lie elsewhere). Tom worked on the web page a bit. April 19The problem with the IMP was identified and apparently fixed. Basically under certain circumstances the server sends a reset command to reboot everything on the block card network. The command to tell the IMP to start generating tokens (necessary for network communications) came too soon after the reset command for the IMP to respond to it. James fixed the appropriate code in the server and it seems to be working right now. April 29In preparation for the open house, which someone foolishly scheduled for next weekend, Genya tested a variety of trains and identified numerous problems with derailments and decouplings. John Purbrick helped to fix some of them, the worked on the wireless cabs with Tomas Mloduchoski. Tom cleaned up the room, and discovered to his dismay that the shopvac is missing; some time was spent contemplating suitable punishments for the guilty party. Alvar and Tom worked to split four long blocks of track (about 20’ each) into two blocks each. Wires were run, block cards were assembled and installed, and with a bit of help from JP programmed. The blocks in question have been a bottleneck during past open houses so things should run more smoothly on Saturday. Finally, the club was visited by some engineering students from Duchess Community College in New York, who were in Boston for the weekend.
March 1 Andy showed up and painted some cars, including some N-scale equipment. John Shriver had some pizza, relocated one trolley pole in front of the passenger station, and installed more of the trolley wire hangers. As seen in the picture John McNamara did a heroic job of slicing a piece of molded-plaster rock wall the hard way. The piece is about 3 inches square and was about an inch thick before he sliced it in two. This helps the piece fit better near the tunnel portal he has been working on recently. Despite the fact that he was photographed during the cutting process (resulting in a massive release of psitons) he was successful in this challenging task. Fortunately, he offset his fine work in this area by immediately proceeding to stain the surface of the piece the wrong color, saving us from having to alter psiton theory. March 4John Shriver made a rare Saturday visit to the club and hung more trolley wire. Jeff Birkner , who hasn’t come to the club in quite a while, has been cleaning out his garage and came to the club to drop off some stuff he found. Alvar was called in to make sure the stuff Jeff was leaving off was potentially useful to the club. A date was scheduled for the spring open house (6 May), and Andy discussed the possibility of arranging a tour of the T or an Amtrak facility in the fall. March 8 John Shriver continued to hang trolley wire. He has now reached an area that is basically inaccessible from the floor, so he decided to stand on the layout. Fortunately, he resisted the urge to have a Godzilla moment. Johns Purbrick and McNamara sorted through some of the stuff Jeff Birkner brought in Saturday night. James and Genya worked on the programming for the turntable. While filling the soda machine, Tom discovered an anomalous can of Barq’s Root Beer in an unopened case of Cherry Coke. Which is rather weird. March 22 The turntable is in measurable distance of being returned to useful life, now with a PIC microcontroller replacing the 1990-vintage 8031. It now has the ability to interact with the System (blue cables) and fits on one circuit board rather than two. Hardware by John Purbrick, software by Genya Zaytman. The five flat objects form a relay tree which powers one approach track. The Maxim circuit board is a step-up voltage converter which produces 24 volts for the relays; we don’t have a power supply for this voltage. The microcontroller itself is in the lower left, with a white label. In case anyone’s forgotten, the turntable looks like this. The boxcar is in use to test alignment of the rail ends.
February 1 There’s a new signal in Middle Heights. The background to this picture would have been clubroom clutter, but one of the members just bought this big sheet of “rock face” at the Springfield show. Update: now 2 high signals and a dwarf! And abundant clubroom clutter. We’ll be doing something about that cardboard tunnel portal Real Soon Now. February 4 The cardboard strips and plaster cloth that form the shell of the hillside near the Green River have been largely completed. The shell seen in the picture will be covered with plaster and detailed. Much of the area around the tunnel opening will be detailed to look like a rock cut. John McNamara is now debating how to deal with a culvert that will run along the back side of the bridge. February 11 Adam Madlinger has been making rocks. Specifically, rocks on the hillside above the river seen. A variety of techniques were used to make the rocks seen here, which have been attached to the cardboard and plaster shell made by John McNamara. Some preliminary work was also done on coloring the rocks. February 15 Seeing all the work going John McNamara and Adam Madlinger have been doing on the far side of the hill had spurred John Purbrick into feverish action in Middle Heights. The two tunnel portals have now been roughed in in preparation for building the hillside. A few new signal heads have also sprouted in the area. John also played with some old rubber molding compound, in hopes of using it to duplicate out or production brick paper, but found that the pink half of the two part compound had not aged gracefully. The reults were semi-successful. February 18 Bill showed up and continued work on the rock cut in the corner behind the pillar. Much of the rocks seen in the picture were salvaged from the old layout, through years of accumulated TMRC dust has made it necessary to clean and restain the rocks. Some new rock work was also needed to fit the new location. Bill says he is making good progress and the rocks may get finished. John Purbrick continued to work in Middle Heights. February 24A large number of artsy people were in the building for a party tonight, and got a tour of the club room from Tom, who happened to be the room on an off night. Many were so bold as to call the layout art.
January 7John Purbrick has installed some white LEDs in the building he has been working on in Middle Heights. The LEDs are unfortunately quite a bit bluer than most white LEDs, though not quite as blue as it looks like in the picture. They are very bright however, and cast neat shadows out the windows. John says: “I got the LEDs on sale at the Target store when they were selling off leftover Christmas stuff cheap. I didn’t notice that it was a Blue Light Special.” Tom threatened me with violence when I said this in the clubroom. Update: John McNamara contributed a yellow plastic report cover, of which a small section was installed as a filter for the lights in the building. It’s not perfect, but it’s a big improvement--a reasonable match for fluorescent light. Now that there’s light in the building it’s in need of furniture, and we had some little tables and chairs in garish colors, so that’s what’s in there. Someone said, “How 1970s”. January 12The Digital Widgets factory, which literally dates back to before the Flood (in our old clubroom) has been rehabilitiated by John McNamara and installed adjacent to F-Yard, and now has a properly constructed siding with a few weeds to suggest the right level of industrial activity. January 14 With help from a visitor named Sid, John McNamara worked on the hillside above the river scene. More plaster cloth was layed on the carboard shell, and a mounting frame was installed for the lower tunnel portal. Other aspects of the scene were also discussed. John Purbrick configured a new block and a dwarf signal to go with it at the western exit of the freight yard. Here’s a picture of the signal. It’s a bit small, so there are two. The new block gaps aren’t very photogenic. And the ballast needs work. January 18 Trolley wire has appeared, all the way to the far end of the trolley loop. Well, only on one track, and in a temporary manner for now. The wire is tied off to a lead block in front of the Gifford City police station. Unfortunately for the MITCo crew, the block is likely to be ticketed and towed before the work is completed.
December 9TMRC was honored to be host to a delegation from the Rochester Institute of Technology Model Railroad Club, who were visiting Boston to photograph stretcars. We set up a joint operating session with cars placed and orders written by Malcolm Laughlin, and several of our own members plus five visitors ran trains. Some System glitches were observed, and there was some uncertainty over which features are now operational, but in general a fine time was had by all. December 21How many TMRC members does it take to change a light bulb? Just one, if it’s James, but he had two supervisors. Tonight, James balanced precariously from a ladder and hung from the sprinkler pipes to replace burnt out bulbs in the front of the room. These lights are always on to light the area that is visible from the hallway. James also redirected some of the track lights to illuminate some of the more recent scenic additions in that part of the club, such as the city hall.
November 05 The system has a persistently intermittent failure mode, which has popped up every month or so over the last year, in which some of the cards on the block card network will disappear from the system for a while, then reappear. The current theory is that there is some sort of problem with the +8 volt power supply, or with one of the circuits drawing from it. Voltage from this supply is regulated at the block cards to provide +5 volts to run the microcontroller among other things. In an attempt to debug the problem, John Purbrick installed an ammeter on the +8 volt system power supply. Under normal conditions, the system draws 7 amps from this power supply, which is rated to 10 amps; the next time the system freaks out, we will be able to see if the voltage or current draw from the +8 volt supply is abnormal. To eliminate one possible cause of the problem, Alvar replaced the regulator circuit for the three block cards in the helix with three separate regulators. November 09 Tom finished fixing some minor fit and finish problems with the building David Lambeth built in September. In addition, a fluorescent lamp and inverter from a flatbed scanner were installed in the building and connected to a suitable power supply. Since the building has no interior, paper was taped over the windows to act as a diffuser. There is plenty of room for an interior in this section of the building, and it should be easy to install should anyone ever actually get around to building one. In addition, Adam and John McNamara began the messy process of plastering the mountain in the river scene (East Berkmannville). John Purbrick continued work on Middle Heights scenery. Rounding out the John trifecta, John Shriver hung more trolley wire, specifically the wire over the non-functional track that leads off the layout near the turntable. Ed Drozd worked to fix some issues with rolling stock, including properly attaching the wheels to the observation car of the Aaron Burr. November 19 The Fall 2005 open house without a hitch! Actaully, there were numerous hitches with the system. System problems started before we even opened, with block cards dropping out at inopportune times (is there ever a good time for block cards to drop out?). The problem was traced to the cable leading from the IMP to the next item on the block card network. New connectors were installed on the cable before the open house, but the problem returned during the event, so the cable was replaced during the dinner break. The server locked up as well. Making this all more exciting is that block cards don’t shut off track power when they lose communications with the server, so there were some spectacular collisions (by HO scale standards anyway). At some point the switch card network also failed. Fortunately the switches were all set for the proper routes when this happened. Attendance at the afternoon session was probably 200-300 total, with 50-60 people visiting at any one time. As usual, there were fewer visitors in the evening, with 10-20 people visitors there at any time.November 23The compressor on the Coke machine failed last Wednesday. As a result, the soda in the machine has been well above room temperature (due to the heat from the internal fans, the fluorescent lamps in the door, and so on.) Despite a prominent sign on the machine to that effect, and despite the fact that warm soda is really icky, the effect on sales was small, only dropping 19% over the previous week. This could be seen as evidence for the addictive nature of the stuff we sell. A replacement compressor has been ordered and will be installed as soon as it arrives.November 30 The Coke machine has been fixed. The replacement compressor arrived Tuesday. John P., John M, James, Alvar and Tom spent a pleasant evening removing the old compressor, cleaning the inside of the machine, and installing the new unit (the replacement is actually refurbished, not new). The inside of the machine is now squeaky clean, since we removed years of accumulated grime. John Purbrick and James looks like they are enjoying the task entirely too much. John McNamara’s face expresses a more appropriate level of disgust at the condition of the inside of the machine when we started. Curiously, the box the new compressor was shipped in was prominently labeled “Antique Refrigeration Unit”. We don’t think the machine is quite old enough to be considered an antique, and hope it provides many more years of profitable service to the club.
October 15 A new verison of the System 3 user interface, SCab, has been installed on the computers in the club room. SCab 2 has been enhanced with improved layout diagrams, better editing features and has been rewritten to make it possible to show different diagrams on different computers (yard computers for instance). October 26 On October 26th, TMRC was honored to receive a visit from Hiroshi Kato, president of Kato Precision Railroad Models, manufacturers of some of the best model railroad equipment available. His visit to TMRC was the sole object of a round trip from Chicago, and was arranged by the Club’s friend Hidetoshi Katsuma, who also visited this week. In keeping with Japanese tradition, Mr. Kato brought a gift - three bi-level commuter coaches and an F40 locomotive. According to TMRC’s “Psiton Theory,” an important visitor viewing the layout will cause derailments, but these did not occur. Perhaps Psiton Theory does not apply if the equipment being run was manufactured by the visitor. System3 worked well, but psitons did affect one of the yard computers, which failed during Mr. Kato’s visit.
September 2 On September 2nd, TMRC joined other campus activities at the annual Activities Midway. We brought our full-size crossing flasher (complete with bell) and a scale model of the Green Building on which students could play Tetris. Five members staffed the tables and fifteen students expressed interest in electronics, software, modeling, operation, or some combination of these. September 10 During the first week of September, David Lambeth visited from Mountain View. He continued his tradition of high speed building construction by adding a new industrial building in Berkmanville, customized to the oddly-shaped site and equipped with a detailed ventilation system. September 24 Adam Madlinger, John McNamara, Tom O’Reilly, and Genya Zaytman have been busy designing and implementing valleys, mountains, and tunnels in the vicinity of David Lambeth’s stone viaduct. The use of cardboard strips and plaster cloth, the subject of some modelling articles, is now being tried at TMRC with good results. The area adjacent to the viaduct includes a helix that has posed a number of scenic problems, but John Purbrick has relocated one of the tracks slightly and has come up with a tunnel proposal that seems to solve the scenic problems.
August 30 Trackwork in the freight yard continues. Switches 176 and 167B, plus a diamond crossing, make up this outside single slip. It’s an uncommon formation in this country but appropriate here--a more conventional slip in a #5 diamond wouldn’t look good or work well.
July 30 We have an operating switchstand, designed around a helical cam operated from a Tortoise switch machine. Go to the Videos page to see an animated version and a movie.
June 30 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2005/6/../../../imagesd44a.tcl?year=2005&month=6&day=30)The management would like to remind everyone, especially MITCo, of the importance of checking under the layout before cutting or drilling into the benchwork. Adherence to this policy will avoid a repeat of the situation seen in the pictures. MITCo can check with the management to reclaim their wayward trolley pole. Sincerely, The Management
April 30 Tomasz Mloduchowski has been rewriting the turntable controller to work with System3. In this photo he and James Knight are consulting on the task at hand.
March 31 We are making good progress constructing a Diesel service facility between the freight yard tracks and the old roundhouse.
February 28 This touch screen controls the west end of the new freight yard. It operates on an N-X (eNtrance-eXit) principle wherein the operator presses the end of a track on the left side of the panel to indicate the mainline track upon which a train is arriving. The operator then presses the end of a track on the right side of the panel to indicate the track to which the train should go.
January 31 In these photos, Adam Madlinger’s model of the Acela crosses the stone arch bridge that David Lambeth built in December. John McNamara and Genya Zaytman did some finish work on the bridge, and John Purbrick did the trackwork.
December 31 At long last, a freight operating session was held. Planned by Malcolm Laughlin and set up by David Lambeth, the operating session ran remarkably smoothly. Here’s Genya Zaytman at the controls of a way freight. Also in December, the layout was the backdrop for a student film project.
November 30 The weekend before Thanksgiving, we held our annual Fall Open House. We did very well with visitors in the afternoon, but the evennig was a little slow. As usual, nobody can offer an explanation. Anyway, System, track, trains and operators satisfied the public! It’s always good to see that there are still children who love trains.
October 31 Do we have a new freight yard? We have a new freight yard, just in time for the fall Open House on November 20th, with 6 tracks out of 7 operational, and engine service facilities “real soon now”. The large spherical object is a spray bottle of “weathering solution”--India ink mixed with alcohol.
September 30 Hugh Robinson is working on a scheme to calculate the location of a train within a block based on integration of the velocity feedback information versus time. He’s the only one who entirely understands it, but we’re pretty sure most model railroad clubs don’t have much opportunity to apply Simpson’s theorem.
August 31 More signals by John Purbrick. Dissatisfied with the first scratchbuilt model (see April), he bought some photo-etched ladders and platforms and made this (we now have 3 of them). Very fragile, so use some care! It’s mounted on little custom-made circuit boards connected by wires in sockets: if it’s knocked over, the hope is that it can just be plugged in again.
July 31 We now have what we think is a pretty nice control and display system, with software by James Knight and Tom O’Reilly. Occupied blocks show up as light green if there’s a locomotive there, dark green if there are only cars. Turnouts are thrown by means of mouse clicks. Visible at the top of the screen is a small diagram of the entire layout, with two tan-colored vertical lines defining the area shown in the large diagram. The small window at lower left describes a train, with buttons for various actions that the operator can call for, and a slider bar to indicate speed. This can be moved using the mouse in the case of a “software cab” or functions as an indicator if an operator is running the train with one of the plug-in cabs. The red line on the diagram indicates an assigned train, with the name BURR, (our crack train #1, The Aaron Burr) and the train’s window at the bottom of the screen has a corresponding label. Notice that the box tells the dispatcher the location and direction of the train (block PY2, heading east); the green background indicates a clear signal. The block ahead of the train appears pink on the display because it is the “advance block”, the next block the train will occupy.
June 30 The Gifford City station scene and the 105th Street industrial area are now completely separate scenes, thanks to the view block buildings constructed by David Lambeth. Since the buildings are difficult to access in their normal location, David does most of his work with the buildings out of place. On the Gifford City station side of the view block, there are office buildings, a hotel, and a condominium. The 105th street side is a replica of the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse.
May 31 At the beginning of this month, we held our Annual Spring Open House. The room was packed with visitors from opening to closing! System3 functioned well throughout the Open House, but like all software, is subject to frequent enhancement. Here’s James Knight at work. (Note traditional programmer’s refreshments.)
April 30 Although our control system was designed from the beginning to drive signals, we haven’t been diligent about building and installing them. John Purbrick scratchbuilt this model based on a drawings from the General Railway Signal website and on photographs taken at trackside a few miles from Cambridge. The prototype has its ladder on the side rather than the back, so that’s the way the model is too.
March 31 Throughout this year, work has been proceeding apace on the freight yard. The design includes a team track, or in modern terms “transloading facility,” which has been a favorite project for Adam Madlinger. Since this photo was taken, Adam has completed the trackage in this area, and work has begun on yard tracks that will connect with the roundhouse shown in the left background. A complete Diesel servicing facility is planned for those yard tracks.
February 29 In this photo, David Lambeth and Genya Zaytman are adding scenic touches to “city hall hill.” David is adding a coat of the thinned shellac that Genya is holding. This will create an appropriately darkened pavement. Since the time this photo was taken, the steep white slope in the foreground has been covered with a realistic tumble of large rocks, and the white building mockup in the lower right corner has been replaced with a real building.
January 31 Using foam core and wood putty, David Lambeth built a hill to give the city hall a more commanding position over the streets of Gifford City. The building is a Kibri model of the Leer City Hall in Germany, but has been modified slightly to make it less European. TMRC purchased this kit several years ago and used it as a school on the old Building 20 layout.
November 3During the past few weeks, most of our attention has been focused on completing the main line section that bypasses the freight yard. This hand-built section replaces the temporary “flex-track” section that went directly across the future freight yard. As is often the case, there is a deadline for this work. In the case of the flex-track, the deadline was the Activities Midway. For the new hand-laid section, the deadline is the upcoming Open House on Saturday, November 22nd. Contrary to past TMRC practice of documentation scribbled on random sheets of paper, James Knight has been using his Apple notebook to draw very nice diagrams of track sections and switches, identifying their associated interface boards. The first attached picture shows him at work. Old-timers will note with pleasure the appearance of the “pink elephant” vacuum cleaner under the layout in this photo. While a new shop vacuum is used for major jobs, the pink elephant is still used for more delicate vacuuming jobs. In the second attached picture, Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner is spiking some of the new mainline. Behind him, Tom O’Reilly and Adam Madlinger are discussing ballasting, while behind them David Lambeth is working on a scenery project. Join us any Wednesday or Saturday night, and don’t forget the Open House on November 22nd, 2:00-5:00 and 7:00-10:00! John McNamaraNovember 22The Fall 2003 Open House was extremely successful! We had over 200 guests, but that was only part of the success… Throught out the past weeks, as the previous report says, we spent a lot of time finishing the mainline route from Gifford City to Berckmannville. Two weeks ago Tom and John Purbrick finished laying down the track (in ‘fast mode’). Then this past week Alvar and James wired all the new blocks. Wednesday was all about cleaning track and starting to test things; but we had to quit early to allow the floor to be waxed. Then on Friday night the real testing began; Tom, Alvar, and James spent over 6 hour running trains --- Tom spent quite a bit of time fixing track to gauge and switch points that needed more work (Alvar tried to help a little bit too). At 2:15am two important things happened: 1. We were ready for the open house! - The first level of mailine was officially functional!!! Today’s Open House, therefore, was a huge success not only because of the large attendance, but also because it marks a huge milestone in our construction. Eight trains were running constantly all day long, with the major cause of derailments being the hand of god (actually of little kids!). Amazingly enough, even with so many psitons around, the system, the trackwork, and the trains behaved extremely well. Alvar
October 11Here’s what’s going on at TMRC as of this past Wednesday night: John Purbrick is working on the analog clock that is built into the Berkmannville station over near the painting area. As shown in the first attached photo, the clock drive uses a microprocessor-driven stepper motor. While this clock does not need a temperature display, other clocks around the layout will. An outdoor temperature sensor and associated interface to the TMRC computers would be a nice project for someone. Genya Zaytman and James Knight are working on System 3 software for wireless cabs, as shown in the second attached photo. Alvar Saenz-Otero has resumed work on the scale model of the Green Building, upon which hallway visitors will be able to play Tetris. The new plan is that the control panel will interface to TMRC’s network, the wiring for which is available at the room lights control panel near the proposed Tetris control panel. The Tetris control panel and the lighting boards within the Green Building are future design tasks in which one of our new members (Scott?) and possibly others have expressed interest. In other work, both Malcolm Laughlin and Ed Drozd are assembling freight car kits, but there are plenty more to be done. Andy Miller is painting a set of cars for a daytime (no sleepers) express passenger train, the Benedict Arnold. David Lambeth is working on building fronts for a wall of buildings that separate the Gifford City passenger station area from the industrial area behind it. John McNamara is adding finishing touches to the Digital Widgets building; and there are some other projects underway on Saturday. As you can see, there are plenty of things to be done. Stop by and join in! John McNamara
September 3The past few weeks were all about getting ready for the Activities Midway and the start of term. As reported below, on Aug 24th the loop was completed. On Aug 29th the Midway took place, with a great attendance to both our booth and subsequent Open House. At this point the layout is still operational, but now that the term started, people have begun to play with more parts of it (in both hardware and software)… James and Genya played quite a bit with the server software to start a major upgrade that will allow ‘yard operation’ to happen. Once both the server and the GUI are integrated, operators will be able to click on a starting block and on an end block, and the server will setup the route automatically. Of course, major thought went into how to make things more robust (complicated? :-). I’m quite sure the system will still work by the end of the night. David and Tom discussed about many major scenic projects in the layout, including some major construction that can still happen in Gifford City. The discussion extended to parts of the peninsula too. John McNamara worked on the interior of the Digital Widgets building. John Purbick did substantial work in Berkannville: installed a plug pannel for the walk-around cabs, installed switch machines in the eastward switches, and fixed some wires that suffered during scenic work. Alvar worked on updating the webpage with the project matrix, and starting some work on the Green Building lights controls whom Scott and him are building. Ed worked on the Benedict Arnold locomotives, and the new SD40’s that he painted during the summer. Alvar
August 9More progress on the main line construction from Berkmanville to the Gifford City Freight Yard. John Purbrick laid some track and did some switch construction. Tom O’Reilly laid down temporary flex track for the main line through the F-yard. James Knight started wiring up the new track to block cards and did some documentation. John McNamara helped construct new switch cards. We’re getting very close now to having a complete loop around the entire layout! There’s only a short piece of track left missing, and then the track has to be wired, which is only just being started. In scenery news, Andy Miller started painting and modifying cars for the Benedict Arnold train.August 12With a minor fix, I was able to get one of Malcolm’s plug-in cab interface units into operation, and it’s in place to the right of the tower ladder. Last night I reinstalled the original one near the turntable, and Malcolm already had one in place next to the vegaetable oil plant. So we now have three interface points available, and two cabs (three if you’re willing to use the bare-board one). I think we can claim that the system is usable at this point. There’s no way of knowing how long we’ll use these before we get our wonderful radio-linked cabs. John PurbrickAugust 16On Saturday we finished the connection between the temporary flex track running across the future F-yard area and the helix, which was previously linked to Berkmannville. I pushed a car all the way through to prove that it works! To make this operational we need to complete the wiring. James’s diagram on the computer shows 4 blocks in each side of the double track between existing blocks (the former location of the Engine Yard connection) and the middle-level tracks off the helix where there’ll be a station. a crossover and 2 sidings. Thaddeus and I cut block gaps accordingly and installed dropper wires, then I wired up 2 blocks on each track taking it as far as the F-yard west exit and its adjacent crossover. Here we’ll need an X block but for the moment I assume we’ll connect the track temporarily to one of the neighboring blocks. Maybe on Monday night I’ll put in wires for 4 more blocks, taking it all the way to the middle level. I’ve used the 16Ga wire and brought the ends to the set of cabinets under F-yard where I assume we’ll have a block card, but 4 blocks on each of 2 tracks exhausts the capability of a single card. We could double up some of the wires and use larger blocks, but I don’t really know the plan. John Purbrick August 24 At 4:03am TMRC-DST the TNP 50th Anniversary Train and the TNP Aaron Burr completed a full loop each, in opposite directions, of the TNP system: S-Yard -> Gifford City -> F-Yard -> Berkmanville -> S-Yard (and in reverse). This was possible to great work by all active members who put the time into one of our main summer goals: if you helped, THANKS!!! Alvar August 28Today, we redid the demo layout so that it can run the trains automatically. To do so, it uses a modified block card which, instead of using train feedback, uses light sensors on the end of the track to detect when the train has reached the end. The layout is designed to run two locomtives. The block card runs a basic state machine that looks at the current state (which two tracks the locomotives are on) and then randomly chooses a new reachable state and attempts to move into that state. However, I did run into some problems late wednesday night after everyone doing the physical construction of the layout had gone home, solved them in a somewhat ugly fashion, and sent out this email: The demo track is working, although I had to use a somewhat unconventional technique in order to keep the trains from running off the end. Basically, the sensors are too close to the edge, and thus if track power is simply turned off when the train goes over the sensor, it always coasts straight off the end (and possibly onto the floor, although I managed to avoid having that happen -- be careful if you test it!!). So, currently, the code is setup to reverse the track power direction relay, under load, immediately when the train goes over the sensor, and then keep powering the train (reversed) for a little bit. This causes the train to make an abrupt halt instead of coasting off the end, usually. For some reason it seems not to work occasionally, probably a bug in the code (so don’t leave trains running unattended!). I’m sure doing this isn’t too nice on the relays and such, but oh well. Other than that it seems to be working reliably. I’m not sure the randomness of the state change is all that random since it’s being taken from the current value of the 100th of a 60th of a second being counted up by the timer but it’s at least somewhat random. James Knight
July 5Today I (James Knight) arrived late today so I’m not sure what happened before 10pm. When I got here, Malcolm Laughlin was working on attaching plywood for the new river right before the helix to staging yard, Tom O’Reilly was constructing a switch and laying track, and John Purbrick was doing his best to make a siding look utterly abandoned and neglected for the past 30 years. I decided (finally) get back to doing some track wiring, and finished two P-yard tracks that have been sitting unwired for the past year. I also started updating the documentation on the track wiring, since some of it is out of date with respect to what’s currently there. James KnightJuly 16Last Saturday, Alvar (almost single-handedly) finished construction of the F-yard helix of two-and-a-half loops so that it is now complete from the lower level at 35 inches, up to the F-yard level at 45 inches. Hooray! This helix isn’t actually quite a helix, as it is designed so that much of the track is exposed and can be sceniced. There was one minor problem with the placement which required a bit of rework today, but now it is really done. F-yard plywood is installed as well, leaving only the plywood on the other side of F-yard to complete. The plan is to finish laying the main-line all the way up the helix and through f-yard to extend a “great circle” all the way around the complete layout by the time freshmen arrive this fall. Over a couple of evenings Alan Kotok stuffed a new block card with components (the first of 3 we’ll need for the part of track we’re laying right now), with some help from John Shriver. James KnightJuly 23Alvar and Malcolm discussed the plans for finishing off the plywood of F-yard (the construction of which is to occur on Saturday), while John Purbrick worked further on constructed some more switches around the back of the F-yard helix. James Knight did various updates to the TMRC website (doesn’t this progress page look much nicer than before?), and there is now a new section, written by John McNamara describing the history of the club. Alvar also started working out a state diagram of how to run the 7-end demo track that we will use for the Freshman Midway this fall. The goal is to have it run 2 engines through random routes continually, so that there’s always something moving to attract attention. James Knight July 26Today was quite destructive. The temporary upper-loop around the control tower (which has been there 5 years) was torn apart by James Knight and Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner. As planned Alvar Saenz-Otero with help from James constructed the next piece connecting F-yard to the Gifford City area. Alvar also installed supports under other parts of the recently installed plywood that hadn’t been properly supported yet. On Monday John Purbrick installed a new cutoff from S-yard into the helix leading to Berkmanville, thus making two “Great Circles” around the layout possible once we complete the main-line through F-yard.
June 25Okay, so we haven’t had any progress reports in a long time…oops. Anyways…what’s been going on recently? Lesse, there’s a bunch of projects. Sorry to everyone else in the club but this progress update is only going to talk about things I’ve had something to do with. If anyone else wants to write their own progress updates, please do. First, the new section of layout. This is progressing at a fair pace. The helix from the lower level to the freight yard is about half-way complete. Currently track is being layed by Tom O’Reilly. The current plan is to get the main line complete and operational all all the way around the new section complete by the end of summer. To get this accomplished we’re probably going to need some more people to help (hint, hint). Second, Alvar Saenz-Otero and I (James Knight) designed and built a new room light control system. This has a gratuitous text LCD panel as well as 3 buttons: on, off, and “dinner”. It controls the room lighting, system power, and outlet power. This ensures that when people leave the room and turn out the lights, they don’t leave the control system or anything such as soldering irons turned on by mistake. It also has the ability to talk to the PC so soon you might see a link to see if the lights in the clubroom are on or not. :) The next stage of this project is building a similar system for the halogen track-lights. Third, we just got in six new block cards for use in the new section of main line and the F-yard. This will give us the capability to add 48 blocks more blocks (bringing the total to 17 block cards or 136 blocks), which should just about cover the new part of the layout. Lots of assembly and wiring to do here. Fourth, because it’s actually free to tack on additional boards to the side of the blockcards when we’re creating the PCBs, we also made some other boards. The most notable of those is a interface board for a 64x128 pixel graphical LCD display that we’re going to use in wireless cabs in the future. This display had a very inconvenient connector that is impossible to use without a custom PCB to connect it to, so, we made one. I (James) am in the midst of writing software for the PIC to draw fonts/lines/etc on the graphical LCD. At some point someone (hopefully not just me by myself (hint, hint)) will need to design the UI and write the code to control it. The other two boards we built are a prototyping board with our PIC and standard network interface on it, and a “mini-switchcard”. The prototyping board will make it much easier to do all sorts of random projects that need to be on our PIC network, and the mini-switchcard is designed for driving 24 light outputs such as signal heads or building lights. Noone’s currently working on building lighting at all, but if someone DID want to (it would be quite cool), we have boards to drive the lights now. James Knight June 28Today I spent a few hours getting the LCD board (shown in picture) working. It is now working, but there were many problems. The most serious was that we got the pin order of the LCD pads backwards. Apparently pin 1 is on the right, not the left..oops. After fixing a few more minor problems (one of the data lines wasn’t conducting - thus making some instructions to the LCD work and others not), most everything was working -- lines, boxes, pixels, etc. The one remaining problem was drawing fonts was not working. This turned out to be (yet another) bug with the cheapo C compiler we have (“CCS C compiler” - it’s pretty bad). The current problem is that it has a hard limit of 512 words in all “#ROM” sections in a program. Since I was using #ROM sections to store the raw data for the fonts, I was using around 600 words for all the character data, so the compiler proceeded to silently ignore half my font data. Not even nice enough to give an error message! Anyhow, after rewriting the program I made that converts from X fonts to data to load into the PIC such that it outputs HEX files directly (thus avoiding the C compiler), fonts now work as well! In other news, Alan Kotok assembled about 3/4 of a block card, and John Purbrick and Tom O’Reilly laid more track around the loop up to F-yard. Other people probably did other stuff too but I didn’t notice if they did so they’ll have to talk for themselves. ;) James Knight
May 21In addition to Ken Terrell’s tests of a 28-car Talgo train, Genya Zaytman ran six trains simultaneously (see attached picture). Running six trains at a time provided six times the problems of running one train. There were two notable problems: 1) Our long-neglected cabooses (and observation cars) exhibited a number of derailment, spontaneous uncoupling, and lack-of-occupancy problems. 2) A recently-added feature disables the System3 auto-stop-on-red feature if the operator changes any control settings, on the assumption that the operator is in full control of the train. Unfortunately, the presence of very short blocks and the aforementioned caboose problems can combine to create a number of rear-end collisions. James Knight experimented with a really cool feature - the addition of a name tag to the dispatcher’s display. With this feature, each train shown on the dispatcher’s display has a train name tag (“Burr”, “Amtrak”, etc) associated with the head end of the red line on the display that indicates a powered train moving about the layout. This feature is in addition to the software cab data displays that indicate train name, block location, signal, etc. (see http://tmrc.mit.edu/sys3/scab/scabops.html) John E. McNamara
March 31Old cabs, new features Well I finally got around to adding the rest of the necessary features to control Trains. The changes are generic for all trains no matter what kind of cab, but since we only have the old plug-in ones right now, so I describe the features w.r.t. those. - Autostop-on-red works significantly differently. The new idea is that if there’s actually someone there watching the train controls, don’t get in their way at all. However, if the throttle is just sitting there unattended, stop the train before it crashes. So, it’s no longer required to press a specific button to restart your train after a red signal. Simply twiddling the speed knob will make you move again. In addition, there’s a delay of 0 to 3 seconds after you get a red before it stops your train to allow you time to twiddle before the autostop. If it’s moving faster than around 50%, it stops immediately (Bad operator! You shouldn’t be going that fast with a yellow signal anyways!). Below that, the slower your train is moving, the longer the delay is. I’m not sure how this feature will work out, people should try it out and see if it works. - You can now steal the block ahead of you if it is occupied and unassigned using the ‘9’ key. - You can now drop the trailing block of the train using the ‘7’ key. - The cabs now emit irritating noises when your signal worsens to yellow or red or when you press a button whose action is not possible. The button I previously called “call on” is more properly a “reset” button - its only duty now is to un-FOO your cab. So, the full list of button actions is: - 1-6: throw first through sixth switches ahead of you. - 0: throw first trailing point switch which is against you towards you - 7: drop one tail block - 9: steal one block ahead - *: reverse - #: reset (or maybe reverse is # and reset is *, i can never remember) James Knight
February 9In recent weeks, John Purbrick created a computer-plotted version of Malcolm Laughlin’s pencil-drawn design for the new layout addition. Yesterday evening, James Knight and Alvar Saenz-Otero used the computer plot to select locations for support panels and built a third support panel, as shown in the attached photo. (Alvar, Tom O’Reilly, and Howard Gorin built #1; James and Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner built #2). In other work not photographically documented, Malcolm installed several jack panels for walk-around control cabs;John McNamara worked on the Digital Widgets building restoration; Andy Miller and Bill Onorato worked on Berkmannville; John Purbrick worked on his automated car identification system; Ed Drozd (Wednesday) worked on a new warehouse building; and Tom worked on the System3 GUI. John McNamara [[missing pix]]
January 4Scenario: 1. After dinner on Saturday, discussion of track elevations reveals that conduit from central post to tower will require track to be a 37” elevation when crossing conduit whereas track plan calls for 34-35”. - @##$ grumble, grumble :-((, tough job ! grumble, @%#@# - 9:30 - Alvar and James thinking problem with Howard Goren supervising. - 10:00 - Theye’ve decided how to do it, all hard at work with Howard under the tower playing with wires. - 10:20 - ML has to leave, James pulling from above, Howard pushing wires and Alvar intensely supervising - Later (through the grapevine) It’s all done! Malcolm LaughlinJanuary 11 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2003/1/../../../images8065.tcl?year=2003&month=1&day=11) Construction of the third phase of the new layout has begun. On Saturday evening, Alvar Saenz-Otero, Tom O’Reilly, and Howard Gorin constructed one of the support sections for the third phase. It is designed to include a slide-out work surface under that section of the layout. The first attached picture shows Alvar and Tom at work on this. The third phase of the new layout will include a large freight yard that must be level or else cars will roll. To assist in connecting this to the existing layout, it was decided to lower the roundhouse and turntable area of the present layout by 3/4 inch. In the second attached picture, Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner and Lauri Kauppila are altering the supporting structure under the turntable and roundhouse to lower that part of the layout but retain the necessary vertical clearances for the tracks that run under the roundhouse. Assisted by Malcolm Laughlin, Howard, and Alvar, their work continued efforts started Wednesday night by James Knight, Genya Zaytman, and John McNamara. Unlike Wednesday night, James stayed away from the saws and hammers on Saturday, and spent his time porting remaining pieces of the System3 software to Linux, while confirming proper operation with an oscilloscope. He’s hard at work on this in the third attached photo. In other work not photographically documented, Malcolm Laughlin worked on circuit boards for the operating cab plug-in panels; John McNamara worked on the Digital Widgets building restoration; Bill Onorato, Andy Miller, and John Purbrick worked on Berkmannville scenery; and Ed Drozd worked on a new warehouse building that will go near the river. Come by on a Wednesday or Saturday night and see (and join in) the progress! John McNameraJanuary 15 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2003/1/../../../imagesaf6d.tcl?year=2003&month=1&day=15)On Wednesday evening, Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner added some additional block wiring in Berkmannville. The first attached photo shows Genya Zaytman, James Knight, and Thaddeus contemplating the documentation for that section of the layout. Now that the lowering of the turntable and roundhouse area has been completed, Lauri Kauppila worked on leveling the upper loop around the base of the tower. The second attached photo shows him buried in the benchwork with power drill in hand. Thaddeus, James, Genya, and John McNamara assisted in various portions of the project. In other work not photographically documented, Malcolm Laughlin worked on the operating cab plug-in panels; John McNamara worked on the Digital Widgets building restoration; Andy Miller, and John Purbrick worked on Berkmannville scenery; and Ed Drozd worked on a new warehouse building that will go near the river. John Purbrick also used CAD tools to record Malcolm’s pencil diagrams of the layout’s third phase. John McNamara January 31Hi! As shown in the attached picture, James Knight and Thaddeus Stefanov-Wagner have begun construction of another support panel for the third section of the layout. As also shown, the existing support panel has grown a slide-out workbench that provides much needed work space. The slide-out workbench was originally located under the passenger yard in the old layout. John Purbrick shortened it slightly and added nifty drawer slides. In other work not photographically documented, Malcolm Laughlin created a cubic yard of storage space from about 10,000 feet of wire. “A large amount of entropy formerly under Gifford City is lurking someplace to manifest itself in places yet unknown.” John McNamara worked on the Digital Widgets building restoration; Andy Miller completed the Berkmannville Luncheonette (except for its Coca-Bubblie sign), and placed it on the layout; John Purbrick worked on his automated car identification system that utilizes bar codes mounted on the underside of freight car trucks; and Ed Drozd worked on a new warehouse building that will go near the river. James Knight, James McLurkin, Genya Zaytman, and Ken Terrell tested various equipment, software, layout plans, etc.Semi-annual visitor Hidetoshi Katsuma came by accompanied by a former assistant, Yoshihiro Tanamachi. John McNamara [[missing pix]]
June 12While System3 performed well at the recent Alumni Open House, there are still enhancements to be made. James Knight and Tom O’Reilly worked on these. John Purbrick continued his work in the Berkmannville area. However, he has switched from trackwork and switch wiring to scenery. He installed the “water level” for the stream that runs through the Berkmannville area. John McNamara has turned his attention from the roundhouse to the low portion of the Digital Widgets building and has pretty much completed one section of the front wall. Tonight he installed two more windows in the second section of the front wall. Andy Miller was the third person involved in scenic projects this evening. He installed more sidewalks in Gifford City. The sidewalks are not only for the convenience of pico-pedestrians, they are an important precursor to trolley poles, trolley wire, and real live overhead operation. Stringing wire will doubtless be the task of John Shriver, who has just completed the mechanical work on the carbarn ladder switches. Now all he has to do is wire them to the controller cards ;-) Malcolm Laughlin did some more layout design work using 3rd PlanIt and a more primitive set of tools - paper and pen. Lastly, Ken Terrell continued a number of his personal car painting projects. June 19John McNamara worked on the second side of Digital Widgets, which is currently clamped by vast amounts of lead. John Shriver worked on connecting the MITCo carbarn ladder switch machines to the switch card. When doing some testing, he unplugged the power cable to the card. (You can’t solder to the switch machines with power on!) When plugging it back in, he missed by one pin for a moment. This caused the release of the magic smoke. He turned on wired circuit breakers until they all stayed on. (Took a few tries on one.) Finally a large puff of magic smoke was noted under the layout near the turntable controller, leading to fears of it’s demise. This wasn’t the case. Voltages were measured on the card, and it was seen that there was no +12V. So a new regulator was pulled from the drawer, and the soldering iron and solder sucker taken to the scene of the crime. But there was no +12V regulator on the board! With some investigation, it was found that it had gotten so hot that it had melted the solder, and fallen out of the board. It melted itself into the side of the cable spool sitting on the floor under the switch card. Alvar arrived (wearing the Charles River) with a digital camera in his backpack, so this has been documented! June 22James, Tom, Armond (James’s friend), Roger, and Alvar worked for long hours Saturday night to move the System 3 power supply from the east wall of TMRC, to under the tower. The new supply fits inside a single cabinet, placed immediately next to the circuit breaker panel (also under the tower). Because the IMP controller (controls switches) and several block cards are still mounted in the east wall, they left a bundle of power cables to return to the east wall temporarily. All the block cards and the IMP will be moved under the layout in the near future. Alvar and James also rewired the 120Vac supply for System 3, since the new supply feeds from a single phase, rather than the three phase old supply. The new wiring is closer to implementing the desired operations of lights and power in the clubroom: a circuit that is always on (server), a computer circuit that turns off only until the day is over (so that we don’t reboot computers when going to dinner - this function is not yet implemented), a circuit which is on only when lights are on (general use), and a circuit dedicated to system power, which turns on via a new large pushbutton switch; the huge red pushbutton was mounted above the dimmers for the track lights. John Purbick, Tom, and Alvar moved all the lumber and conduit from the floor to the shelf that remained from the System 2 frame, freeing up space around the clubroom. John also worked on Berkmanville Scenery, together with Bill and Malcolm. Malcolm began to study the rolling stock storage situation of the clubroom, and hopes to come up with a plan on how to store TMRC’s rolling stock under the layout, rather than in boxes around the room! Tom continued to work on the System 3 interface, fixing a couple of small bugs and generally updating the software. He also tested a color monitor we had hidden under the layout, to place it in a visible location to make better use of our Camera car. June 26Malcolm Laughlin mounted the snazzy new Berkmannville control panel and cleared an area under the staging yard “for exclusive Car \& Loco use.” Andy Miller added yet more sidewalks to Gifford City. John Purbrick continued his work on the helix between the staging yard and Berkmannville. John McNamara cemented more brickpaper onto the Digital Widgets wall section upon which he is currently working. System2 is now almost completely on casters ready for its trip to The Telephone Museum on 13 July.
May 26 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2002/5/../../../images1a5a.tcl?year=2002&month=5&day=26) For all the System 2 nostalgia buffs out there, Tom has posted some pictures of System 2. These are some of the last pictures of System 2 taken in the club room before it leaves for the New England Museum of Telephony in Ellsworth, Maine. Most of the cruft behind and under the system has been removed in preparation for the removal of the system. As an added bonus, here is an audio file of the wonderful clicking noises System 2 made.
April 10John Shriver completed the paving on the 100th Street bridge, with the exception of sanding. John Purbrick worked on helix construction, with special emphasis on the support system. Roger Neumann assisted; Alvar Saenz-Otero made some suggestions that were implemented. James Knight, Ed Drozd, and John McNamara “supervised.” Roger, James, and Tom O’Reilly worked on various aspects of System3. James began the process of converting various “swing blocks” to real blocks. (Swing blocks were an artifact of System2 wherein a section of track was part of one adjacent block or another adjacent block depending upon the position of nearby switches. The intent was to save block equipment, which is no longer of great concern.) Tom sontinued his work on System3 graphic user interfaces. John McNamara continued his work refurbishing the lower building of Digital Widgets. Ed Drozd brought in some more low-priced Coca-cola products (99 cents per 6-pack) and worked a little on a stairway enclosure for the roof of one of the Gifford City buildings. Claude Brown and Ken Terrell ran some trains, proving that System3 can run two steam trains at once ;-). April 17The major activity this evening was John Purbrick’s and Roger Neumann’s efforts in helix construction. They completed an additional turn - only 8,000 more to go (just kidding). The turns are supported by threaded rods that permit a substantial amount of vertical adjustment. John Shriver sanded and shellaced the 100th street bridge. This produces a very nice surface and color. Alvar Saenz-Otero continued the elimination of some of the longer swing blocks (those long enough to likely have a locomotive on them). Tom O’Reilly supervised several projects and spent some time admiring his recently-recovered, previously-stolen bicycle. It was stolen from the MIT Museum bike rack, and he discovered it this evening chained in front of the nearby bike shop, about 200 feet from its point of theft. John McNamara installed the first window of the first wall of the Digital Widgets building, currently undgoing renovation.
March 6John Shriver began the construction of tracks that will branch off the downtown Gifford City trolley loop and proceed toward the viewer over the “100th Street” bridge. These tracks will not be operational, but merely scenic. The base material of the bridge approach is Masonite, so John added (via glue and brads) crosswise strips of thin copper to which he will solder the rails. James Knight, Tom O’Reilly, and Roger Neumann worked on System3. Looking over their shoulders, one sees some really nifty graphic interfaces that display block and switch status plus some nice representations of control cabs. Andy Miller and Malcolm Laughlin discussed the design of the proposed new freight yard, and Malcolm diagrammed the entrance using 3rdPlanIt. Andy also began contemplation of the last unfinished bridge over the tracks near Gifford City and refilled the Coke Machine, which was literally overflowing with money. John McNamara continued work on his TNP superliner cars, and John Purbrick did additional wiring work in Berkmannville. March 27John Shriver continued the construction of tracks that will branch off the downtown Gifford City trolley loop and proceed toward the viewer over the “100th Street” bridge. Tom O’Reilly worked on System3 display programs, while John Purbrick did wiring work on the Berkmannville display/control panel that Malcolm Laughlin built. John has constructed a small PIC processor device that controls this panel and spent the evening wiring the processor device to the LEDs and keypad on the panel. John McNamara started rebuilding the Digital Widgets factory (low building) by removing the front wall surface from the undulating plastic backing currently used and cutting a piece of plexiglass that will provide a new mounting surface. Roger Neumann refilled the Coke machine and performed some experiments with Linux. John P, John M, and Roger studied some of the construction problems related to the helixes (helices?). There are substantial questions about how high the helixes will be going, how to support them, and how to construct (and scenic) the structure that surrounds them. If Bill Onorato is in on Saturday, we will have a discussion with him.
February 2System 3 Progress Report So, today, after everyone else had left, I ran four trains around in a loop, all at the same time. How did I manage? Jeff was listing off some features he’d like to see, so I just went ahead and added one. Sys3 now will stop the train automatically and flash the cab signals if it gets a red light, until either: the user presses the (i guess it can be called call-on) button, or the signal changes, at which point it resumes its previous speed. This makes it actually possible to run many many trains, and even insert more into the loop while the rest are still running, without having to worry about them running into each other. Very cool. :) Now we just need more cabs so you can run multiple trains without having to use the text console. In other news, the next three block cards are on their way to being completed (which will make 8 block cards, 64 blocks), which means soon S-yard will be operational as well. James February 6John Shriver paved the carbarn ladder tracks and a small portion of the trolley loop that is near the turntable. Andy Miller painted some locomotives. Ken Terrell tested a three-car articulated set, one of three he bought at the Springfield show. Roger Neumann continued soldering components onto the two block cards he has been building. James Knight and Tom O’Reilly debugged some track continuity problems that were affecting System3 performance. For part of the evening there were TWELVE trains running simultaneously, an all-time record for TMRC. John McNamara worked on a high-level description of System3, and here it is: The principal component of System3 is the Server, a PC running the main control program, which is written in Java. The Server is connected to an RS422 serial bus that connects to: 1) The IMP 2) The Block Cards 3) The Cab Controllers The IMP is a PIC microprocessor that sends data to the Switch Cards via a special shift-register-like bus. Each switch card can operate up to 8 switches (turnouts) on the layout. The IMP also controls the aforementioned RS422 serial bus via a token passing scheme. The Block Cards each use a PIC processor to control the generation of power in 8 blocks. Unlike System2 where each control box (“cab”) had its own power source (“throttle”), in System3 each block has its own pulse power throttle that receives control information from the cab controlling that block. Thus one cab can control several throttles. The association of cabs to the pulse power throttles in the blocks is provided by the Server. The Cab Controllers use PIC processors to monitor the speed and direction settings in the hand-held devices used by layout operators. The updated speed and direction information is forwarded many times per second to the throttles in the blocks occupied by the train. As a train moves into a new block, the program in the Server causes the cab controlling that train to become logically associated with an additional throttle/block on a block card. The speed and direction information provided by the cab, via the cab controller, is forwarded to the newly associated block. Blocks that are no longer occupied by the train have their throttles set to zero. Switches are currently operated by seperate PC running a switch control and layout display program called RSIG. Since these PCs control the switches, and did so before the advent of the Server and the IMP, they are presently connected to the shift-register-like bus that interconnects the switch cards. Eventually, they will have an Ethernet connection to the Server so that they are coordinated with the database contained therein. Switches will be controllable via these computers, via keypads on the cabs, or via layout pushbuttons that are monitored by the switch cards, which can forward button-push information to the Server and IMP. Status: Switch cards for the current layout have been constructed and installed. More will be needed as the layout grows. With the completion of a few more block cards, the same will be true for block cards. Cabs, cab controllers, and the software to operate therein are the next parts of the System3 project to be completed. Assistance in any of these construction and programming efforts is most welcome! February 13John Shriver’s trolley system paving work has been completed in the car barn area and is now extending across the Whatahack River to the loop area immediately adjacent to the roundhouse area. Tonight, John took the initial paving step, which is the construction of sidewalk supports that form the boundaries of the paved area. Andy Miller continued his painting work on some North Shore locomotives and joined with Ed Drozd to refill the Coke machine. Ed also did some work on the KATO SD40’s that he purchased for the Club. John McNamara worked on his TNP superliners, installing new trucksets. John Purbrick installed a set of jacks for System3 cabs. James Knight and Alvar Saenz-Otero worked on Club finances. Brandon Gunn and Roger Neumann continued their construction of a couple of System3 block cards. Malcolm Laughlin tried some LED mounting alternatives for his proposed Berkmannville control panel and consulted with various people on panel construction alternatives. Tom O’Reilly demonstrated a nifty set of cab control windows on the Server. Each is labelled with a train identifier, such as “Amtrak Loco”, has a speed control slider, and buttons for Reverse, Stop, Dropout, and Foo. The demonstration included multiple trains operating with the System3 “auto-stop on red” feature. February 20The trolley line that serves downtown Gifford City runs between two loops. One loop is in the downtown area and was brought to the new layout from the old layout in Building 20. The other loop is near the roundhouse in a (not very classy) residential area. Street paving activity, in preparation for sidewalks and trolley poles, has been gradually moving from the downtown area toward the residential area. To secure the new paving to the plywood, in the same fashion as elsewhere, John Shriver installed round-top staples like those used for telephone wiring. Andy Miller found a multi-story residential and storefront building that was suitable for installation on the new street. It was slightly too deep, so he shortened it. Andy also repaired three freight cars and made some sketches of the proposed new freight yard. More buildings are needed in this area, as are volunteers to build them. Work on the new System3 control system is continuing on several fronts. James Knight did some work on it this evening, and Roger Neumann wired some network connectors for the block control cards. Malcolm Laughlin continued his work on a Berkmannville control panel. It features rectangular yellow LEDs in the track diagram that indicate switch positions. Yellow LEDs and red LEDs in the track diagram indicate which blocks are occupied and the direction in which each block is powered. It is going to look really spiffy. John Purbrick reconditioned several TNP cabooses such that they hold together, their ladders are intact, and their LED marker lights don’t flicker. John McNamara did some work on his TNP superliners, under the supervision of Tom O’Reilly. System3 received another test - a 37-car freight pulled by two Athern Genesis SD70M’s brought in by Dave Mitton. February 27John Shriver completed the paving around the trolley loop nearest the roundhouse. He’s now got this down to a science; it looks great. John Purbrick installed an additional switch control card in the Berkmannville area. He and James Knight also did some work on the block card feedback feature. John McNamara loaded the Coke machine, which was once again gratifyingly close to empty despite being loaded on Saturday. He also brought in some plastic solvent for Genya Zaytman to use when he resumes work on his mill building. Malcolm Laughlin continued using 3DPlanIt to draw up proposed versions of the new freight yard. Mike Patton dropped by to visit.
January 9Work continued in the Berkmannville area, as Roger Neumann worked on the layout skirting and John Purbrick worked on extending the scenic backdrop. A few feet away, Tom O’Reilly worked on switches in the section of old F-yard that has been temporarily placed at the end-of-track. He has been replacing the heel-thrown point switches with the Tortoise machines used on the rest of the new layout. John McNamara assisted by drilling a few holes. John Shriver did some more work on trolley system wiring. Andy Miller did some exploratory work on modelling water for the Watahack River. The river will eventually have operating lift bridges at either end and some river craft (and river cruft). James Knight worked on various software projects. January 10The following news flash from James is important to all members: System 3 is not really ready yet, but it is my opinion (shared by some other clubmembers and not opposed by some others) that having people try to use it, find that it doesn’t work properly, and complain, will get it working faster. So, on saturday, we are going to connect system 3 block cards in the cabinets on the wall and run wire to the terminal blocks behind system 2 then disconnect system 2. The plan is for the layout to not be working properly for the next month. Hopefully it will work mostly, but no guarantees. I am fairly confident that it will work at least at a basic level, unreliably. I definitely expect it to be at the point where people can attempt to use it and get annoyed at specific things being messed up, rather than the whole thing not working at all. But, if you want to run trains, before Saturday might be a good time. :) The idea is to get System 3 in a wide scale test with people wanting to use it, and just keep banging on it until its working right. Hopefully by a month from now it’ll work well enough to actually have some sort of confidence that you can just turn it on and use it without having strange issues, even if not all the desired functionality is implemented yet. If this is a complete disaster and it still isn’t anywhere close to working after a month, we can still go connect System 2 back at the terminal blocks. Current status report: * Block cards - seem to be working reliably. Need to have feedback compensation algorithm added at some point. * Cabs - semi-workable state. Can change speed and reverse. JP is working on new cabs. * GUI (rsig) - not great, but works well enough to throw switches and assign trains. Has serious issues, ASO is working on cleaning it up. * Server - seems to work. Has been observed running trains and advancing properly, but I’m not confident that it actually works right under all conditions. Definitely needs to be tested more. January 16John Shriver began electrical tests on the carbarn ladder, finding some shorted block gaps and not finding others. Andy Miller continued his project of painting North Shore locomotives. Ed Drozd brought in some additional Coca-Cola products and filled the Coke machine. John McNamara and Roger Neumann drilled holes in the throwbars for the (former) F-yard switches and patched a hole in that area. John and Genya Zaytman also installed a switch machine. Tom O’Reilly, who has been doing most of the F-yard work, turned his attention briefly to the Berkmannville area, checking and correcting track gauge. Roger Neumann, Alvar Saenz-Otero and James Knight mounted System3 block cards in their cabinets. System2 was disconnected from the layout this past Saturday and installation of System3 block cards began. At least 18 blocks have been wired, but there is plenty of additional work to be done in networking the computers, etc. January 22John Shriver continued his debug of the ladder tracks for the trolley car barn and found the shorted block gap that had eluded him last week. Tom O’Reilly worked on the switches in the former F-yard ladder. They now have a complete complement of Tortoise switch machines. John McNamara and Rodger Neumann refilled the Coke machine. Sales continue to be brisk. John Purbrick wired a switch control card in Berkmannville and counselled James Knight and Roger Neumann on their System3 work. They replaced some of the power feeds that had been connected to the old power supply with connections to a new power supply. They also connected a cab interface for testing purposes.
December 12Ed Drozd tested three new Club locomotives. These are KATO units and run very, very well. The only complaint is that their headlights (white LEDs) are very bluish. John Shriver wired half of the trolley carbarn ladder to a controller card. John Purbrick installed a new low voltage, high amperage power supply that the Club recently purchased. This will be used to power our increasing amount of five volt logic, especially the switch controller cards. Andy Miller worked on a steam loco that he brought in, and Ken Terrell painted some more of his many, many (30) long distance bi-level coaches. Malcolm Laughlin gathered kits to work on during his upcoming absence. Alvar Saenz-Otero performed various clerical tasks, receiving an Office Depot shipment and preparing labels and coin wrappers for future use. John McNamara and some of the others discussed a recent Tom O’Reilly idea for a temporary staging area beyond Berkmannville. It will be constructed from the old F-yard classication track unit salvaged from Building 20. December 19John Purbrick continued his work wiring Berkmannville. The Berkmannville area was recently expanded with the addition of a small module built during our later years in Building 20. This evening, Tom O’Reilly continued the construction that he and Alvar started last week, which is to further extend the Berkmanville area by adding the former F-Yard ladder as a temporary staging facility until the “third lobe” of the layout is constructed. John McNamara loaded the Coke machine. Ken Terrell did some painting. Claude Brown, and later Joe Onorato, visited. The Cub Scout troop that was expected at 7:15 never showed up.
November 7 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/11/../../../imagesbd1e.tcl?year=2001&month=11&day=7)Much of this evening’s activity was directed toward getting ready for the Open House this Saturday, November 10. Malcolm Laughlin, Ed Drozd, and Andy Miller cleaned. Ed also checked the functioning of various track routes. John Purbrick and Alvar Saenz-Otero revised the staging yard wiring to accommodate anticipated Open House operations. Jeff Birkner was also busy wiring, completing the project upon which he has been working the past few weeks. Tom O’Reilly did some track work in Berkmannville. John McNamara replaced a roof section on the roundhouse and did some inventory work on the Marklin cars. James Knight brought the TMRC website back to life. November 10 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/11/../../../images868a.tcl?year=2001&month=11&day=10)Another great open house! And, unbelievably, the system behaved really well today :-) Plus, at the end of the night, JP hacked together the Berkmannville track so that for the first time, a powered locomotive ran from Staging to the end of the existing track! (Pictures comming soon!) November 14John Shriver painted the interior of the trolley car barn. The pillars and floors are now a nice neutral gray. Malcolm Laughlin, John Purbrick, Tom O’Reilly, and Andy Miller performed a “brutal purge of institutional memories” by discarding a substantial quantity of material from the bookcases. The old data books were set aside for Jeff’s review. The net result of the purge and set-aside was four newly-vacated bookcase sections. It is planned that these will be used for a forthcoming donation of Railfan \& Railroad. John McNamara did some work on the roundhouse office roof and joined John Shriver on a soda-buying expedition. Andy Miller stocked the machine and also entertained some visitors. It appears that a father left his two children and babysitter at TMRC while he performed at the nearby Endicott Music Center! Andy also put a coat of black paint on the firehouse parking lot. Stefano Curtarolo visited briefly. Tom O’Reilly layed track in Berkmannville, while John Purbrick did extensive wiring and block-gap-cutting in preparation for separate blocks. James Knight did some System3 programming work. Just before the Berkmannville track work began, a great milestone was reached, as a Budd RDC made two round trips from Gifford City to Berkmannville. A substantial increase in Berkmannville property values is expected now that passenger service has returned! November 21Despite being a pre-holiday evening, there was a lot of activity. John Purbrick continued his work on wiring the block feeders for Berkmannville. Tom O’Reilly did additional Berkmannville track work, including the commencement of construction on his first switch. Stefano Curtarolo inserted and soldered the components in two more System3 block controller boards. He was especially proud of his work on the fine-pitch surface mount components. “It takes (my) N-gauge hands to do that.” Genya Zaytman and John McNamara added a vent pipe to the roundhouse office. Ken Terrell painted the vent pipe for us, and painted some of his buses. Malcolm Laughlin visited, as did Mr. \& Mrs. Harold Tepper and their daughter-in-law. Harold Tepper, from New Nersey, is a member of the Class of 1952 and a former Club member. November 28John Shriver designed a block wiring scheme for the car barn ladder, and Alvar Saenz-Otero worked on building the necessary controller. John McNamara and Ed Drozd filled the Coke machine and rolled some coins. John also worked on a file cabinet for the roundhouse office, and Ed demonstrated an impressive Diesel (Chinese model of a Chinese prototype). Speaking of which, Ken Terrell operated a train of Chinese models of Chinese prototype bi-level long distance coaches. Together, the loco and cars modelled a train upon which Ed had ridden while in China. Tom O’Reilly continued his work on Berkmannville track and switch machines. James Knight continued his work on System3 software. Andy Miller painted a locomotive, while John Purbrick installed some ballast and replaced the video card in the layout switch control computer. Malcolm Laughlin did an inventory of our magazine collection, checking to see what holes could be filled from a recently donated magazine collection.
October 3Malcolm Laughlin has completed the installation of the plywood for the East end of Berkmannville; John Purbrick and Bill cut out the piece last Saturday, put it in place, and even marked tentative track. This connects the recently completed trackwork with a section that was built out-of-place back in Building 20. Andy Miller worked on an alley in Guifford City. John McNamara painted the oil tank behind the roundhouse. In doing so, he was “supervised” by Ed Drozd, who also worked on some center-beam flat cars. John Shriver re-installed the metal uprights inside the trolley car barn. These will provide electrical continuity to the overhead wiring that will be added later. He also began paving the interior of the carbarn using joint compound. October 10Andy Miller paved the alley next to “Walker’s Fine Dining” in downtown Gifford City. Mal Laughlin completed the calibrated roll-ability tester. Cars equipped with new trucks rolled on an 0.6 to 0.7% grade, while some cars with old trucks required a 1.7% grade. Ed Drozd, John McNamara, and John Purbrick entertained some visitors. Ken Terrell did some painting under the “supervision” of Claude Brown. October 14 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/10/../../../images5173.tcl?year=2001&month=10&day=14)Not a full report, but many pictures of the day for today! Plus, the first day that we connected an assembled System3 Block Card! There’s plenty of work to do with System3, but its definetely a good milestone! October 17Ed Drozd and Andy Miller took a trip to Star Market and replenished the soft drink supply. With the assistance of Alex Vandiver and John McNamara, they filled the machine, which had “run dry”. Alex and John also worked on scenery around the roundhouse. Tom O’Reilly and John Purbrick substantially extended the tracks in Berkmannville. Malcolm Loughlin studied some maps in preparation for an upcoming industrial research trip that he and Bill Onorato are planning. He also “supervised” Tom and John’s track-laying efforts. Ken Terrell visited and exercised the System with a freight train. October 24John Purbrick and Tom O’Reilly continued the process of laying ties, staining ties, ballasting, and installing rail in the Berkmannville and “East Berkmannville” areas. John says he is anxious to get more track down so that they can work on the fun part - four new switches. Andy Miller entended the high stone wall that is along the side of the passenger yard. This allows space for the paving behind Walker’s Fine Dining and the installation of a concrete capstone on the retaining wall. John McNamara cleaned the roof of the roundhouse and installed a lead weight and a stiffener under a roof section that bends upward slightly. Malcolm Laughlin worked on a model of a tank car he and Bill Onorato saw recently in Lawrence. Malcolm sys he longs for the good old days of models that were made of prototype materials - wood and metal. October 27Today’s activities began at 10 with a tour of the MBTA subway dispatching facility. It had the rare distinction of causing a moment of stunned silence when the TMRCies first entered the visitor gallery above the control room. A large semi-circular wall contained large rear-projection displays of all the subway routes, with indication of trains in progress. The whole thing was very impressive. Saturday afternoon featured a tour of the Riverside carbarn and servicing facility. Between the two tours, most of the group rode the Red Line to Mattapan and visited the Mattapan High Speed Trolley, populated with nicely restored PCC cars. In the evening, Tom O’Reilly, Alex Vandiver, and John Purbrick layed track in Berkmannville. Genya Zaytman and Ed Drozd began interior work on Ed’s “Art Deco” building and constructed a covered hopper. Jeff Birkner worked on a Signals and Power project, while Bill Onorato added roof molding to the vegetable oil factory. Andy Miller did additional work on the retaining wall between the main street of Gifford City and the passenger platforms, while John McNamara began work on a front wall for the newspaper building. Ken Terrell did some painting.
September 5Andy Miller worked on the retaining wall behind the Bassex House hotel in preparation for paving the alley. John Shriver finished the guardrails in the carbarn ladder tracks and soldered them into place. Speaking of the carbarn, John Purbrick has taken a wonderful interior shot. It was among several he displayed at the Activities Midway. The picture reveals a damaged railing which John repaired this evening, along with staining more ties in Berkmanville and assisting Malcolm Laughlin in his composition of a Freshman mailing and survey. James Knight send out the mailing this evening. John McNamara and Ed Drozd worked on some scenic details at the back of the roundhouse, notably some additional weeds and some additional work on the fuel oil tank. The Green Building model was re-installed, complete with a blinking white LED on the antenna mast. We turned off the room lights and looked at it from the corridor - it’s really cool! Ken Terrell and Claude Brown visited briefly. September 12Recently, Ed Drozd has been replacing the wheel sets on some of TMRC’s freight cars. Malcolm Laughlin, who has been working on our freight car fleet, tested the rolling characteristics of some of the refurbished cars this evening and reported vast improvement. Ed also installed a new snowplow on his EMD demonstrator SD70M and supervised John McNamara’s work on the fuel tank behind the roundhouse. In response to the Club’s approval, Andy Miller arrived with three rolling storage bins purchased from Staples. They come in four-drawer and six-drawer configurations and have low enough profiles that they fit anywhere under the layout, including Berkmannville. He filled them with the plastic and wood building materials formerly storeed on top of the drafting table, resulting in a momentary reduction in TMRC entropy. For the sake of this report, James Knight was asked what he did and reported, “I had dinner.” September 26As mentioned in a previous report, Ed Drozd has been installing improved wheelsets in TMRC freight cars. Unfortunately, switching operations near the express building in P-yard now encounter roll-away problems, as the mainline track there has a slight incline. John Purbrick worked on an electromechanical device to secure cars on that stretch of track. The simple solution, of course, is to require all strings of cars to contain some good old-fashioned TMRC “sand journal” cars. Speaking of Ed Drozd, he made a run to Stop \& Shop, replenished our supply of Coca-Cola products, and (with the assistance of John Shriver) filled the machine. John Shriver completed the points in the car barn ladder and proclaimed that “MITCO is completely trackwork operational.” Mal Laughlin battled with various measurement devices while laying out the plywood for East Berkmannville and proclaimed victory. Alex Vandiver spiked additional track in Berkmannville, and earned his TMRC key in the process. John McNamara did some work on the fuel tank behind the roundhouse and enlisted Alex’s future aid in completing some ground cover in the area.
August 1Andy Miller worked on building foundations in the Gifford City area. This was done in preparation for the installation of sidewalks and subsequent installation of trolley poles. Andy and Alvar then discussed the placement of a couple of the buildings and decided to change one, requiring the removal of foundations already nailed and glued in place…. At the opposite end of Gifford City, John Shriver worked toward completion of the car barn ladder tracks. John McNamara did some minor work on the interior of the roundhouse. In the BK area, Malcolm Laughlin and Roger Neumann temporarily mounted the pre-built layout section that will go at the eastern end of Berkmannville. Alvar discussed with others the mounting of a ‘work surface’ under said section. James Knight, Branden Gunn, Roger Neumann, and Alvar worked on various computer-related projects. After some debuggind, James and Alvar made the first Systme3 advance in S-Yard! Jeff Birkner dropped by briefly, as did Ken Terrell. August 8A very quiet and very warm night. John Shriver continued his work on the carbarn ladder tracks. Malcolm Laughlin worked on some Streamline car kits of his. He and John McNamara briefly discussed Alvar’s self-clearing workbench idea, the exact height of which depends on some inputs from Bill Onorato. John M also refilled the Coke machine, which had been completely sold out to thristy victims of the current heat wave. John S. and John M. agreed that the Club’s current A/C has a capacity of only about 100 mK (milliKotoks). James worked on new bootloaders for the PIC processors which run the System3 blockcards. Alvar installed ‘OrCad’ in the TMRC PC so that we can star to work on the schematics and layout of the blockcards. August 15John Shriver continued his work on the carbarn ladder tracks and now has two tracks completed into the car barn. John Purbrick and Malcolm Laughlin showed off the layout to a friend of Malcolm’s and discussed various model and prototype railroading issues. Ben FrantzDale visited and installed grass behind the roundhouse after consultation with John McNamara and Ed Drozd. Alvar Saenz-Otero made CAD drawings of the System3 block card schematics while James Knight worked on various other System3 issues. Jeff Birkner visited briefly.
July 11A quiet night. Mal Laughlin continued his work on the TMRC freight cars, examining and inventorying them. He has created a long string of bad-order cars in the staging yard. These are blue-flagged (with blue tape) and should not be moved until fixed. Most have coupler problems. John Purbrick did some more ballasting in Berkmannville and installed an uncoupling ramp. John Shriver refilled the Coke machine and did some more work on the street trackage. James Knight emptied the Coke machine’s coin collection, and he and John McNamara rolled tons of quarters! July 18 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/7/../../../images31d5.tcl?year=2001&month=7&day=18)The evening began with our opportunity for 15 minutes of fame. Kelly Davidson, a photographer for the Boston Phoenix, spent some time taking photos of various parts of the layout and of the people at work thereon. These will be part of an article on model railroading to appear the week after next. Malcolm Laughlin continued his freight car inventory and testing process. He also downloaded some demo versions of layout design programs. He and Branden Gunn experimented with some of the features. John McNamara repaired some of the roll-up doors on the roundhouse and reloaded the Coke machine. Alvar Saenz-Otero worked on the radomes and other building-top features for his Green Building model. Alvar and Branden also ran some power cables for System3. John Purbrick demonstrated the latest version of his freight car tracking system that uses bar code strips mounted on the underside of freight car trucks. It worked very well and was the subject of substantial discussion with Branden and his friend Roger Neumann, who also did some track-laying in Berkmannville. Track-laying also occurred in the trolley turning loop near the roundhouse, where John Shriver completed a dummy track that branches off of the loop and leads to the edge of the layout. This would be an excellent method of disposing of malfunctioning trolleys, but the switches leading to it will not be functional. Ken Terrell dropped by and did some testing and work on his Penn Central SD45. July 21The room looks different after today! Alvar and Bill began by moving all the lumber around, such that the plywood is now flat against the back wall. They also moved all the conduit (which still needs a new home location) and pushed the large computer table all the way to the corner. With Branden’s and Roger’s help, the NT computer desk and the filing cabinet was also moved to the back of the room. All the boxes full of electronic stuff were sorted, compressed, some placed under the layout, and others are awaiting a new home also. In order to move some boxes out of the floor, Alvar created an ingenious ‘hanging’ shelf above the computer tables, which stores tons of boxes. He also built a smaller, permanent, and sturdy shelf where two CPU’s sit, clearing even more area in the computer desks! End result: a really large area is ready, so that we can continue to build the layout! And, about the layout, JP and Roger continued to lay down track and switches in the BK area. Bill worked on super-detailing of the switches. Meanwhile, Malcolm continued to sort and check the rolling stock. A quick ‘meeting’ like thing occured, where it was decided to buy a new HP Deskjet to replace the printer that died during construction. July 25A gratifying number of members showed up in a working mood. There was some initial debate (repeated every time somebody entered the room) about whether leaving half the lights off would help keep the room cool, and if so, which half it should be. Andy Miller worked on a passenger car, and began the long-awaited work on GC sidewalks. The first segment is under the Walker’s Fine Dining bldg. On off nights he repaired 10 of the freight cars which Mal IDed as bad order and installed a foundation for the Bassex House. Malcolm Laughlin continued his work on freight cars and their discontents to counteract Andy’s progress ;-P Claude Brown visited briefly and spent his time cleaning the room. Branden Gunn helped Alvar with power wiring for Sys3, receiving a Spanish lesson in the process, and then joined in counting coins. Roger Neumann spiked rail in Berkmannville and then joined the coin-counters. Alvar Saenz-Otero cleaned the room, installed power wiring for Sys3 and counted money. He also received kudos and plaudits for his new aerial storage scheme which removes stored buildings from the floor and computers from the bench. A large amount of floor space has appeared! James Knight counted money and then returned to Sys3 software. John Shriver installed more street in Gifford City. John Purbrick built the 5th switch in Bermannville. July 29 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/7/../../../images1a6c.tcl?year=2001&month=7&day=29)Just a picture of the day update today.
June 2Alvar and Jeff wired all the S-Yard blocks to the “Layout Feeder Panel #5” (LF5), located in the BK helix area. There are a total of 13 blocks which will be operational by Sys3 - the 8 main tracks, the turning loop, reversing track, and three ladder blocks. The LF5 is also ready for new BK tracks as they appear (and as blocks become available in Sys3 once our new cards are debugged). Bill, Malcolm, and John P. worked on Berkmannville. JP layed more track on the cutoff, all the way to the first switch into the BK station. Bill placed more ties in place and began to fill the gaps between tracks in the yard-section of BK with wood puddy. Malcolm continued to cut more ties, since there is lots of track to build, and began planning the continuation of BK towards GC. The first step is to make space for it, so he began to compress all of our buildings boxes. John Shriver did tons of work on the streets of Gifford City. He first layed out all the sidewalks down the large curve on the east side of GC, past the carbarn, and all the way to the bridge. The only missing sidewalk is the area infront of the GC Station, which Andy and JS will have to work out together. He also flattened down the section of pavement he layed down a week ago. Alvar continued to work on the green building roof details. He sanded the large radome and installed a few other details on it. The small radome cone needed another layer of plaster. Jeff and Alvar discussed Tetris-on-the-Green-Building, and found some C source code for Tetris, which may enable us to have the building ready to play with this Summer! Ed and Bill both brought in more Coke products, helping to overflow more our already overflowed stock after JP and Alvar bough 49 cases last week :-) Its all for sale at $0.50 outside the clubroom! Ed also helped to refill the Coke Machine, and supervised all of our work. June 6Work occurred on diverse fronts this evening. Neglected for a long time, the Club’s car fleet received attention from two sources. Malcolm Laughlin started a computerized inventory, and Andy Miller worked on six freight cars. Andy also paved the Caveat Emptor driveway. John Purbrick and Brandon Gunn, visiting from Wentworth, did more trackwork in Berkmannville, including construction of a switch. John McNamara did some work on the roundhouse office. June 20Track has reached Berkmannville! John Purbrick and Brandon Gunn worked on the first switch, which will probably be complete by the time you read this. At the other end of the layout, John Shriver and Andy Miller agreed on a pavement arrangement for the area in front of Gifford City station. John’s pavement is marching forward and looks great. Andy also worked on a parking lot for the fire station he has been building, in addition to cleaning the A/C filters and filling the Coke machine. Let’s hear it for hot weather! The “WECO cabinet” has been removed, leaving behind a legacy of cut-off milk cartons full of random screws, nuts, and other hardware. John McNamara worked on sorting and condensing these and placed some in the drawers under System2. James Knight continued his work on code for System3. June 23Progress continued in all fronts: Alvar worked on the installation of the Sys3 Block Cards in S-Yard, so that Sys3 can start to be debugged. James continued working on the code, so that once the hardware is in, the software is ready. Jeff continued the installation of power lines in S-Yard, so that we can plug in the necessary power supplies. On the other track side of things, JP built a second switch into BK, and put down a couple more feet of ballast. Bill continued to add ties to the end of the BK track. Malcolm continued with the planning of what will happen next, after BK. Ed worked on the pavement around the roundhouse. June 27 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/6/../../../images79ff.tcl?year=2001&month=6&day=27)There was progress tonight at both ends of the layout and in the middle! In Gifford City, John Shriver completed the paving in front of Gifford City Station. Completed pavement now stretches the full length of the main street, all the way from the downtown trolley loop to the Whatahack River. At the opposite end of the layout, Ed Drozd installed ties in Berkmannville, while John Purbrick and Branden Gunn worked on ballast, switches, and rail. Stephano Curtarolo continued to work on ballast later in the evening. The Berkmannville switch count is now almost two. Ed Drozd and John McNamara discussed ground cover behind the roundhouse and in the process discovered that while most of the foundation was black, some was brick-colored and some was concrete. Black being the majority color, John painted the remainder black. Malcolm Laughlin, a usual denizen of Berkmannville, instead devoted his attentions to the Club’s car inventory and found 45% in need of attention, primarily involving coupler problems. Alvar Saenz_Otero arrived and he and Branden connected all the S-Yard tracks to the System3 Block Cards. Then, they ran the main communications wire for System3 from the IMP to S-Yard, leaving the rest of the wire ready for installation below GC once Sys3 is debugged. Alvar also installed the ‘Recycling’ sing again, which is now next to the Coke Machine (instead of behind it).
May 2Tonight was a quiet night. John Purbrick ran a train around to test the system. Ed Drozd worked on a CO2 tank for CocaBubblie, Alvar Saenz-Otero paid a brief supervisory visit. John McNamara worked on a TNP Superliner diner of his. Andy Miller worked on his MP54’s. Ken Terrell worked on a kit of his. May 5 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/5/../../../images9461.tcl?year=2001&month=5&day=5)Back to work! Bill and Malcolm worked on the BK cutoff; Malcolm also worked on making more plans for the layout. Ed worked on super-detailing the CO2 tank for the CocaBubblie plant, replacing the plastic walkways with etched brass parts! He also began to test the clearences of the helix area, since the helix will present some challenges for re-reailing trains! Alvar, James, and Jeff worked full-time on System3. Alvar worked all day to finish wiring the second Block Card. It is now fully wired, and awaiting a PIC processor (we’re sure he got it right the first time, sure…) James worked on the software side of System3 and got the advance part of it almost functional, to the point where Jeff was called in so that the three of them needed to work together to add ‘reverse’ feedback from System2 to System3. May 9Malcom made some measurements around the layout. Ed Drozd assembled a train of auto carriers. Andy Miller worked on a graphical representation of a new building for Gifford City. By printing out these graphics on our color inkjet, he can make very attractive mockups. The three aforementioned people also participated in a mammoth coin-counting exercise. It seems that with massive construction going on in the building, there are lots of thirsty construction workers, and the machine needs filling three times a week. John McNamara, with the assistance of Ed Drozd, worked on one of his TNP-lettered superliners. John Purbrick, Alvar Saenz-Otero, and James Knight worked on programming the System3/System2 interface that will be used to add System3 control to the Staging Yard while running the rest on System2 (an interim measure). The call-on feature is now fully operational with System3; the reverse feedback began last Saturday is also now working. Alvar also put together the communications board for the original Sys3 block card, so that this weekend we can start testing the two cards. All three made sure the system was back to ‘normal’ operation before leaving late at night. May 12 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/5/../../../images6ff5.tcl?year=2001&month=5&day=12)Bill \& JP tried different under-the-track permanent uncoupling ramps for the BK area. JP continued to lay track in the BK cutoff. Meanwhile, Ed superdetailed both the CO2 tank of Coca-Bubblie, as well as a new locomotive; he used the locomotive to test the autoracks of the club. Alvar began work on the roof of the green building. James continued to work on System 3. May 30Track-laying crews are rapidly approaching Berkmannville! Malcolm Laughlin cut an enormous number of ties and John Purbrick installed substantial quantities of custom-colored ballast. John McNamara and Ed Drozd did some work on their customary projects, the roundhouse office and the Coca-Bubblie building respectively. Alvar continued to work on the radomes for the green building, which need to have a nice smooth surface. He then installed the necessary terminal strips in the S-Yard area so that all the tracks can be wired. Ken Terrell did his customary thing - test System 2’s ability to acquire blocks faster than his 300 mph Talgo equipped with a newly-detailed AEM-7. James and John P. worked on the interface between the Sys3 software and the cabs that JP built a while ago. Once this communications links is established, and when the tracks are wired, Sys3 is ready to be fully tested in S-Yard!!! Alvar Saenz-Otero handled the sales of our remaining few 50th anniversary box cars. Bob Walker, a returning visitor from California bought the last two kits today!
April 4Most of tonight’s activities were System3-related. Alvar Saenz-Otero arrived with some electronic goodies from DigiKey that included parts for building the next eight block controllers. John Purbrick blasted some EPROMs and completed the wiring of another switch control card. James Knight made computer-generated labels for the electronic parts drawers. In non-System3 work, Malcolm Laughlin installed supports for the two-track helix that will take mainline trains down to Berkmanville. John McNamara did some more work on the desk in the roundhouse office. Sefano Curtarolo brought in an interesting book on model railroad photography and repaired the slightly malfunctioning Coke machine changer. Ken Terrell painted a “Mother Hubbard” locomotive of his and tested a Shinkansen train set. April 7 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/4/../../../imagesff91.tcl?year=2001&month=4&day=7)New Feature!**Starting today, and hopefully very often, the progress reports will be accompanied by a a page of pictures that show the current progress. Of course, the frequency will depend on how much time we have. Tonight Alvar continued some work on the green building, including some sanding and fillup up some gaps. It is now ready for the main painting. JP and Bill continued to work on the color for the Berkmanville ballast, and actually placed some ballast to try it out. John Shriver continued the paving of Main Street (I think that’s the street name?). Jeff cleaned up the new mirrors (which were a little dirty from the construction), and also cleaned the main window. Ed visited us for a short time, with a nice delivery of Coke Products. Alvar, with JP’s supervision, began to work on the System 3 2nd blockcard. About 1/4 of the job is done :-) JP demonstrated his progress with the S-Yard switch chards, which are now in operation. **April 11John Purbrick connected the Cab 4 “walk-around throttle” (based on a Radio Shack cordless phone) to a new PIC-processor-based controller that is System3 compatible. Malcolm Laughlin added nine more feet of track to one of the routes in the two-track helix that will take mainline trains down to Berkmanville. John McNamara painted the desk and chair for the roundhouse office. Ed Drozd brought in lots and lots of Coca-cola products from a sale at Star Market. He also did some more work on his NdeM locomotive, which now looks even more prototypically grubby. Andy Miller put a more accurate style of pantograph on some of his MP54s. April 14 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/4/../../../images2ac1.tcl?year=2001&month=4&day=14)Today work continued throughout the layout with 13 people being in the clubroom at some point! During the week Andy prepared some images of plans for the large viewblock buildings along Main St in Gifford City. Ed and Bill entered the discussion on whoe the big the buildings should be. Andy also worked on the Police Station mockup, so that the first floor is taller and the second shorter, improving the proportion of the three stories. Bill and Malcolm continued to work on the Berkmanville area. Malcolm installed almost all the track needed to finish the first turn up from BK to S-Yard. Bill placed some ties on the cutoff line down from S-Yard to BK. Ed also helped in that area by working on the wood-puddy for the slants along the roadbed. Ed also worked on Car \& Loco by replacing the plastic wheels of all the Anniversary Train cars with nice new metal wheels. Alvar installed the fronts of the Green Building, and primed the whole body, prior to painting it to the yellowish-concrete color. Alvar also reported that the Dewalt hammer drill is now in full shape after going to the doctor. John McNamara was in to continue work on the Roundhouse office: he installed a shelf full of parts-drawers on one of the walls. John Shriver brought in more plaster for the streets, and worked on the ramp up to the 105th Street bridge. Dick Lord came to visit the club, and brought in a friend from the Netherlands, who is also interested in model railroading. James worked on System 3 code, which is now ready enough to be waiting for the hardware! He then continued to work with the internal telephone system so that we can have it operational for the Open House. John P. tested the now fully operational Cab 4 remote throttle and the operation of S-Yard. Further, after some discussion of using S-Yard during the Open House, he re-wired block 27 so that the ladders can in fact be used! He then began work to power the two other switchards, which must be operational to be able to use the ladders he re-wired. Today was Meeting Day, you can find the minutes in the new meetings page. April 18 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/4/../../../imagesc5cc.tcl?year=2001&month=4&day=18)A group from the Norshore RR Club visited tonight to talk about the TMRC System. JP received them and kept them quite entretained. Andy continued to work on the plans for the backdrops of Gifford City… these building are going to be big! Ken added some pictures as ‘posters’ to the subway station. Alvar worked a little bit more on the System 3 Blockcard #2, which will hopefully be ready before the end of the term, so that we can start debugging System 3 in the summer. Mike Newmand and JP stayed late at the club talking about how to make the new telephone system interface to Sys3 so that we can switch switches and do other fun stuff over the telephone! JP then also worked on the switchards for S-Yard. Switch cards #8 and #9, installed a couple of weeks ago, are now powered and connected to the data network. All 12 relays in use have been observed to operate. Switches 86-88 have been wired and are usable. This means that 4 tracks of staging (the 4 closest to the layout edge) are usable from both ends for either storage or through routes. The 3 tracks at the opposite side are normally accessible from the tower end only but are functional at both ends if switches 95 and 96 are correctly set electrically and mechanically. The 8th track is not usable yet. All ladder tracks are fed from the tower end. The entire yard functions as Block 27. Staging has no control system as yet. The track diagram on the computers has been modified to include some “pseudo blocks” which exist simply to contain switches. To throw switches, ignore the blocks and click on the switches as shown on the diagram, or use the cordless cab. Alvar has ordered another inexpensive laptop computer which we plan to install as a control panel for staging, in a similar manner to the P-yard control computer. A serial port for this purpose is available on the display interface card under the tower. April 21 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/4/../../../imagesb0bc.tcl?year=2001&month=4&day=21)Today everybody did a little work on projects and lots of preparation for the Open House. Steve brought the exchange train from the Norshore RR Club, which will run during our Open House. During this time he helped (with lots of patience) test both the system and the track. Justin also ran trains, testing almost every root out of P-Yard; we’ll finish testing all routes this Wednesday. JP and Alvar helped to figure out a few Sys2 bugs. JP and John Barrington helped fix some track problems, discovered with the exchange train. Others started cleaning the room: Bill \& James swept almost the whole place. Alvar cleaned the work table and the computer tables. Ed cleaned several sections of the layout. Alvar tried to sort out buildings around the Pettingale Circle area so that they look reasonable… a little more help will be needed. On the project sides of things, Ed brought in the almost finshed NdeM, which are definetely ready for Open House showing. He also worked on the yet-to-be-named-building next to Coca Blubblie, adding some roof details. JP, Bill, and John Shriver continued to work on the BK cutoff handlaid track section, adding ballast, ties, and working with the roadbed (respectively). Alvar finished painting the Green Building, wich looked too yellow the last time, and now it should be ready to go. He also worked on the System3 block card, adding all the ‘power’ wires to it. James continued to code System 3 software, while the block card is ready. April 25Tonight was “clean-up night” in preparation for tomorrow night’s floor-waxing, which is in turn preparation for Open House this Saturday. Malcolm Laughlin and John McNamara concentrated their efforts on cleaning the floor. Ed Drozd and Andy Miller checked out various trains and, in the process, checked out system operation. Bugs were quickly fixed by Jeff Birkner, who also assisted in the cleaning efforts. John Purbrick continued his work on making the staging yard operational for the Open House. He has revised the layout diagram shown on the various computers around the clubroom, and spent this evening adding a computer for controlling the staging area. The staging area computer is a small Compaq laptop that Alvar purchased on Ebay for $65. It is very similar to the computer used to control P-yard. Alvar made a sliding shelf for the computer, and placed the computer in its permanent location in the S-Yard. James Knight supplemented his cleaning efforts with further work on System3, while Alvar made a handset-back instruction sheet for the portable throttle, labels for the telephones, and a telephone directory for the phone system that Mike Newman donated some time ago. Examination of the TMRC mailbox, which we do every so often, revealed an envelope from Model Railroad News. Enclosed was a copy of an announcement publicizing out 50th Anniversary Car, complete with color photo. April 28 [[pictures]](/old/progress/reports/2001/4/../../../imagesafe6.tcl?year=2001&month=4&day=28)Today was Open House day, with about 100 people comming to visit us!
March 3James brought in a fancy tripod and took literally hundreds of pictures in order to come up with an incredible panorama of the whole room! You can see the panorama from this site: TMRC Room Panorama (5 MB). But you need to have the latest Quicktime software to view it. Meanwhile Alvar spent the whole day working on the first front face of the Green Building… and finsihed it! So, one more face to go, then painting the sides, and then interior work and roof details. Pictures will soon be available here. Ed painted many items today: the AC units for the Coca Bubblie building, a NdeM (Nacional de Mexico) locomotive, so that maybe by the next Open House there is a ‘generalisimo’ train, and several details for other buildings and people. Bill continued work on the Vegetable Oil facility and added track to the BK helix entrance. Malcolm added more latice stock to the helix. John C. Green Jr. visited the club, since he’s around for business this comming week. March 21Malcolm Laughlin has finished the roadbed in Berkmanville! Ed Drozd continued his work on the NdeM locomotive appropriate to Alvar’s native land. He also worked on air conditioning ducts for the exterior of the building next to CocaBubblie. John McNamara added some scale coffee cups to some shelves in the roundhouse office. In response to a suggestion from John Barringer, Andy Miller created (electronically) and posted (physically) a schematic of the finished layout. It may be added to the web site. John Purbrick installed more brickwork on the produce terminal; he also mounted some of the System3 components on a plywood board to keep them from being achieving random distribution. Ken Terrell tested his Talgo train yet again, but this time with a nicely painted AEM7 in place of the anachronistic BL2 formerly used. March 28Ed Drozd and John McNamara discussed future trackage in the roundhouse area. Ed also worked on some NdeM equipment, and John also worked on a desk for the roundhouse office. John Purbrick did some System3 work and mounted the clock control panel in the tower. This panel controls Jeff Birkner’s nifty programmable clock and was formerly located in front of the dispatcher in the old (Bldg 20) tower. It has been lanquishing in a pile under the new tower ever since we moved. Alvar Saenz worked on a mounting system for mirrors that will be located above P-yard. The next scenic step in the P-yard area is construction of a view-block wall of high buildings that will separate the P-yard scene from the industrial scene immediately adjacent to it. Unfortunately, this will also block the tower operators’ view of P-yard. Mirrors mounted high above P-yard will restore that view. In other news, Malcolm Laughlin did some work on the helix near Bermanville and Ken Terrell tried some different locomotives with his Talgo equipment. March 31Bit accomplishemnts at the club today! First, Alvar finished the framework for the mirrors, and with Jeff’s help, they installed and position the mirrors. Now operators in the tower can see their trains go through P-yard (as well as the roofs - or lack thereoff - of some buildings). The aerial view of Gifford City is really quite impressive. Meanwhile John P. continued to assemble the switchards for Staging Yard, in preparation for deployment of the System 3 development area… as a reminder, S-Yard will be the testing yard for System 3. The blocks within the yard will all be controlled by System 3, independently of System 2. Block 27 of System 2 (which is already S-Yard) will be wired to the ‘DCC’ section of System 3, so that the S-Yard can have trains go in and out. In similar electronic notes, Jeff, JP and Alvar worked on the installation of the TMRC Main Clock in the tower. The main clock now sits to the right of the distpacher, in a console on the counter space. Being this the Daylight Savings Time start, they worked hard to be ready before the work took an hour longer than necessary… the time was set correctly at 3:00am. On the scenic and train end, Ed advanced on the detailing of the NdeM locomotive, which is close to being done. Bill worked on the Berkmanville trackwork, where some discussion is going on about how brown the ballast should be. Alvar finished the second face of the Green Building! The next step is to make a good system to attach the faces to the main body, and then finsish the painting… after that its interior work. John McNamara helped clean the room, definetely a masochistic task :-)
February 7Malcolm Laughlin installed roadbed under two more switches in Berkmanville. Stefano Curtarolo weathered the area around the signal tower, including adding rust to a couple of vehicles. John Purbrick built a small fence to stop vehicles (now rusty?) from driving onto the tracks near the signal tower, and he installed 24 interlocking levers within the signal tower! Alvar Saenz-Otero insatlled the Java Software Developers Kit on our computer for use in System3 development. John McNamara installed a sink, complete with faucets and drain, in the roundhouse restroom. He also re-attached the toilet, which Stefano weathered. Joe Curran worked on, and tested, a throttle for his N-gauge layout. Jared Jonas, long absent in New Jersey, visited with his friend Judy. He bought new batteries for the camera car and ran it around for many traverses of the layout. It’s still a lot of fun to watch, and a group of us sat around watching the PC screen for some time. Jeff Birkner and Ken Terrell also dropped by and “supervised” a few tasks. February 10The day began early when Ed and Alvar welcomed a troop of Tiger Cubs to the club… the small show ran almost flawlessly, especially when the kids were the ones running the trains :-) Later on, James and JP continued to work on System3 software and hardware. James continued with software development for the ‘server’ side of System3. JP brought in some new hardware to test the operation of the PIC based IMP (the processor that controls all switch cards)… a little more work is needed to interface them. Meahnwhile, Alvar began to work on the front faces of the Green Building, finally!!! The painting of the molding is done, and all the vertical sections of one face are now in place. The next steps are the ends of the vertical sections (larger pieces) and the horizontals. It appears this will take about 2 weeks per face. Stefano and his wife worked on the deparment store that ends the row of buildings in the front of Gifford City. This building was previously taped together; it is now glued together. JP also worked on scenic areas, around the switching tower after 105th street. Bill continued to work on the vegetable oil facility. Malcolm installed all the roadbed that connects Berkmanville to staging through the cutoff, and began to install the roadbed for the bottom layer of the helix. As soon as the lattice stock is down, we’ll be able to start laying track and run trains all the way to BK! February 21A quiet night. John McNamara and John Purbrick gave a visiting friend of John M’s the “Grand Tour”. The visitor’s psitons were sufficiently powerful that the track was damaged in a couple of places which John P subsequently repaired. Alvar Saenz-Otero worked on windows of the full-scale replica of the Green Building. Ken Terrell worked on some brass troop sleepers he is building.
January 3Ben FrantzDale visited from his undergraduate work at Harvey Mudd College in California, accompanied by his friend Molly. Suffering an attack of ambition after a meal at Royal East, he painted the tower! Andy Miller continued his work on the Caveat Emptor department store, and John McNamara continued his work on the roundhouse restroom. Malcolm Laughlin finished the “grading” into Berkmanville and commenced installation of roadbed lattice stock. John Purbrick installed switch machines in the helix area, developing special configurations to provide adequate vertical clearances for tracks that passed under the switch machines. William Smith, a friend of Jeff Birkner, visited and assisted Ben. January 10John Purbrick brought in and tested a slightly changed version of System3 software. He also added some of his new pictures to the website. Alvar Saenz-Otero brought in new blades for the bandsaw and installed one. Alvar and John discussed some of the design/construction issues involved in the Phase II helixes. John McNamara replaced a wall and installed fogged glass in the roundhouse restroom. Ken Terrell tested the latest revisions to his Talgo train (and also tested how fast System2 can acquire new blocks for speeding trains). January 17Tonight was “show-off” night. Stephano Curtarolo showed off his nifty N-scale Y6B, complete with painstakingly applied decals. Andy Miller showed off his recently completed fire station mockup. He had created the sides with PowerPoint and had mounted the printout on foamcore. Ken Terrell showed off his TGV model. Alvar Saenz-Otero showed off his recently completed expansion of Berkmanville and modifications to the painting table. James Knight showed off the clubroom to the Technique photographer. Maybe we will get some pictures in the next yearbook. All present showed off the clubroom to a couple of vistors. In addition to the above activities, Andy comtemplated some alterations to the fire station to make it look a little less tall. He also did some work on foundations in the Gifford City neighborhood in which the fire station will be located. James Knight worked on System 3 firmware. John McNamara assembled the roundhouse restroom, which is now complete (toilet, toilet paper, stall, frosted windows, paper towel dispenser) except for the sink. John Purbrick repaired the foundation of the concrete signal tower, and installed some grit and weeds scenery in a few bare spots. January 24Lots of people and lots of projects! John Shriver continued his work on paving the Gifford City streets in preparation for future trolley service. Alvar Saenz-Otero updated some CADrail files in preparation for the introduction of System3 in the staging yard. John Purbrick added more scenery around the recently-moved concrete signal tower (New Haven style). It is now located near the Whatahack River. Andy Miller did some painting and worked on reducing the height of his new fire station.James Knight worked on System3 and even controlled the train that Ken Terrell was running (“for small values of ‘control’”, says James). James has sent a separate email detailing the outstanding progress being made on System3. Stefano Curtarolo worked on a N-guage switch. Ken Terrell tested his Talgo and TGV trains. John McNamara and Ed Drozd did some miscellaneous puttering and supervising. January 27Alvar put up a mockup of how the back ‘three layer layout’ will look like, so that we could figure out the correct separation of the levels. Andy, Bill, Ed, John P., and Malcolm joined Alvar into confirming a 14” separation of the levels. This puts the lower level at 34”, the middle level at 48”, and the upper level at 62”. It was agreed that the upper level would not have any major switching areas, since it is high enough to make it hard for shorter people to do any switching. Other than the discussion, Bill \& Malcolm worked on the track design for Berkmanville. They did this on paper over the plywood, so the next step is to transfer this to the plywood, then place the latice stock, and finally the track. Andy super-detailed one of his passenger cars, including custom made sofas and chairs for a lounge. He also fixed an Aaron Burr car which was missing a switch. He continued work on the Gifford City Fire Deparment, after getting some consultation from Claude. Ed helped a lot with welcoming several visitors we had throughout the day. He did work on a new locomotive of his own too. John McNamara continued to detail the inside of the Round House office space. James, John P., and Alvar continued design work of System 3. JP and James discussed the changes needed to the existing ‘IMP’ (the processor that controls the Switch Cards) so that it interfaces directly with the System 3 SW developed by James. This will also allow us to use the current RSIG GUI software to run trains, while a new java-based GUI is developed. Alvar entered the conversation about how to interconnect the distributed System 3 cabinets. James and Alvar discussed the expected behavior of the GUI when it comes to having ‘virtual’ tracks that replace whole yards. January 31John Shriver added some additional paving in downtown Gifford City, while Andy Miller worked on Version 3 of his fire station mockup. Andy had consulted with our professional fire fighter, Claude Brown, and had found that the building scaled out too short for a ladder truck, so he made it longer. Malcolm Laughlin added roadbed in the Berkmanville area. John McNamara painted a sink for the roundhouse restroom and glued the faucets in place. John Purbrick added a gravel driveway to the signal tower so that employees could drive their pickups up beside the building, a Bill Onorato suggestion. John Purbrick also conferred with James Knight on computer interfaces for System3 and wrote some notes about the subject. Stefano Curtarolo worked on an N-gauge oil standpipe and began design work on a brass version of the Scherzer rolling lift bridge that John Purbrick had mocked up in Masonite some time ago. Hidetoshi Katsuma, who recently brought us a new Japanese railways calendar, visited.
December 2We had another great Open House! We were happy to welcome kids from 3 to over 80! Now we are off to study for finals, and then we’ll do lots of stuff during IAP. December 6Andy Leiserson and James Knight installed two telephones at opposite ends of P-Yard. These are connected to the PC-based telephone system that Mike Newman donated some time ago. In conjunction with previously completed installations, the new telephone system, like the old one in building 20, will radically reduce the need to shout across the room during Open House. David Maze did some line-side scenicing near where the mainline crosses the Whatahack River before passing the turntable lead. Andy Miller continued his work on the building that will form the back side of the Caveat Emptor department store. This building will face the mainline and the public. Ed Drozd worked on a nifty set of double doors that he is adding to the building next to Coca-Bubblie. John Purbrick worked on the cardboard mockup of an addition to Andy Miller’s REA / Amtrak Express building. This addition will be an integral part of the back of the building and will enclose the display portion of the P-Yard computer terminal. John McNamara painted a towel dispenser, sink, and toilet for the rest room in the roundhouse. He mounted the towel dispenser and drilled the sink for faucet installation. Ken Terrell performed further testing of the Acela train set that he ran at the Open House. December 9John Purbrick worked on the ‘inside wall’ of the Railway Express agency, to separate the building from the laptop monitor. Bill detailed the roof of the vegetable oil facility. Ed did some work on the 50th Anniversary locomotive, which was suffering of extra-paint-in-the-motor syndrome. Plus, he continued detailing the buildings around the CocaBubblie area. Malcolm continued work on the Berkmanville area. JP \& Alvar found new blades for the bandsaw, which is currently bladeless :-( Alvar mangaed lots of finances. At the end of the night Stefano and Alvar ran their respective European trains: Alvar ran his high speed ICE train and Stefano an Italian Era IV locomotive which he super-detailed. December 13David Maze finished his line-side scenicing near where the mainline crosses the Whatahack River before passing the turntable lead. Looks great! He then prepared for scenic work within the residential area trolley loop (as opposed to the city area trolley loop) by making a scale drawing of the area. Andy Miller continued his work on the building that will form the back side of the Caveat Emptor department store. It is starting to come together very nicely. Ed Drozd worked on an air conditioning unit that is atop the telephone company building. He also assisted John McNamara in cutting and installing a Masonite underlayer for the roundhouse parking lot. This will boost the parking lot slightly so that scenic material can be easily added to the area. Ken Terrell painted some of his equipment. December 20David Maze did additional planning for scenic work within the residential area trolley loop and also got a tour of System3 from John Purbrick. Andy Miller continued his work on the Caveat Emptor department store. Mal Laughlin’s “grading crew” extended the roadbed to the new Berkmannville, and will be making a few adjustments. John McNamara finished raising the roundhouse parking lot and did additional work on the roundhouse restroom. Ken Terrell painted some of his equipment. John Purbrick brought in the latest version of the System3 IMP (interface processor) and its companion software on the PC. The new software has a slightly different appearance (occupied and available tracks shown as 3 pixels wide, powered blocks display both block and cab numbers). It also drives the little PC that Alvar installed as a control panel for P-yard; you can do assignments and throw switches from there if you can handle the tiny trackball. “Plus, of course, the IMP has flashing lights, of which we had far too few before.”
November 11Sorry for the lack of updates, we’ve been working on the layout until too late at night and I’ve been too tired to write the reports. But, here goes a summary of tons of progress since the last report: Remember those switch cards we were building? Well, they are all installed in the layout now. Plus Switch Card #7, the first one into staging from Gifford City, is now 80% wired! Between Jeff and Alvar they developed the full wiring diagram for all of staging. This is making it much easier to actually install all the feeders, terminal blocks, and wiring in general. We may have everything wired by the Open House! (which means that with all the switches ‘normal’ we should have a working loop in staging by the Open House!) And how about Berkmanville? Its comming along! Further design work went into it, to make sure that its feasible to have the paint area and BK. Meanwhile Malcolm and Alvar have been working on the down slope for the BK cuttoff. Malcolm has also began to design the support for the mainline helix. Then there is the Coca Bubblie area and Gifford City. Ed installed 1/4” plywood on all the area under the telephone building, so that the buildings have a foundation to put them level with the street. Plus, he refinished the building next to Coca Bubblie. Meanwhile Bill continues the detailing of the Vegetable Oil facility. JP has been working on the ramp up 100th street, including the installation of the fake troley track. He also has worked on detailing other sections of the Gifford City area, including adding signals in some areas. John Shriver has finsihed the main wiring of all the blocks of the trolley system! A trolley can now run all around the system non-stop. Therefore, he began to test methods for paving the streets again. The street paving should give Gifford City a finished look really fast! James has been working on the software and hardware for System 3. He already has an alpha version of a display and track. There is lots more to do, but it seems that System 3 is becoming a reality! The real test will be when System 3 is used to operate the Staging Yard… the yard will not be wired to System 2, it will be the testing ground for System 3. Of course, if anybody else wants to get involed with the System 3 design, I’m sure James will appreciate the help! Alvar continued the painting of the Green Building elements over a weekend, with quite good success (a little too yellow this time, maybe). But the elements are now ready to begin the construction of the front faces of the building. Maybe a partially built one will be there by the Open House? So, in summary, over this past month the trolley system main loop has been completed and pavement work has started. The Staging Yard electrical work is well under way, with the posibility of functionality by the Open House. And Gifford City continues to gain detailed all over. November 15Ed Drozd did some repair work on the Coca-Bubblie building. Stefano Curtarolo brought in a DAT tape unit for backing up the club’s server. John Purbrick completed the construction of a 3-aspect, 3-head signal mast for use on a signal tower that will be installed near his produce warehouse. Now all he needs to do is build another one (the signal tower takes two). Alvar Saenz-Otero did wiring work on switch card #7, which is under the throat of the staging yard. Andy Miller worked on a new building that will be the back side of the existing “Caveat Emptor” department store. John McNamara installed new wheelsets on his TNP-painted superliner cars; tracking was not improved. A cat wandered into the clubroom twice during the evening. November 18Ed, James \& Alvar began the day by entretaining a Boy Scouts troop. It was almost a mockup Open House, with up to 20+ people in the clubroom at once! The show went really well; the parents and kids were all very amused with the layout. Then the work began. Malcom made the first major cut for the helix by creating the downslope from staging to Berkmanville. This section will hold the two mainline tracks out of BK going up to Sawyer and ‘the rest of the world’. On the other side of the room Ed continued to detail the Coca Bubblie area, Bill worked on the vegetable oil facility, and Andy on Caveat Emptor. Ed also took two bags of empty cans and got our deposit back from Star. James worked on System 3 design; he and Jonh Barrington discussed a GUI for it. The GUI is still on the preliminary design stages, but the main background processes that do all the work are close to completion! Alvar worked hard on getting the Staging Yard wired. All of the feeder wires are now installed. All of the X-block relays are also in place. The next step is to connect the terminal blocks to the switch cards. Jeff assited Alvar towards the end of the day (or night).
October 4Starting next week we will change our standard work sessions from Tuesdays to Wednesdays to better fit our academic schedules. The times remain the same: 7-10pm. October 11Now that the trackwork for the staging yard (S-yard) is essentially complete, attention has turned to other aspects of the S-yard design. Alvar Saenz-Otero began documenting the wiring needed for the various 8-switch control units that will be required. Malcom Laughlin started planning, and cutting pieces for, the ramp that will take trains down from S-yard to Berkmannville. He also did some planning for Berkmannville itself. John Purbrick did some wirewrapping work on a “switch interface expander” which is basically a communications hub for interfacing System3 to the switch controllers. Stefano Curtarolo assisted. Ed Drozd worked on the foundation of a building that was near Coca-Bubblie. (This may be an Ed Spoles building formerly called Olivieri Typewriter.) Ed also altered some ground cover that he has added behind the roundhouse. John McNamara continued his work on the parking lot behind the roundhouse and showed off some detail parts that he has purchased for the roundhouse. October 25Jeff Birkner, Malcolm Laughlin, John McNamara, and John Purbrick discussed the design of Berkmannville and made some measurements. On the one hand, it is desireable from a scenic and operational standpoint to have Berkannville fairly wide. On the other hand, it is desireable from a room access standpoint to have the aisles fairly wide. Malcolm will make scale drawings of the area in question and explore some alternatives. Professor Katsuma Hidetosi visited, presenting us with a calendar of nifty new Japanese trains and the news that an interesting private car now adorns track 8 at South Station. He will be in town until Sunday, 5 November.
September 5Andy Miller continued his work on the railings for the REA/Amtrak Package Express parking lot. He also painted some cars and ran some trains. On the far side of the same parking lot, Ed Drozd installed a wooden fence that separates the parking lot from the back yard of the barbershop building. Ed also painted the railings on a tank behind Coca-Bubblie and started work on the tractor part of a tractor-trailer. Jeff Birkner planned additional wiring for the staging yard (he suggests the name “S-yard”) and installed appropriate gaps in the approach trackage. Malcolm Laughlin did some work in the staging yard and also downloaded some demo versions of track-planning programs that may be more featureful than CADrail. John McNamara repaired a roundhouse rear wall section that may have been damaged by an errant locomotive, and prepared this report. September 12Andy Miller and Alvar Saenz-Otero consulted on the design of the staging yard helix, and Malcolm Laughlin began work on a portion of it, the Berkmanville approach. This will be a track that declines from the present staging yard level to a small area near the bookcase wall. Temporarily, it will be a stub end, but will eventually connect to Phase III of layout construction. Andy also worked on an extension to his downtown Gifford City department store, Caveat Emptor. Ed Drozd painted a gas-electric doodlebug that he is donating to the Club. It is dark green with nifty yellow safety stripes on the front. John McNamara, Alvar Saenz-Otero, and Jeff Birkner gave “grand tours” to several visitors, including Mark Jansen, a research associate, and Andy Leiserson, an incoming Freshman. Jeff Birkner gave Andy a comprehensive course in “System 101”, and Andy expressed interest in the new System3. In addition, Jared and Vicky (who were late in arriving and departing) began work on the camera car version 2.0. This involved the first step in fabricating a mechanism to make the camera “track” (or pan left and right) with the car’s front truck. This is so that v. 2.0 of the camera car will give better shots when traversing turns. September 23Bill \& Malcolm discussed the next construction phases for Berkmanville. Meanwhile Ed continued to detail the Coca-Bubblie industrial areas. Jared worked on the mount for the new camera car. Alvar took charge of a major room cleanup. James \& Alvar worked on further design issues for the System 3 basics (advance, etc). James cotinued coding the main system functions, such as advance, switching, and signals. September 30Jeff came in early to start work on the wiring of the lower loop to System 2. This included wiring a new block, several switch machines, and designing the changes to the MDF. Alvar helped him with some of the wiring and modified the ‘tnp.lyt’ file that is used by the s-board computer to display the layout. After the MDF gets fully wired the layout will be back to full operation of Phase 1, and will be ready to interface to System 3. James worked on our web-server. He automated most of the redundant tasks, such as the ‘header’ and ‘footers’ of all pages. John Shriver, with Dick Lord’s help, continued to wire the trolley tracks; today they ran the power wires from the carbarn area (where the power supply will be located) to the rest of Gifford City. Bill and Malcolm worked on the ramp from S-yard to Berkmaville and discussed the design of BK with Ed \& Dick’s input. Ed added details to a building next to the Coca Bubblie factory. Stefano began to plan some railfan trips for later in the term, we’ll announce them as they become a reality. All of us had a fun meeting :-)
August 1John Purbrick added yet more track to the staging yard. He and Jeff discussed electrical issues concerning the yard, and Jeff began work on hooking up the principal switch (48) that will connect the staging yard to the rest of the layout. By the end of the night Staging had four functional tracks connected to mailine! John McNamara created a replacement cover for the wiring access hatch that is in the middle of the turntable bridge. He also glued up two more of the roundhouse doors that had fallen (due to the use of double-sided tape to secure them). Ed Drozd continued his work on the fence that will be installed behind the barbershop building. In the same area, Andy Miller continued work on the parking lot railings for the REA/Amtrak Package Express building. Jared Jonas and Vicki Steinberg worked on an Amtrak passenger car that Jared is donating. They replaced the truck-mounted horn-hook couplers with body-mounted Kadee couplers. Jared also did some additional work on the garage building he plans for the trolley loop, and partially resucitated the TMRC high-rail van. August 5Ed began the construction of a large tank for the CocaBubblie plant (we would guess its for CO2, right?). Plus, he brought in several undecorated locomotives that will become part of TMRC’s fleet, courtesy of Ed! Jared continued to work on his garage, while he awaits delivery of the battery pack for the X10 camera. Alvar, Bill, and Ed worked to finish the design of the ladder out of staging and into the helix/turning loop/Berkmanville cut-off. All the lattice stock is now in place up to the end of the ladder… next the bit turning loop! Alvar will order several switches and track parts needed to finish the ladder. Meanwhile JP worked hard on laying down more track. About 70% of the large U-turn is now finished. John Shriver did his part of the trackwork by completing the troley loop and breaking up the inmense short they were forming originally. Theoretically, but plugging in a power supply, we could now run troleys in infinite loops around Gifford! Mark Stiles supervised all the work and helped find the few last shorts. James, Jeff, and Alvar prepared the computers for the new network connection to MITNet, which will soon provide with a full server directly at the clubroom (tmrc-www.mit.edu). This will allow the club to begin streaming video of the new Cabs-Eye-View that Jared and Vicky are putting together. August 8Another great milestone! Jared Jonas and Vicki Steinberg completed work on the flatcar-mounted color television camera that will be used during Activities Midway less than three weeks hence. With the addition of some software that Alvar Saenz-Otero and James Knight will configure, this camera will enable prospective members to see the layout “live” on the Internet as a train progresses around the layout. It is hoped that this combination of model railroading and interesting technology will encourage sign-ups. Making dozens of trips around the layout, the car tracked perfectly. Transmissions were very clear, with only occasional very brief glitches. Evidence of electrical interference was completely lacking. In the meantime, progress continued on the staging yard with John Purbrick, Malcom Laughlin, and Stefano Curtarolo adding both track and switches. Ed Drozd sanded a CO2 storage tank for the CocaBubblie building and experimented with paint colors to use on the barber shop fence. He also participated in the historic video event, as it was his locomotive that pushed the camera car. Jeff Birkner hooked up a TV monitor so that we could all watch the cab’s-eye video on a larger screen. When Jeff needed an RCA-to-BNC converter to do this, one of the visitors present volunteered that he had one in his car! Jeff also did some additional wiring. John McNamara re-attached three more doors on the roundhouse. Alvar Saenz-Otero downloaded a video server program that will assist in putting the cab’s-eye video on the net. Former-TMRCie Bruce Bardes (after whom the Bardes Tower in P-Yard is named) visited with his wife and another couple. Andy Miller subsequently reported, “I did nothing all evening, and it’s all Bruce’s fault.” A good time was had by all. August 12Alvar designed a support structure for the Sawmill, which is now placed on top of the ‘helix supports’. This puts the Sawmill in a safe high place and gets it out of the way of the Staging Yard loop. Once the Sawmill was out of the way he was able to finish layout down all the latice stock and track to close the Staging Yard loop around the helix area. Stefano, Malcolm, and John B. worked on closing the loop on the inside of the yard. By the end of Saturday three tracks were finsihed! Alvar, Bill, and Ed discussed the entrance to Gifford side of the ladder, which we want to change to allow all trains from Staging to turn around the loop under the tower and end up in any track of staging. A solution was found… which requires the use of a single-slip switch. Alvar had the switch on hand, so pending confirmation by MoW that the plan is reasonable, the changes are likely to place place within a week! Ed also continued to work on the large tank for the outside of the Coca Blublie plant. Bill continued to work on the details of the Vegetable Oil building. John S. continued work on the Trolley tracks. Today he installed the two poins for the switches into the ladder, allowing a trolley to run in an infinite loop around Gifford! He had lots of ‘fun’ with fitting the switch machines under the layout, since the bottom side under the trolley switches is already quite packed! Jared continued to work on the Grandson-of-cabs-eye-view car. Ed brought in a flat car with very low flat section, and painted it TMRC red. It shall become the replacement fro the standard flat car currently being used. Jared, meanwhile, tested the placement of the receiver to maximize the singal-to-noise ratio. The current best spot appears to be above the tower, on the ceiling. More work still to be done. We could not do any recordings today due to the lack of time to read the manuals for the video capture software, but new videos will be on the web by month’s end. August 15Ed Drozd continued his work on the CO2 tank for Coca-Bubblie. He also decorated a damaged TMRC 50th Anniversary car with a TNP Cushion Service decal and added decals to the double-stack chassis that will be used for the improved-clearance camera car. Andy Miller did some more work on the platform stairs for Gifford City Station, adding some really neat brass handrails. John Purbrick continued laying track and switches in the staging yard. JP, supplemented by John McNamara and Alvar Saenz-Otero, discussed the relative merits of double-slips versus simple crossovers in various track plans between the tower loop and the staging yard. The conclusion: we will install the double-slip and test it for a few months. If no problems present, we win; if we have problems with it, replacing the double slip with a simple crossing will be trivial, and operation will not suffer greatly (we don’t loose anything we have now, we still gain operation!). On Tuesday, for the first time, a train passed around the staging loop under its own power. Because the two blocks which form the staging loop (16 for tracks 1-5 and 17 for tracks 6-8) aren’t linked in the system, the train had to run from one block into the other and be re-assigned in the System. Efforts by Alvar and JP to fake out the system to connect the blocks proved to be fruitless due to missing connections on the MDF… August 19Alvar finished the modifications to the Gifford City entrance, after JP had installed the double-slip switch during the week. Alvar also fixed some track that he got wrong last week while fixing an ‘S curve’ problem with the three way switch, hopefully the last fix ;-). John B. continued to install the general track of staging, only two pieces missing! John S. began to wire the trolley system! He got the feeders for all the tracks in the carbarn area installed today. Also, he began really nice documentaion for the new trolley system. Bill continued to detail the vegetable oil facility. Andy painted several personal cars, which someday he’ll run at TMRC :-). and… Ben Frantzdale (making a last visit to TMRC before he goes off to school in California), Alvar, and Malcolm produced a new version of the Grandson of Cabs Eye View!!! Of course, this was thanks to the hard work by Jared and Vicky, who go the hardware and installed all of it! You can find the new video in our Videos page. August 29The Activities Midway occurred this evening and featured a LIVE cab’s eye view from a train traversing the layout. This was broadcast over the internet to a monitor at the Midway. A second monitor at the midway displayed a tape from a cab’s eye view previously recorded at the Building 20 layout. Nifty posters and handouts completed the Midway presentation. Ed Drozd, Jared Jonas, James Knight, and Vicki Steinberg represented the club at the Midway, while Jeff Birkner and (later) John McNamara monitored camera car activity at the clubroom. Ken Terrell provided some decorative motive power and equipment for the sidings.
July 11Ed Drozd worked on the foundation of the building next to Coca-Bubblie. I (JEM) believe this building was originally built by Ed Sproles and called “Olivieri Typewriter”. Ed also tested a new locomotive of his and found that someone had disconnected part of the layout from System2. It is suspected that John Purbrick did this as part of his System3 throttle testing. John McNamara glued two more of the roundhouse door assemblies to the front of the roundhouse. They were originally attached with double-sided tape, but they have been falling off. Styrene cement seems to work well, despite the painted surfaces. Jeff Birkner brought in a monitor. It will probably be used in conjunction with a spare computer of Alvar’s to serve as the dispatcher’s terminal. Jeff also enjoyed an article on B\&M communications systems that was in the B\&M Historical Society Bulletin that Ed brought in for the enjoyment of telephony fans. Alvar Saenz-Otero has just returned from a trip to Mexico. He supervised our work, checked work done in his absence, and filled us in on Mexican politics. July 15In the past weeks “mlaughlin” (sorry, but I don’t have the full name!) started to lay down the latice stock for the staging yard. This Saturday Alvar, Bill, Alan Kotok, Ed, and Howard continued to work. Bill brought in all the necessary switches for the yard, so the work could start on the throat. While Alvar finished to nail down the latice stock, Bill and Ed began to work on the throat… Alvar used the eyes in his back to supervise (according to Ed) :-). While they finished the throat Alvar took track #17 out of service and got rid of the horrible kink that used to exists right after switch 11. Then Bill and Ed finished the lattice stock for the throat. Meanwhile Alan used a nailset to drive all the nails far in, and Howard followed with the sanding block to make the lattice stok nice and even. *** WARNING to those using the layout: Switch #11 is OUT OF SERVICE, and so is Track #17. They will be for a couple of weeks, since they are the access to staging, which is being worked on. Meanwhile, working in the background was James. He got the PIC programming software and hardware to work… using our three computers! (One to edit, since it has emacs; another to compile, since it needs windows; and one to program, since it needs DOS :-) He then programmed a debugger that lets him ‘peek’ into the memory of the PIC processor. July 18Jared Jonas, Vicki Steinberg, John Purbrick, and Alvar Saenz-Otero worked on the miniature video camera that will be locomotive-mounted and used to provide Activities Midway visitors with a live-on-net “Cab’s Eye View”. Ed Drozd contemplated the installation of a diesel servicing track in the roundhouse area. This is somewhat complicated due to the short distance between the mainline tracks and the turntable. John McNamara began the installation of some interior walls in the office area of the roundhouse. The new walls enclose a small restroom. Andy Miller painted some models, the fencing for the REA/Amtrak Package Express parking lot, and the aforementioned walls for the roundhouse restroom. TMRCie-emeritus Peter Samson visited as part of his East Coast vacation. Ken Terrell ran some trains. July 25John Purbrick added several lengths of track to the staging yard. Despite his efforts, there is still LOTS more to do. John McNamara did first-pass painting on some “damaged” 55-gallon drums that will be used in scenicing the roundhouse area. These drums, and some shiny new ones for inside the roundhouse, were purchased by Ed Drozd. John and Ed also checked the on-line Walthers catalog for some details for use in the roundhouse office area. Ed did some additional work on the Art Deco office building he has been building in Gifford City, adding bronze door and window trim on the first floor. Jared Jonas and Vicki Steinberg continued work on a garage that will be located in the trolley loop near the roundhouse. Andy continued work on the parking railings for the REA/Amtrak Package Express building. July 29Phase II work continued: Malcom and John B. continued to lay track for staging yard; meanwhile Alvar, James, Bill, and Ed worked on the design of the exit ladder for staging. Lots of different versions came by, and the design continues to be modified: there are six main staging tracks, and four exits, we want to maximize the in-out possibilities (there are two other tracks in staging, for a total of 8, but these two are mainly for Gifford City Staging). John P. did his part by thinking of some changes to the loop below the tower (at the other end of staging), to maximize the possibilities when using the loop to turn around a Tuckerton train. All these changes are still on the thinking stage, but some will soon become reality as the tracks in staging get closer to be finished. Jeff worked hard on the electrical part of the staging yard. He began real design of the layout schematics, and to assign block and switch numbers. He also began to make some block gaps in the new staging track, since they were already causing trouble in mainline! John Shriver worked on completing over 90% of the trolley loop! The big trolley loop will be finished really soon, with only two straight sections missing! But he is running out of track stock, so he is going to pass on the ‘scenic’ track for now (the ‘scenic’ track are the sections that will never be used, but are there to make sense out of the loop). Jared and Vicky brought in an assembled ‘camera car’ to run a cabs-eye view! The car is a standard flat car with a dis-assembled ‘X-10’ camera. They currently provide power via the main source, and are awaiting arrival of a matching battery transformer (previous experiments with direct battery voltages allows the magic smoke to escape from several components!) in order to have a fully operational cabs-eye-view system. The whole setup will be ready to show new students the clubroom at the Activities Midway! (More details will be available in late August) Ed began the construction of a wood fence for the barber shop next to the Railway Express parking area. Bill continued a few details of the vegetable oil facility. Both tested some locomotives. Alvar, Jeff, and James filled up new orders for TMRC 50th Anniversary Cars.
June 6John McNamara has received a roundhouse stall kit that provides suffcient parts for finishing the roundhouse roof, complete with smoke stacks, which he assembled. Andy Miller painted these, the end of a concrete wall in P-yard, and some hopper cars of his. Jared Jonas sorted some material he is donating, and worked on his ATSF 0-4-0 switcher. Ed Drozd did some hand painting work on an Art Deco downtown building. John Purbrick added some “mud” in the P-yard area in preparation for ground cover. More important, he and Jeff Birkner worked on the design of electrical operation for Phase II layout construction. Initially, this will use the few remaining blocks from venerable System 2. Alvar Saenz-Otero arrived around 11 pm to check up on progress and stayed to help John and Jeff with the electronic side of Phase 2. June 10The realization of a Phase II is more immenent each weekend! Alvar raised all the plywood to the same levels, and placed temporary risers in the helix areas. Once that was done, Alvar and Bill drew the desired track locations for all of staging. Now we know how well we built phase 2... its a B+. We need to add three small splices of plywood in order to make sure no track is floating in the air :-). Two of them are in the helix outside area; another splice is needed in the back of the yard. Jared put the first splice in place; the two others are comming. None of the splices are critical, and should not present any problems. Jared also layed down temporary flex track in order to ensure that the curves at the back of staging have enough clearence… 1/8” should be more than enough :-) All were deemed good enough as long as people move through staging at reasonable speeds. DR Ed Drozd brought in his family for a tour of TMRC, and then continued to paint the tiles of a new Gifford City building. Stefano also continued to paint another building for Gifford City. Howard brought in quick connects for the air hose, so that we can interchange fixtures easily. John Shriver finished the trolley track all the way to the bridge, and began the installation of track accross the bridge. Jared, DR Ed, and Alvar made a quick run to Star Market to resupply our stock of beverages… and saved lots of money with the current sale. Sunday Jeff and Alvar divided the huge Sawmill piece into three much smaller pieces. After lots of careful work with the sawsall (it is contradictory, but true!), the Sawmill survided virtually intact (except for a couple of cracks on the edge of the river) and standing on its own new structure; the long truss, still attached to the river under it, sits by itself; a small third piece of moutain scenery is now together with all the other moutain scenes. And, most important of all, none of them are taking precious floor space! June 13Ed Drozd did some additional hand painting on his Art Deco downtown building. He is nearly finished with the front and it is quite an eye-catcher! Jared Jonas worked on a garage that will go inside the new trolley loop. John Purbrick has returned to working on his produce terminal, devoting his attention to the second building in the complex. He also added colored mud, grass, and weeds to an area near the Main Street bridge. John McNamara made some minor adjustments to the roundhouse, including gluing one of the door mechanisms into place instead of using double-sided tape. Andy Miller worked on, and tested, a steam engine of his. Alvar Saenz-Otero added a few inches to part of the Phase II banchwork. He, Jeff, John M, and the others debated and tested various possible positions for the sawmill scene. June 17John Shriver fixed a kink in the trolley tracks, before continuing to lay down track accross the river; he did finalize the locations of the track, but will start to lay them down next time he is in. Ed aquired two new sets of actually useful brushes; using the new functional brushes he detailed the building he’s been working on: green and blue tiles, with dark green window frames. It looks very fancy! Bill continued work on the vegetable oil facility. John McNamara continued to detail the round house. He and Jeff entretained several visitors tonight (and made the system work even with so many psitons flowing into it!). Alvar worked on the hardware installation of the P-yard control computer. The computer is a small 486 laptop which has been separated into two: the screen with an integrated trackball on one side, and the CPU/keyboard on the other. The screen is mounted on the inside of the Railway Express agency, where it will be used as the main control panel (west end of P-yard). The laptop is mounted under directly under that, in a pullout shelf. Once the computer is operation it will work with both the trackball and keyboard, given user preference. Alvar and Jeff began to re-organize the large bookshelf so that data-books are more accessible and all scenery items are in the same general location. They then e-filled the coke machine to keep our income comming! Phase II is on hold while we await the switches necessary to ensure our track plan is right. These switches will come in soon, at which point we’ll start to lay down lattice stock. June 24Andy Miller installed stair railings at the Gifford City station, complete with brass railings. Ed Drozd worked on the roof access shed for the Coca-Bubblie(TM) building. Jared Jonas worked on his garage building. Bill Onorato and Jeff Birkner rearranged the book shelves and put the data books in order. Andy, Ed, Jared and Jeff went on a soda run. Bill, Andy, Ed and Ben FrantzDale discussed the design of the new Berkmannville area. Bill and Jeff repaired the door jamb of the double door. June 27A very quiet evening, as several people are away on trips ranging from Alaska to Mexico. John McNamara and Jeff Birkner assisted the folks from the New England Museum of Telephony in packing Ma Roto aboard a truck bound for Methuen MA and subsequently to Ellsworth ME (http://ellsworthme.org/ringring/). Jeff also refilled the Coke Machine. John Shriver added some more trolley track, including starting work on the first switch of the turning loop near the roundhouse. Ken Terrell also visited and ran some trains.
May 6Phase II continued its expansion. The first walls of the turning loop of Staging went up with lots of work by Alvar, Ben, Ed, and Bill. This section is relatively complex because of its several turns, therefore the resulting wall was a ‘zig-zag’ piece. Ed also continued work on the pavement of the Coca Bubblie area. Bill worked on his Vegetable oil facility. Andy began the construction of the hill behind the TV repari shop he finished last week. Jeff got power to the tower (which we noticed was missing during the Open House, oops!), including the first installation of a ‘blue’ outlet - for computers only. He also labeled the dimmers for the track lights, an action that was later enhanced by James with not only track numbers, but even descriptive labels! May 9This evening’s work session was devoted to scenic improvements. Andy Miller constructed a sloping bank between the back of his newly constructed “TV repair shop” and the nearby TNP tracks. John Purbrick added grass and ground foam bushes at the base of the large curving retaining wall at the two-track end of P-yard. John McNamara did some painting on the roundhouse trim. May 13Phase II continues its growth every weekend. Tonight the main work for Phase II was dedicated to the ‘paint booth’ corner, in order to make enough space for the turn at the back of the room. The large metal cabinet with painting materials was given a new location right next to the bookshelfs; it was placed on a brand new shelf built by Alvar, Jeff, James, and Ben. Following Bill’s idea, this shelf was places at 36”, which created a great space for the compressor to hide under! All the necessary plumbing and electrical changes were made. Also, all the boxes in that corner were recompressed into fewer boxes, and now 80% of the painting table can actually be used for painting! On the other side of the room we saw more improvements: Ed finsihed the pavement around all three buildings in the Coca Bubblie area. Bill installed the last wall of the vegetable oil facility, now only missing the installation of several windows and roof details. JP continued work on the Coke Machie in order to make it net-accessible! May 16Alvar Saenz-Otero, assisted by John McNamara and Ed Drozd, moved the “tower drawers” a foot or so in preparation for the contruction of the helixes that are part of Phase II. This was a multi-step process that involved getting rid of a small cabinet next to the tower drawers, and replacing it with a new full sized file cabinet in the back of the room (now TMRC can keep all of its records in one place!). Also, the tool board had to be modified to accomplish the move. Meanwhile, John Purbrick demo-ed the layout for some visitors, including a new undergraduate member, Jared Jonas. Ed Drozd continued his work on the road system in the area of the Coca-Bubblie plant. May 20Everybody continued to work on Phase II, among other projects. Phase II work included the addition of the last walls that will support the helix, and substantial work on the frame that will soon (as soon as next Saturday) hold all of the plywood for the staging yard. The lead actors were Jared and Alvar, with input help from Bill and Howard. Bill also continued to detail the vegetable oil facility. Ed worked on the ‘greens’ for the Coca-Bubblie area, both around the pavement and around mainline. Alvar began the construction of a fence for the Railway Express parking lot, but ran out of materials, oops! May 23Andy began to paint the stone work of the slope behind the TV repair shop, and did some work on several cars. Ed ‘browned’ the grass behind the Coca Bublie area, to make it look less perfect (since the real world isn’t perfect, oh well). Jared completed his 10 hours of work needed to obtain a key, with almost 3 hours of operation! He is now fully knowledgeable (well, kinda) on System 2 and can call on all by himself :-) Alvar attempted to be the System 2 teacher, an almost succesful attempt. Ed also did some operation with a new ‘Bachman China’ that he just aquired; it runs quite smoothly! Meanwhile Alvar worked on his own rolling stock (the German ICE) for its first service in seven years, since he was feeling powerless to the many new rolling stock on the layout. May 27Jared, Alvar, Howard, and Bill worked hard on Phase II again. The structure is now basically ready (its just missing 12 screws total!). Jared and Alvar also took a trip to HomeDepot in order to re-supply our lumber stock, which was needed to complete all the work done today. Meanwhile Ed and Andy tested a lot of equipment that Ed brought in, in order to ensure that the Graduation Open House has working equipment throughout the day. Andy also worked on painting more rolling stock, and ‘greened’ the slope behind the TV repair shop. Ed continued his work on the painting of one of the last buildings in the front section of Gifford City. Bill continued work on the vegetable oil facility. John Shriver finished all the roadbed work for the trolley lines past the river. This even included laying down all of the sidwalk latice stock too, which now clearly defines how the block inside the trolley turning loop will look like. A couple of weeks ago John changed his plans for the trolley lines: instead of finishing the carbarn switches, a very time consumming process, he is now working hard on finishing the trolley mainline so that trolleys can run around sooner. The carbarn ladder work will be resumed immediately afterwards. Ed, Andy, and Jared discussed the posibility of having a TMRC-made ‘Cabs-eye-view’ camera operational by the Open House. Jared will look into it soon. Alvar will then, if the camera appears to be a reality, work on having a net-drop available at the Activities Midway.
April 4John Purbrick continued his work on the warehouse siding, installing very fine scale L-shaped pieces of wood that will model flange-way guards when the siding area is black-topped. John McNamara made yet more filler strips to insert in the roundhouse doorways - enough for another three doorways. Ed Drozd added ventilators to the building adjacent to Coca-Bubblie and began the design of a sign for the top of the building. The sign will be letters-on-steel-frame sign. Stefano Curtarolo painted an N-gauge turntable pit of his and worked on a downtown Gifford City building. April 8Phase II continues to grow with a lot of help from a lot of people: Alvar, Ed, Howard, and Jeff all worked on setting up the support structure for the Staging Yard. At this point all the walls and ‘heavy’ work is done; the next step is the plywood base. The rest of the layout also saw lots of progress. Bill finished another wall of his building (with only two more missing :-). Andy has now paved both sides of the Railway Express Agency. He also worked on two small buildings that will be at the edge of the layout on the street that sides the REA. John Shriver connected the impressive carbarn ladder to the rest of the track, now that the main section of the ladder is complete. Stephano painted the building he has been working on since last week. Elma put together the front of a third building that was worked on today. Ed, appart from helping in Phase II, continued the details of Coca Bubblie. John Purbrick entratained several visitors who came to the Boston Trolley Tour event, and visited TMRC now that they had the chance! Charlie Robinson, the orginal building of MITCO (TMRC’s street car system, with working overhead), came around to visit, and see the progress to keep the streetcars alive. April 15Phase II!!! Yes, Saturday was full with Phase II work, and lots of it. All the structure and plywood bed is set for the first half of the staging yard. This is the main section we’ll work on before the Open House. After the Open House we’ll continue with roadbed, track, and more structure. Alvar directed the construction, with lots of help from Bill, Howard, Jeff, and James. Meanwhile Andy and Ed worked hard on pavement; Andy on the Railway Express area and Ed on the Coca Bubblie area. The goal is to have everything fully paved before the Open House, to show Gifford City at its best. James, Jeff, and Alvar also worked until very early in the morning in order to make the TMRC Store fully functional. The store is now open to the public, so go ahead and endulge yourself with TMRC ‘stuff’. In there you will find our first club car, the 50th Anniversary car. You can also get TNP/TMRC T-shirts and Hats. April 18Alvar Saenz-Otero started the Great Clean-up in anticipation of the upcoming Open House. He also did some repair work on a wall at one end of P-Yard. Andy Miller assisted in the clean-up and painted the plywood black in areas where the streets will go, thus giving visitors an idea of the future street plan. He also worked on a building which the manufacturer claims is a TV repair shop. John McNamara was the third member of the clean-up crew, while also painting the hinge inserts for the roundhouse doorways. Ed Drozd continued his work in the area of the Coca-Bubblie plant by smoothing the surface of the parking area that he had constructed last Saturday. John Purbrick applied scenic mud and weeds to various spots around Gifford City. April 22The great cleanup continued: the Sawmill section is now ‘presented’ at the current end of the staging yard (instead of packed). The old f-yard and the module created by Bill and Daniel still in building 20 now form a viewblock between the back east/west ends of the room. This puts them out of the way without having to hide them. Also, all the random parts were put ontop of the plywood pile. Now the only remaining items are lots of chairs and stuff on the tables. Alvar, Ed, Bill, Howard, and John McNamara all helped. And Gifford City also continued to grow. Ed continued to pave the area around the Coca Bubblie plant; he also put together and painted an antique car that sits behind the Barber Shop Andy finished last week. Andy meanwhile added more details to the Railway Express agency, including a swapable (magnetic) sign that is for either the original ‘Railway Express’ or for ‘Amtrak’! He also worked on the ‘TV Repair Shop’ on the other side of the street of the Barber Shop. John McNamara finished the installation of the inserts for the turntable hinges, as well as the installation of the rolling doors… the turntable seems scaringly close to being finished! Dick Lord helped to glue the retaining wall at the west end of Gifford City into place, and then John Purbrick began the scenic details for it. JP also worked on the pavement around the siding for the large nameless factory on the side of the river. The following a great summary of the rest of the night and Sunday, as put by John P.: Around midnight on Saturday, Treasurer Knight came into the clubroom with a heavy box of mixed coins from the Coke machine. While this was welcome from the viewpoint of ensuring our financial status, it meant significant work (as always) for some of us in sorting and rolling the coins. As we (James, Alvar and I(JP)) sat down to sort coins, I asked the question, meaning nothing much, “Why does the machine separate the coins to test and count them, but then dump them into the same bucket so we have to sort them again?” Governor Saenz-Otero promptly left the table, opened up the machine and removed the coin-counter mechanism. As I continued sorting coins (Andy Miller came and helped) the Governor and the Treasurer dismantled the counter, had a series of quick conferences, and soon were performing surgery first with knives and files, and then with a Dremel tool. As I wrapped quarters, all I could do was protest weakly, “Guys, is this a smart thing to do?” Around 1:00am I left for home, with the coins all wrapped and the surgical team still at work. Sunday evening I came back with trepidation, thinking the machine might be sitting dark behind an “Out of order” sign. What foolish fantasy! No, it was humming cheerfully in its place in the hallway. I got the keys from the clubroom and looked inside, and noted a new chute, made of styrene, beside the existing metal one feeding the coin box. In the coin box I saw a few dollars in quarters. And under the styrene chute was a large plastic cup containing five dimes. The session really continued until Sunday night, when JP and Alvar worked hard to get our 10’ poster for the infinite corridor and on the design of posters to put all over campus during this week, to advertise our Open House (ok, take a breath now :-). April 25Ed Drozd, Jeff Birkner, James Knight, John McNamara, Andy Miller, John Purbrick, and Alvar Saenz-Otero participated in general cleanup and layout operational testing in preparation for this Saturday’s Open House. We also entertained two visitors. April 29Open House report. It went great! We had at least 75 people visting TMRC this Saturday, with many kids, parents, and students. Everybody had lots of fun, and although there were substantial psitons around, the catastrophees were quite minor. System 2 behaved pretty well, the trains ran almost constantly, and everybody who knew about electronics was impressed with our System 3 start. Plus, we had lots of good sales of t-shirts and hats, plus our first ‘local pre-sale’ of a TMRC 50th Anniversary car. And, we even had some progress happen… in the middle of the confusion James tried to get the telephone system working, so that we could communicate the tower and P-yard easier. Well, there wasn’t enough time to finish, but the project was begun, and maybe before the end of the term we’ll have 6 telephones around the clubroom. A giant THANKS to Micheal Newman for giving TMRC a ‘NetPhone’ system that will make this project much easier.
March 7Ed Drozd has completed the doors for the truck loading docks on the Coca-Bubblie building and worked on the loading dock itself, which will be complete with bumpers for the trucks to bump against. A roof to shelter the loading/unloading personnel during rain storms (or sprinkler head failures) has also been constructed, but not yet installed. The fact that the building wall is curved poses substantial challenges. John Purbrick continued work on the sidewalk that is near the “Fellow Traveler” mewspaper plant. (For people who did not grow up in Boston, I should add that there was once a paper here called the “Boston Traveler” and that during the Red scares of the McCarthy era, much ado was made of Communists and “fellow travelers”. A stretch? Yes.) Alvar Saenz-Otero led a discussion of layout Phase II, with the assistance of CadRail diagrams. There was considerable discussion about the proper method of constructing a switch within a helix (and whether it should be done at all). John McNamara proposed a method for dealing with the notches in the roundhouse doorframes that were originally intended for the swinging doors. Now that the roundhouse uses roll-up doors, the notches are superfluous and somewhat ugly. Unfortunately, he did not have the necessary Plastruct pieces on hand to try out the idea. He and Ed Drozd made a trip to Star Market to buy $113 of Coca-Cola products on sale. Combined with a recent similar trip by Andy and Ed, the Club’s liquid asset position has been greatly enhanced. March 14Stig-Lennart Sorensen, a university student from Norway, visited to take some video and do some interviews in conjunction with a paper he is writing on the origins of computer hacking. Alan Kotok, Andy Miller, and John McNamara assisted. Andy Miller put the roof and windows on the Railway Express Agency / Amtrak Package Service building. He also joined Alvar Saenz-Otero in planning the Berkmannville and helix areas in Phase II of the layout. John McNamara began the process of making inserts for “hinge holes” in the roundhouse doors. John Purbrick did some more work on the siding that goes to the as-yet-unnamed warehouse by the Whattahack River. Ed Drozd painted the roof for Andy’s REA building, painted the loading dock bumpers and loading dock roof for the Coca-Bubblie building, and painted the portals for a pedestrian underpass that John Purbrick is working on. March 18The room is a disaster… but a good disaster, because it is due to lots of progress in preparing the area for Phase 2. James and a visitor that came with him worked hard on taking down the lubmer pile walls. The Sawmill is no back on its side, the walls were carefully unscrewed from the floor, the plywood is on its side, and the lumber is all the way in the back of the room. We still need to clean up the masonite and random old layout pieces, to make sure we can start construction without hurting anything, but construction is likely to start soon! Alvar began to test several paint colors in order to paint the Green Building parts, but was not able to match the ‘yellowish concrete’ with ‘almond’ color spray paint, so more tests will need to be done with other colors. He then worked on the new poster for the infinite corridor, which includes a building front, track, and even a locomotive and car --- this should definetely tell people what TMRC is about :-) John Shriver led the discussion, planning, and actual tracing of building limits regarding the trolley turning loop on the west side of Gifford City. The two main ideas at this point are to have the trolley line go in an alley between buildings, or to have a fire station a-la Arlington style, where many streets meet around it (including the trolley line). Andy continued the details of the ExpressRail building, which is very close to be done (in an impressive 3 weeks!). John McNamara worked on filling up the holes left by the doors on the front of the roundhouse; he is filling them up as if the hinges of the old doors were left there but painted the same color as the brick. The detail is quite impressive. John Purbrick continued detail work on the area between the 105th street bridge and 100th street. Bill put several windows in his vegetable oil facility. Ed worked on more details of the coca-bubblie plant, which is close to being finished. During the meeting the club approved the investment into 100 50th Annyversary cars. Andy is going to place the order this week, so expect to see the ‘TMRC Store’ appear at our website quite soon (before April!). The cars are likely to arrive in late April, but we will be taking pre-orders. Jeff and Alvar went to re-stock our supply of coke products, in order to keep our income steady. We should now have about one months worth of our ‘liquid assets.’ March 21After a careful design process, and with the great initiative of James, the construction of Phase II has started. By tonight enough area was completely clean from previous materials (most of this great work done by James and several of his friends he brought to TMRC over the past weekends!). Today James and Alvar installed the first 8 feet of walls that will extend the lower loop of the tower into the main staging area. We hope to have at least the plywood of staging ready by the Open House! And, on the rest of club news… Ed Drozd finished the CocaBubblie loading dock. The weathering is suitably grungy, especially the rusty metal roof. Andy Miller continued his work on the REA/Amtrak Express building by starting the construction of a roadway and parking lot adjacent to the building.John McNamara added some more hinge-hole-fillers to the roundhouse doorways. John Purbrick continued his work scenicing the almost-disused siding for the warehouse next to the river. He also took a recent MR article on modeling people to heart by painting a crewman about to board a diesel near the roundhouse. Alavr Saenz-Otero and James Knight began work on planning and placing supports for Phase II of the layout. All of this work will continue next week, when we will be joined by former TMRCie Jon Ferro. A dinner trip in his honor is likely. March 28John Purbrick continued his work on the siding next to the river-side warehouse. John McNamara made some more filler strips to insert in the roundhouse doorways. Ed Drozd added ventilators and A/C units to the Coca-Bubblie plant. Stefano and Erme Curtarolo did some painting and worked on a downtown Gifford City building. Andy Miller continued his work on the parking lots and roadways around the REA/Amtrak Express building. Visiting ex-TMRCie Jon Ferro supervised.
February 1Ed Drozd continued his work in the Coca-Bubblie area by building a stone retaining wall that will protect Bubblie workers’ cars from errant TNP trains passing by at Mach 2 in their effort to reach Gifford City on time. Andy Miller added further touches of elegance to the Hotel Bassex by making some awnings. The awnings are hollow quarter spheres with “Hotel Bassex” along the bottom edge. Due to their purple color, they resemble portions of a purple onion, a possible name for the hotel’s restaurant. John McNamara did some more work on sections of the roundhouse roof. Three of the nine stalls now have their roofs nearly finished. James Knight fueled the money/Coke machine and did some more work on the “TMRC Store” web page, coming soon to a computer near you. John Purbrick worked on a New Haven prototype concrete signal tower that is rapidly becoming quite detailed. He also mounted a KaDee coupler on the nifty Japanese caboose that Hidetoshi Katsuma gave us on his recent visit. February 5The day began at 7:30am for several TMRCies that made the trip to The Springfield Show. They had a very productive morning there. The day continued later on, as John P. began to work on the foundation of the signal tower that he built last week. He also did work on the siding after 105th street, since the tower sits right next to that siding. John McNamara continued his work on the roundhouse roof, putting together another third of the roof, which now only needs painting. He will have to buy a couple extra parts in order to finish the the roof, since part of it has been missing for years. Justin did operational work and then began to refurbish MIRTA’s only F-7 unit. Alvar talked with other members about his current work on CadRail, and later, with James’s help, modified the design into a much simpler plan with the same functionality. It is a possibility that before March we will start construction of the new layout! And S\&P did its work late at night: James, John, Jeff and Alvar continued to design System 3. John P reported he had a new shell for the PIC processors we chose, so that they can be easily loaded via a serial port. James and Jeff began to search for communication IC’s that will simplify the way the 20 or so PICs communicate with the PC. February 8John Purbrick added some scenery in the areas around the signal towers that he has been working on. John McNamara did some more work on the roundhouse roof and began some discussion with John P about plans for the door area on the front of the roundhouse. Alvar Saenz-Otero recently sent an email reporting that Ms. Pickering, the MIT Museum Director, had volunteered to make a nice sign for our display window. John and John spend some time composing a possible sign. February 15Ed Drozd completed the second side of the retaining wall that he is building between the CocaBubblie plant parking lot and the mainline. He also did some work on a piece of abandoned siding in the parking lot, making sure it is in proper gauge. He also started adding a loading door, a project that requires careful surgery removing a piece of highly visable brickwork. John Purbrick added scenic touches to the siding that serves the as-yet-unnamed industrial building next to the Whattahack River. He and Stefano Curtarolo also did some spiking on that siding. Andy Miller continued his work on the continual upgrading of the Bassex House. It now features a full set of fancy awnings on the ground floor. Further, there are ornamental potted bushes on either side of the front door, and elegant chains to support the front door’s canopy. John McNamara continued his work on the roundhouse roof, which is nearly finished. Ed Drozd donated some 50-gallon drums that he bought at the Springfield show, and some have been installed as trash barrels inside the roundhouse. Turning attention to the front of the roundhouse, there was considerable discussion about adding doors, possibly operable and automated (!). February 22Ed Drozd continued his work adding loading doors to the Coca-Bubblie building. By good fortune, they are the same width as the windows immediately overhead, making them look like they were part of the original building. He also painted a personal locomotive (the complicated New Haven / McGinnis scheme) and a set of doors for the roundhouse. Speaking of the roundhouse, John McNamara continued his work thereon, completing (with Ed’s painting aid) two roll-up doors (non-functional) based on the EBT roundhouse prototype. The EBT roundhouse, like TMRC’s, has arched doors with roll-up doors added in front. The doors in both the EBT and TMRC cases are brick red / Tuscan. John Purbrick did some additional work on the siding to the nameless river-side warehouse and also began construction of stone top pieces for the retaining wall next to his produce warehouse. Andy Miller has just completed a very nice set of railings for the sidewalks on both lanes of Paulsen Boulevard, the main approach to the Gifford City station. This evening, he started work on the REA / Amtrak Express building that will be at one end of the Gifford City passenger yard. In addition to its scenic merits, it will hide part of the ping-pong track that runs in front of the hallway viewing window. Alvar Saenz-Otero stopped by to continue discussion on Phase II, after comming up with an agresive schedule that asks for the staging yard to be a reality before the end of the term! The current topic under discussion is the entrance to Tuckerton, which needs to rise about 16” from staging. February 26Saturday was another busy day at TMRC! Bill worked on the details of the A/C units and ducts on the roof of the vegetable oil facility. John Purbric continued work on the siding into the ‘nameless warehouse’ next to the river, getting half way there. He also continued work on the corner of the 105th street bridge. Andy acquired several figures to place along Paulson Boulevard in order to start populating the area. He also worked on the retention wall next to the Railway Express Agency area, which he has began to work in. Alvar brought in printouts of the railings for the Gifford City station… only to realize they were the wrong ones, oops! So Andy will work on the last details of Gifford Station next week. John McNamara continued to build the doors for the Round House, and has 4 more ready to be painted, plus another 3 almost ready (which gives the total of 9 needed!). Ed finished the holes where he is going to add two loading doors for the Coca Bubblie building and painted many details for others and some locomotives of his own. Alvar guided the ‘Phase II’ design session with input from everybody around! We all came to a great design that uses 21 standard switches, with only one special ‘three way switch’. Plus, the overall design is quite simple, which should make construction much faster. James, seeing the progress on the design took charge of the room organization and between him, Ed, and Alvar, moved over half the things in the way of Phase II. The only large remaining item in the way is the lumber pile / Sawmill section, which is likely to take all of next Saturday to re-arrange. James also worked on System 3, now that JP has a finished prototype of an 8-block card using the PIC processors, which we can program via a PC serial port! February 29John McNamara finished the last of the roll-up doors for the roundhouse (ala EBT), and Ed Drozd painted and weathered them. They will get installed next week. Andy Miller built some walls for the Railway Express Agency / Amtrak Package Service building, and Ed painted them. Ed also painted some personal locomotives. One result of all his painting was noticably red filters in his respirator, suggesting that the rest of us are getting Floquil-colored lungs when we paint, even with the fan. John Purbrick built a very nice little railing to put on top of a retaining wall that is near his produce warehouse. The railing, like Andy’s on Paulsen Boulevard, is made from N-scale “estate fencing”, which scales to 7 or 8 feet in N and about 4 feet in HO. Interestingly enough, it greatly resembles the railings along Memorial Drive. On the subject of railings, Alvar Saenz-Otero continued his computer work producing very fancy railings for the stairs that will connect to the Gifford City passenger station platforms. His file transfer efforts produced some colorful language about the nature of Microsoft products :-) Changing topics, more work went into the development of Phase II. Today the topic was ‘mainline’ and how it connects with staging, since we noticed that we had been very good at ignoring this important interconnection. It results that the ‘final’ version of the staging from last weekend must be modified in order to permit for a better helix. This improved helix should provide interconnection between Tuckerton, Berkmanville (in mainline) and the staging yard in some way TBD. In addition to the above projects, Ed provided key tags for all of the storage space keys and an Excel spreadsheet to document the storage. Andy Miller refilled the Coke machine. John McNamara took home a power supply and cable from Ma Roto and stripped most of a set of 66-blocks associated with Ma Roto. He intends to take Ma Roto home and store her/it in his garage, BUT IF ANYONE ELSE WOULD LIKE IT, PLEASE REPLY!
January 4Ed Drozd worked on the Coca-Bubblie building. He moved one of the support posts to more closely align with its support pad and painted the supporting mechanism that he created a few weeks ago. The supporting mechanism provides support for that part of the building that overhangs the associated siding. Andy Miller created a dramatic painted-on-the-wall sign for the Bassex House. It is five stories high in the fashion of the 1930’s. He also tested the pulling ability of one of his locomotives. John McNamara installed the windows in the office area of the roundhouse. He also painted the interior walls, which are now ready to be glued in place. John Purbrick worked on one of the abutments for the bridge nearest the produce warehouse that he built. January 11Ed Drozd weathered the Coca-Bubblie building, using a somewhat darker color than the “TMRC grunge” that is automatically applied to our buildings*. He also added such weathering details as a smoke smear over the area where a switcher would likely spend time. John McNamara finished the walls in the office area of the roundhouse and permanently secured it to the rest of the roundhouse. John Purbrick painted the concrete atop the abutments for the bridge nearest his produce warehouse and contemplated the addition of an additional girder in the roadway area of the bridge. Alvar Saenz-Otero gave the “grand tour de layout” to Jane Pickering, the new Director of the MIT Museum. The Museum’s “Arnot layout” was also discussed briefly. Alvar and James began arrangments to get our Coke machine funds closer to the bank. James spent substantial time creating “The TMRC Store”, an upcoming addition to our web page that will help our fundraing efforst by selling TNP logo T-shirts, hats, and boxcars. An announcement to the TMRC list will be forthcoming as soon as the pages are ready. * “TMRC grunge” = dust! January 18Ed Drozd continued his work on the Coca-Bubblie plant. He is now making tanks to hold the Bubblie ingredients. These tanks must be extra secure to avoid hazardous spills. John McNamara worked on the roof of the roundhouse and has developed a way to install it in relatively seamless fashion. John Purbrick painted the portions of the roof that are now complete, while also weathering a bridge beam (and protecting concrete) that will appear in the middle of his road bridge. He also made some turntable adjustments, as it had been thrown out of adjustment by the psytons of four visitors. James Knight continued his work on the TMRC Store web page. He has developed not only a web page but a tool for revising and adding to the web page in a convenient fashion. An announcement to the list will be made when the page is ready. January 25Ed continued the construction of a wall between the mainline and the industrial area around Coca Bubblie. John Purbrick painted one of the singal towers for mainline. Alvar tested the system (ok, used the sytem) with his ICE train for the first time in 2000. He then trained himself in CadRAIL, and finally was able to ‘lay down’ the track on the drawing that Jeff made available last Saturday. He then began one design for the staging yard lader - the next section to be built.
December 7Now that the Coca-Bubblie building has stairs and an elevator shaft that permit workers to pass from floor to floor, Ed Drozd is adding floors and associated support columns. In another part of Gifford City, Andy Miller continued work on the Hotel Bassex, adding a back wall and additional side walls. John Purbrick installed an interlocking tower at the end of Gifford Passenger Yard nearest the double doors. This required some countersinking into the scenery. Alvar Saenz-Otero filled the Coke machine, updated the financial records, and discussed System3 with John Purbrick. Recent weeks have featured several visits by “olde time TMRCies” - a couple visits by Mike Newman and a visit tonight by Bill Freeman. December 11Bill continued to work on the vegetable oil facility. Next to him Ed worked on the details of Coca Bubblie by adding columns both in the inside and the outside. Andy also worked on scenery, continuing his work on the great hotel downtown. John Shriver was around today to work on the switch ladder into the carbarn. Alvar and Ed then tested our control system computer for Y2K complieance, and while MS-DOS quickly failed the test (just at about fake 01/01/2000 00:01 we rebooted, and DOS thought it was 01/01/1980 00:02), when we set the bios to 01/01/2000 and rebooted, both the BIOS and DOS reported the correct time. So we are safe from Armagedon at TMRC :-) James and Alvar later on talked more System 3, trying to come up with a good design for the system, and we reached at least partial resolution on using the same processors for everything, and some other details to be worked our with JP and JEB later on. At the end of the day James and Alvar decided to ‘just do it’ and put a curtain separation between Gifford City and the back of the room in order to soon be able to open the window into the hall. December 22Ed Drozd has added some realistic structural supports to the part of Coca-Bubblie that hangs over its siding. This is somewhat complex as the siding curves more than the building does. Ed tested the clearance and found that all freight cars except high-cube covered auto carriers fit. A full-length dome car scrapes only very slightly, but we don’t expect our passengers will be interested in a trip to the Bubblie siding. Ed also helped Andy Miller perform some locomotive perfromance tests and equipment debugging on some of his equipment. John McNamara had been working on a wall section that fits where the office area joins the main roundhouse. It is modeled to look as if the office was an afterthought and one of the roundhouse windows was converted into a door. James Knight refilled the Coke machine. Business is down a little bit due to school vacation and upcoming holidays. He also did some more research on PIC processors. December 29John Shriver worked on the carbarn ladder and has completed the in-street running rail portion. Andy Miller worked on a sign for the side of the Hotel Bassex. John McNamara worked on the office area of the roundhouse. Ken Terrell ran his Twentieth Century Limited for the first time on the new layout and for possibly the last time in its namesake century. Stefano and Esme Curtarolo worked on freight cars and buildings respectively. Ben FrantzDale and Molly visited, as did James VanBokkelen. The three of them performed the most important TMRC task - supervising.
November 2Ed Drozd did more work on the parking area around the Coca-Bubblie plant and built a new base for the building. James Knight refilled the Coke machine, which is dispensing at a record rate, and did other Treasurer-type things, like paying Andy Miller for two hotel kits that he is combining into the 11-story Bassex Hotel. Andy started the assembly this evening. John McNamara started working on the floor of the machine shop / boiler room of the roundhouse. John Purbrick worked on the newspaper building that is next to his produce warehouse and revised the walk-around throttle so that the speed control knob is more firmly mounted. Alvar Saenz-Otero started detailing the second side of his Green Building model. November 6Progress continues! Alvar finished the second side of the green building! The next step is the front… uhhhhh. Bill continued to work on the vegetable oil facility. John McNamara continued construction of the boiler room and/or workshop (yet TBD) on the back of the round house. He installed the floor section today, and finished the junction sections between the back wall and the little room. Ed extended the street from the Coca Bubblie factory all the way to the next building (we’ve better get a name for this one soon :-). Andy continued to work on the new hotel building, a kitbashed kit that combines two of the Bachman Spectrum models in order to make a very impressive structure! Stephano and Elma (his wife) weathered the cars they finished last week, and began other projects. Elma helped Andy in getting the railings for Paulson Blvd. ready. Talking about railings: Alvar and Andy worked on a scanned image of a brass railing in order to make laser transparencies out of them, and use them for the stairs down to the Gifford City Station platforms. November 9Ed Drozd did yet more work on the parking area around the Coca-Bubblie plant and built a nifty ladder between the main roof of the building and the taller part that supports the clock. Andy Miller worked on the ornate first floor of the Hotel Bassex. John McNamara started working on the interior walls of the office area of the roundhouse. John Purbrick installed windows on some of the club locomotives. November 20John Purbrick continued some projects and began other new ones: he continued to work on the area around the produce terminal; started to work on one of the many signals into Gifford City, the one into 105th street; then he worked on the walls all the way to the west of Gifford City station, across the river, and down under the turntable. Meanwhile Ed worked on many interior details of the Coca Bubblie plant: interior wall divisions, floors, columns, and even stairs! Bill continued to work on the vegetable oil facility. Alvar worked on the Green building detail parts, to have everything ready for painting (some day :-); he then put together the last building of the front of Gifford City which was still glued together with tape. Jeff helped us with the Coke Machine, including replacing several ‘product out’ lights.
October 2Today Dick began to extend the siding for the factory next to the river and for the carbarn. On that subject, between Dick, Bill, and Alvar, we agreed that there will be a switch for a track to service the trolley carbarn, even if it will not have a MitCo junction (yet…). On other work, Bill continued to add walls to the vegetable oil facility. And Alvar did not stop work on the Green Building. Today he began the installation of the detailed basswood onto the large ‘coarse’ plywood structure. James continued to upgrade the TMRC server so that it is secure and powerful to soon host our full website, which will grow considerably once its in our own computer! Jeff arrived at 1:49am TMRCST to do System 2 work. October 5Ed completed the siding into the Coca-Bubblie plant. Covered hoppers now pass under Andy’s bridge and into the plant. This marks the first railroad service to this industry in many years! John McNamara cut out three more sections of interior wall for the back of the roundhouse and Andy Miller painted them. Andy also painted some cars and did some work on a Gifford City building. John Purbrick continued his work on the parking lot between his produce warehouse and the newspaper building. Alvar continued his work on the Green Building model, and James Knight supervised. There was a brief discussion of various types of model railroad design software: 3D Railroad Concept and Design (Abracadata), 3rd Planlt (Eldorado), and CadRail (Sandia). We could only find reviews of CadRail. They were all very favorable, but the ones for early versions complained about the learning curve. The more recent versions (6 and 7) were alledged to be much more user friendly. Use of such a design tool might be of assistance in taking us to the next stage of layout design. October 12Ed Drozd continued his scenic work in the vicinity of the CocaBubblie plant. In the process, he discovered a previously unnoticed problem. Since the CocaBubblie siding is coplanar with the adjacent mainline, it is on an upgrade, and high-quality cars roll out of it. He and John Purbrick solved this problem by slitting the plywood baseboard in this area and depressing the siding to be level. Nearby, Fred Mikkelsen and John Purbrick completed the produce warehouse / newspaper plant parking area and added some scenery. John Purbrick also started work on another facia board assembly. John McNamara added another rear wall section to the roundhouse and painted some window frames for the next wall sections. Andy Miller masked most of the 96 window frames in a building he’s painting for downtown Gifford City. October 16Lots of people, so this time its a list: * Bill continued to add window frames to the custom built vegetable oil facility. * Andy and Amitha worked on painting two buildings for the front of Gifford City. They first painted all the window frames, and masked them. The next step for both buildings is to paint the walls. * Ed rebuilt the scenery around the Coca-Bubblie track, which was lowered to cancel out the slope it used to have. He also began the street around the building. * John Shriver continued the really complex trolley switches into the carbarn. * John Purbrick is now about finished with the pavement around the produce terminal / newspaper building --- including the pavement over the track, which looks incredible! * Alvar continued to work on the Green Building, adding basswood to a complete side and starting the details of the molded concrete slabs. * James continued to tweak the Unix computer so that it will be ready to be our main server. He also continued to study the PIC processor that we plan to use for System 3; by now he is a theoretical expert on it :-) * Jeff helped us restock the Coke Machine and check it too, since it was misbehaving a little bit. Andy and Bill came up with a great idea for the next step of the layout, and after receiving input from John P and Alvar, we all arrived to a consensus on the general idea… which unfortunately is too hard to describe over text, but hopefully we’ll have a page on the design soon. Bill will start detailed work on some hand drawing, as a proof of concept. We had a business meeting, where we approved a budget, We also approved the purhase of CAD software in order to plan our layout! We will try to look for software that lets us have lots of picutres on the net. During the meeting JP announced that a prototype of the micro-processor controlled System 3 (the one we have been talking so much about) is ready, and he’ll show it off Tuesday night. October 19Ed Drozd continued his scenic work in the vicinity of the Coca-Bubblie plant. John Purbrick and Alvar Saenz-Otero worked on System 3. Alvar also did some work on the Green Building model. John McNamara gave the grand tour to his guest, Wilson Snyder (former president of the RPI club). James Knight did further work on transferring our website from Athena to our own machine. October 23We had more progress without supervision, everybody was doing something! Bill continued to add windows to the vegetable oil building. He also briefed JP on the global plans for the next sections of layout, which we hope to start building either late this term or early next term. Talking about plans for the layout: Alvar obtained the latest version of CadRail, 7.1, which is now in the TMRC computer, ready to be (ab)used by TMRC. The goal is to use CadRail both for ‘proof of concept’ designs and for actual 1:1 printing of the tracks. JP worked on re-touching the newspaper building. He will add a new concrete section at the bottom, to represent the foundation (and to make it easier to make the street around the building match the edge of the walls :-). John McNamara continued work on the roundhouse, and did an incredible job with one of the wall sections: it is removable, in other words the “wall for the camera.” He was able to finish _all_ the sections of the walls, and is now starting to work on the workshop, which is the last section he has to build. Stefano and his wife worked on putting together two new pieces of rolling for TMRC. Andy helped them a lot with this, which was a little bit of traning while we can get nice building kits for them to work with. Andy himself worked a lot on two ex-Athearn locomotives: he replaced the motors with ones that actually work :-) Dick Lord began to extend the siding after 105th street that will service the carbarn and the large industrial building next to the Gifford City river. He planned the track and began to lay down the lattice stock. Ed added another section of street around Coke Bubblie. The street is almost completely around the building. Alvar continued to work on the Green building, and finished the first side! It is fully detailed, with all the divisions of the molded concrete; the sides are slightly slanted; the top of the horizontals is slanted, while the bottom is at 90 degrees off the vertical. Later on Alvar, James, and JP continued to work on the design of System 3, now that the prototype that JP brought in has proven to be a success. The new design is quite simple, and the part count went down considerably. It does appear that within a year System 3 may be operational!
September 4Andy began the design of the vertical lift bridge that crosses the east side of the large river in Gifford City. Bill continued his work. Alvar got more material for the green building, and has ‘shaped’ about 90% of it. September 11John Shriver installed two more complex tracks in the heavily populated carbarn ladder (for the trolleys of Gifford City). Plus, he fully figured out the ‘5 point’ frog on one of the switches (frogs usually have 4 points, not 5). Bill installed some windows in his building. Alvar routed the last sections of the basswood for the Green Building, setting it ready for the structure, which is still to come. September 18Today TMRC members, and several guests from the Center for Transportation Studies, the Norshore Club, and new students, went to a very special tour of South Station. We went first to the new South Station dispatch center, and then had a private tour of the Amtrak Maintenance facilities. Back at the clubroom Ed, a new member to the club, began to lay down track for the ‘Coca-Bubblie’ building. He also prepared the other sections around the builidng in order to lay down the street all around that area. Andy Miller continued to work on the concrete building that goes in the front area of Gifford City. Alvar did precise measurements of the current Green Building parts, and using the plans for the building, came up with the correct sizes for the main structure of the building. James installed a new version of linux in our local computers, which will let us use them directly on the web. Then James, Alvar, and Jeff discussed the desing of a TMRC Store where we will soon be able to sell club souvenirs (like the famous TMRC t-shirts, and the new TMRC Engineer Caps) via mail order. Look for the TMRC Store comming soon… September 21John P continued work on the parking lot between the produce warehouse and the newspaper plant; a 15:1 ratio of wood putty to carbon black, screeded smooth with a piece of styrene, appears to be the right formula. John M continued on splicing new material to old in the roundhouse. Alvar and James constructed a poster for the weekend’s new-member Open House. Also, a discussion occurred regarding the microprocessor to use for System 3 if we pursue the “8 blocks per processor” scheme. One of the PIC series from Microchip Inc is favored. Input from the membership is solicited on this issue. September 25Today we had the new member Open House, both old and new members, as well as visitors, had lots of pizza! But work still went on. Bill continued the walls of the vegetable oil facility. Meanwhile Andy painted a new locomotive for the 50th annyversary train; he then began the work on another weird shapped building which goes right accross the street from Gifford City station. Amitha, a new member, started another building, which will be adjecent to the one Andy is working on. Ed, who was here last week too, continued to work on the track for CocaBubblie, which is now fully ballasted. John Purbrick finished the pavement next to the produce terminal. John Shriver continued the hard job of the carbarn ladder, which is looking really incredible! Alvar made the structure for the green building! Now we have one big coarse structure, and lots of small detailed parts, all separate; they will come together. James, Jeff, John, and Alvar then continued the design of the new block cards. John got a datasheed for a PIC 16C74B processor, which is getting close to being the central part of each 8-block board; ie, each processor will control 8 blocks, which will be incorporated into one single card. The main design will follow the same modularity of the switch-cards: everthing should be fully exangable within a few minutes, and all of them will be the same.
August 3John McNamara and Alan Kotok worked on a paper that describes TMRC’s historic “System 2” (the relay control system that currently provides power and signals to the new layout, and which for over 30 years provided all operations in building 20!). Meanwhile Alvar investigated how to separate the monitor (LCD display) from the CPU section of the newly acquired 486 laptop which will be the main control panel for P-Yard. August 10Ben gave us a ‘last’ visit since in 3 weeks he will start at RPI. But we are sure he’ll help us again when we start to do net-casts :-) Meanwhile Andy Miller began the back of the concrete building he started a week ago… the back is actually the most visible side! John McNamara installed the first section of Roundhouse wall! Now that all the parts are painted, he will continue to put them together. Alvar brought in the materials to separate the LCD from the laptop CPU… and actually did it! And better yet, it works! Now its time to give it a nice home in the P-Yard area. August 14Bill worked on the roof of the vegetable oil facility. Andy finished the back of the commercial building in the front side of Gifford City (he built the front two weeks ago). Meanwhile on the other end of Gifford City John Shriver continued to work on the ladder to the carbarn, a quite involved project. He is doing good progress, considering the complexity of the switches in there. John Purbrick continued to work on the scenery around the produce terminal and the newspaper. Alan Kotok fixed Block #10, which was misbehaving (apparently the reversing relay was not turning on when given power, therefore it always powered the block in the same direction!). Justin used this to his advantage in doing some operation and testing equipment. Later on Justin and Alvar began to discuss what is going to happen in the west side of Gifford City: “Petingale Circle.” Alvar reminded everybody that the Activities Midway is August 31st, and proposed to build a new ‘switching problem’ based on the old one. The new one should be made with better track, tortoise switch machines, and have a nice, strong, and straight base. The project was received positively, so next week it will start, to have it ready by the midway. Alvar then continued to work on the Green Building. Today he finished all the horizontal front sections of the windows, which were much more involved than the sides. He was able to finish all 4 different types: ‘54-100’, ‘Library’, ‘standard’, and ‘Machine Room’; all of these are different. James and Alvar discussed how to implement the P-yard GUI since the control computer for P-yard is now ready to begin software programming. JP and Alvar agreed to get some of the “PIC” micro-controllers in order to start prototyping the Block Cards for System 3, which will be more advanced than the original design proposed by JP. August 17John McNamara put together another wall of the roundhouse and weathered other sections. JP continued to lay down ‘pavement’ around the produce terminal and newspaper, which now looks really neat! Alvar and James took many new pictures of the layout (which will be up soon), and some for “Technology Review” which will have a section on TMRC on the Nov/Dec issue. Alvar also worked on ‘digitizing’ the images for the TMRC t-shirt. August 21Bill continued to work on the vegetable oil facility, adding more brick sections. Alvar began the construction of a new ‘switching problem’ to replace the old flaky one. The new design is nice and square, and will have Micro-Engineering code 83 track, plus hopefully great scenery. At this time the structure and lattice stock is ready, waiting for the track, ballast, and maybe a building. Meanwhile Jeff began to prepare the great ‘Crossing Signal’ for the Activities Midway, which will take place Tuesday August 31st. August 24Our computer keyboard died :-( Therefore we missed a real entry for this day. In general, everything was around preparing for the Activities Midway one week from this Tuesday. Alvar worked on laying down track for the new switching layout. Andy worked on painting another 50th anniversary car. August 28Today was big Midway preparation day: Alvar worked a lot on the switching problem layout (which was actually finished until Monday night, but with more than 12 hours before the midway :-) Andy made three really nice posters for the midway to advertise the club and some of our coming activities. Bill continued his work on his building, and also helped Alvar with the switching layout. August 31Today was the Midway, which was lots of fun, and we hope to see many freshmen around soon :-)
July 3Andy painted several pieces of equipment. Bill did interior work on the vegetable oil facility at the east end of Gifford City. Alvar worked a lot on the webpage. Lots of graphical changes, to hopefully make them easier to read and more elegant. John P. did scenery work on the front side of 105th street station, to cover the ugly looking plywood with neat scenery. July 7Andy did more painting jobs, and did further research on the 50th Anniversary car production. John P. bought 8 8’ 1”x2”s, to complete the siding of the layout. Then between him and John M continued ‘mass production’ of the facia for the layout, the one that holds the Plexiglas. July 14Andy worked hard on the Thomas N. Paulson boulevard that crosses the Gifford City station yard. The main road structure is done, with the work missing to be the support structure and the passenger stairs. John McNamara brought in advanced Roundhouse parts, which are looking really good! John P. continued work on the facia for the layout. Alvar worked on the financial records of the club. Later on John P. and Alvar entered into a discussion of the System 3 power block cards. The result is that we are going to start looking into using MicroControllerUnits (MCU’s) to replace many parts that are currently needed in the design John P. brought in a while ago. July 17We are back to Tuesday work sessions, rather than Wednesday. John Purbrick surrounded Gifford City with facia, which now extends from the west end of P-yard to 105th St. Bill worked on the vegetable oil facility. James and Alvar gave birth to the long awaited TMRC-recycling center. A new ‘green-hole-in-the-wall’ appeared in the corridor outside the room. July 21Tonight we had a visit by Peter Sampson, one of the original hackers to create a control system out of the donated crossbar equipment! Meanwhile John Purbrick setup the ‘sub-pavement’ plywood for all the area around the produce terminal and the newspaper building. Andy took out some more buildings from the boxes, and found spaces for several of them, making the ‘dream’ of having all of Gifford City full of buildings closer to a reality :-) Alvar investigated on getting a cheap laptop computer to work as the Gifford City “P-Yard” control panel. Jeff, Joe Onorato, and Alan Kotok entertained Peter. John Purbrick composed a great song in honor of TMRC’s new recycling center, which was finally put into working order on July 17th. The recycling center allows all those great people that help us by buying coke products from our fundraising machine, to also return their cans right there, which ensure they will be recycled, and gives TMRC a couple extra cents to build a great layout! This goes to the tune of “Particle Man”, which everyone who visits the clubroom ought to know. Hole in the wall, hole in the wall, Drop in a can, through the hole in the wall! Make us a nickel, hear the can fall, Join in the fun with the hole in the wall. Hole in the wall, hole in the wall, Answer the call of the hole in the wall, Don’t hesitate or worry or stall, Bring all your cans to the hole in the wall. Hole in the wall, hole in the wall, Come have a ball at our hole in the wall, Plan to pass by on your way down the hall, And feed us your cans, through the hole in the wall. July 24Bill continued his work. John Purbrick began to investigate on the correct mix of plaster, water, and carbon to make the pavement for the produce terminal and newspaper buildings. Alvar first worked on the old Railway Express building, which has changed location and service to a more industrial building right next to 100th street (the new Railway Express building will go at the north-east corner of Gifford City, and will be about 4 times as big as the old one, as it will sorround the control panel laptop.) Next he worked on restoring the clock and assembly of the “Cola-Bubblie” company building. With James’ help, they made a new location for the sign. Alvar built a complete new support assembly, and put in one of the clocks that used to be around the old layout. Andy brought in a new building, which will be a large ‘trapezoidal’ building in the middle of Gifford City. He already put together the front and back, and painted the widnow frames. He also helped paint all the jobs Alvar made, which made it possible to finish the Cola sign, and to be almost finished on the Railway Express building. July 27John P. began to ‘pave’ the produce terminal / newspaper factory area. John M. painted several internal walls of the round house. Andy Miller built the facade of a new building in the corner of Main Ave and 100th street. Alvar wired the clock for Soda-Bubblie. James arrived to fix Alvar’s work :-) After just 3 fuses, 1 capacitor, and 1 regulator, Alvar and James got the Coke-Bubblie clock fully operational again! July 31Andy and Alvar did a quick trip to Pearl Arts\&Crafts and obtained cornices for the new office building Andy began last week, and tons of material that will some day (before the next century!) become the Green Building. Andy painted the cornices and installed them in the facade of the building. Alvar shaped all the vertical members of the front side of the Green Building. John Shriver continued to work on the street car ladder into the carbarn, which is very populated with switches. Jeff helped us entertain several visitors we had during the day. Alvar then twicked the Soda-Bubblie clock to use the large metal sign as a heat sink for the regulator. Bill installed some roofing on the Vegetable oil facility. On the S\&P side, Jeff and Alvar discussed the design of a new block card (previously also discussed with JP and James) for system 3. The main goal is to reduce the component count per block, and maintain ‘standard’ operation, make DCC available, allow for multiple system test, have ‘feedback’ control for the ‘standard’ controls, and allow occupancy detection in either system (which in turn allows for signals). This new card will have an MCU to control the blocks, and we are working on allowing each card to control 4 blocks, hoping that the cost ‘per-block’ will be only around $2.00 (considering we need at least 200 blocks, that is a reasonable amount!).
June 12Alvar began to work on the new crossover switch out of the west end of P-yard. This new switch is a curved crossover which was previously deemed impossible due to the raddii, but which is being done with a little of magic (and by letting the radius be around 35” instead of 36” :-). Unfortunately this switch makes mainline virtually unoperable, therefore teh mainline is out for 2 or 3 weeks… But to help Alvar in his efforts Jeff quickly wired the new crossover in System 2, it is now switch #38. Meanwhile Bill continued work on the vegetable oil facility. Andy worked more on the Gifford City station. He worked on the second street, which is the one that will have the stairs down to the platforms. Talking about stairs, Andy now has the handrails for the stairs down to the platforms. John Shriver was also here, and continued to expand the Bitco rail, almost reaching the carbarn! June 16John P. demonstrated a prototype model of the lift bridge he intends to build across the river at the entrance to the clubroom. The model is fully (manually) operational, and is a great proof of concept that shows that the bridge can truly be a reality! Later on JP worked on a sample facia for the layout (that holds the Lexan front to prevent little fingers from derailing the trains. He also added switch #38 to the layout description in the new S-board. Both James and Alvar worked on the TMRC computers… the damage was all repaired by the end of the day! June 19Alvar continued the work on switch #38, the new crossover that allows more than two trains out of the west side of Gifford City at a time. One switch is complete, but the switch with a movable frog is not yet ready, that’s for next week! Jeff wired the last part needed for the System 2 side of the switch. Since JP’s sample fascia of the layout was very well received by all the members, he built another piece, and is starting to device a ‘mass production’ system to make it easy to build these. Bill Onorato continued his work. June 23Alvar finished the trackwork on switch #38, including a moving point! Say hello to the infinite loop again :-) June 26John Shriver worked down the curve of Gifford City laying down trolley track. He has now reached the carbarn, next step: switch ladder! Working right next to John (and under him, and around him, and all over the place), Alvar finished switched 38, including all the electronics. The layout is fully operational again! Of course, Alvar did not do it alone. Jeff was great at finding all those silly mistakes that are made in any project. Justin searched for more TMRC equipment, and put the MIRTA equipment into operation. Bill O. continued his work. June 30James and Alvar attended the summer mailing ‘stuffing party’, and (mainly James) stuffed about 1000 fliers that will go to all the incomming freshmen. Afterward they met with Jonh P. in the clubroom. John P. checked a couple of small gage problems in crossover 38 (the new one), and subsequent switches in the same ladder, which were not quite to standards. We had several visitors that night, so we entretained them with trains that could run all around the layout again!
May 1Open House Day! Today was the first New TMRC Open House , and we had approximately 70 visitors throughout the day. We had people of every age show up; from babies to alumni members from the 50’s! Trains were running around the layout almost non-stop, there was a large crowd for dinner, and above all, lots of fun! We are very happy that so many people showed up, and want to thank all of you for your constant support! Thank you to all of you who supported us during the Open House, it was a great success, and we will continue working so that next fall we can show something even better. Pictures from the Open House will appear soon in the web, we just have to develop and scan them first.May 8Bill Onorato continued work on the Vegetable Oil Facility. John Purbrick installed decoupling magnets in the siding for the Post Office section at the west end of P-Yard. Justing, a new Junior Member that joined us during the Open House, came and tested his equipment in the TNP layout. Between Aaron (a new member!), Jeff, and Alvar, they brought the system back to life after discovering that a battery that keeps memory for the new S-Board is dying. Later on Jeff worked on connecting Cab 4 - the remote control one - to the FOO system, so that when FOO-BAR is pressed, that one also shuts down. John Purbrick also introduced the idea - again - that a D-board in needed (as Jeff has been pointing out for a while), which means that we will soon start to deal with the broken video projector… or start thingking of new things to make a new d-board. May 15Bill worked more on his facility. John Purbrick fixed the 105th street platform, since it was too high in some parts, and low level locomotives (like switchers) would crash into it and derail :-(. Any miller painted a lot of parts for different sections of the layout. Alvar introduced a plan to insert a crossover at the west entrance to P-yard, which will allow the trains on the inside of the loop to go to the outside of p-yard. It was previously believed that this switch would not meet the required 36in radii, but fortunately testing the setup proved that the switch can be done… of course, with a little hacking, like a movable frog! Then all of them began to talk about the next section of the layout, which is very likely to be the F-Yard section. This section will extend out of the tower to the ‘south-east’ end of the room, where the computers are now. The F-yard, done this way, would be able to have tracks a long as 16 feet! Jeff worked on the light for the system, installing a nice switch to make it easy to turn the light on and off, so that we can see what is going on back there!
April 3John Shriver layed down the lattice stock into the carbarn. In order to accomplish that he began by shimming the lattice stock with one WECO card at one end, and FOURTEEN at the other! This way the carbarn floor and the entrance tracks matched perfectly. Bill continued to work on the bridge at the east end of Gifford City, and the vegetable oil facility next to the bridge. He is starting the brick walls in the building. Alvar put together one of the City Classics model buildings, which was modified during the week with an extra story. During the week he also put together another building, of the same kind, but one story shorter (get the idea :-). James continued to work on the new computer system at TMRC by adding new desktop manager options and also JAVA. The installation of Java is a good step into making the TMRC computers interface with the rest of the world, and some day we’ll control the layout that way! Jeff dropped by too, and updated the TMRC clocks to daylight savings time, so next time you come to the club, you know the time is right! April 7John M finished weathering the rear wall sections for the roundhouse. The next step is to create the matching interior walls. Andy worked on doors and baggage elevators for the Gifford City passenger platforms. During the past few days, he has used a color laser printer to make some very nice signs for the platform area. John P installed an under-the-tracks uncoupling ramp near the baggage/express siding. He also worked on the necessary hardware and software for wayside signals. April 10We had a meeting! And during the meeting we agreed that there will be two dry-runs for the open house and one final check: dry-runs will be Sat 4/17 and 4/24; the final check will be Wed 4/28. Outside of the meeting, people did lots of work. Andy worked during the week on the Gifford city platform baggage elevators and began the construction of the large boulevard across the station. Saturday he began to put together the girders for the boulevard. Bill continued to work on his oil facility by cutting out most of the front brick cover of the building, and weathering it. John P brought in a new small signal bridge, and began to put it together. Dick Lord helped out with several scenic details around Gifford City. Alvar, James, and Jeff worked hard on the computers at TMRC. The old control computer had a dying hard-disk, with intermittent hangs all the time - a sign that the hard disk was soon to crash. Being smart, a full backup of that hard-disk was created, to save all the information contained therein. A new very large 8.4Gb hard-disk, and yet cheap, was acquired, and was installed in one of the new computers. The 2.1 Gb hard-disk from that computer was then transfered to the old control computer and the system was up and running again at 3:24am TMRC-DST. Alvar also worked on installing Windows NT on one of the new computers (the one with the big disk), which will be used to capture video and some day have live video feeds over the net. April 17Bill began to cut out the windows in the brick material for his vegetable oil facility. John P. continued to work on the 100th street bridge, putting down the sidewalk material. Andy worked on the Paulson Blvd bridge over P-yard, starting to put together the thru girders for the bottom structure of the street. He also painted some plugs to cover the old holes in the P-yard platform, so that he can make holes in the correct positions for the boulevard. Dick Lord began to help with cleaning up the P-yard side of the layout, so that it look nice and clean for the open house. Meanwhile Alvar began to test System 2 and System 3 so that trains can get around the layout and that we can have not only one ‘infinite loop’ but also some switching around during the Open House. April 21John M constructed the walls for the machine shop that will be at the back of the roundhouse. Andy worked on the Paulson Boulevard over-pass that will provide the grand entrance road in front of the Gifford City station. John P worked on the final touches for his bridge next to the produce warehouse. Alvar ran a train around in preparation for the Open House 10 days hence. He encountered and debugged a number of dirty-crosspoint and other problems. More attention will be needed. April 24Bill began to paint his vegetable oil facility. Andy worked a lot on the Paulson Boulevard Western bridge. The support structure now has diagonals to reinforce the columns. He also painted the whole bottom section, including the supports for the bridge that go into the platforms. James and Alvar created positive pressure inside the room, by using two fans, lots of duct tape, and garbage bags in the side door. Then, using the high pressure section of the air hose, they cleaned System 2 as thoroughly as possible. Jeff then took over, and fixed the last couple of bugs --- also due to dust, but all the way inside relays that even high pressure air could not reach out. After that he began to study the problems of Cab 2, which decides to ‘overload’ after just a couple of minutes of apparently good operation. Dick Lord and Bill helped a lot with the cleanup of the layout, transforming Gifford City into an urban area, instead of a construction zone. Later on Alvar cleaned up the main working table. This sets the club quite ready for the Open House. Finally, Jeff, Andy, James, and Alvar all helped test the track, system, and trains for the Open House. We made sure the Aaron Burr actually ran around the tracks continuously, with both the track and system behaving nicely. Both the Aaron Burr and the 50th Anniversary train will be featured during the Open House! April 28On the Tuesday Emergency session John P, John M, James, and Alvar all worked together in making a 4’x12’ drop poster to advertise our upcoming Open House this Saturday May 1st. The poster features the TMRC wheel from the logo, a large ‘tmrc’ name, and all the information to get people here. Plus, its made general enough so that we can re-use it next time! You can admire the poster in the MIT Student Center stairs. On Wednesday night John P. and Alvar continued testing the system as much as possible. Cab 1 is now working perfectly; Cab 4, the remote controlled one, is working in the big loop setup, which is what we tested, with a few minor intermittent problems. Jeff tested Cab 2 on Sunday, which appears to be working fine! Cab 3 has not had problems, but we have not had time to ‘de-dust’ its contacts by running trains using it (I guess we are crossing our finger it will work :-). And, at the end of the day, Alvar ran a cable from the tower. This is a second RS232 cable that will go from the system to a computer in the tower, so that the dispatcher can in fact be in the tower, seeing the trains and layout, while creating routes and assigning trains! JP will fix the ends Friday night.
March 10Andy installed a concrete abutment for the “WPA Bridge” and did alot more painting. John painted the loading platform for the produce distributor, and worked on the adjacent bridge. Alvar’s new building is now installed on Main St, and he and Andy discussed finishing touches for the 105th St Bridge. March 14Bill brought in the windows for his vegetable oil facility, and many more for future buildings. He began to cut out the brick material for the office side of the facility. John Purbrick worked on the bridge next to his produce warehouse. He had to modify the bridge greatly, since he discovered that with the existing height it would not meet NMRA standards! But now the bridge meets the standards and is ready for the structural memebers to be added. Alvar continued work on the bridge to 105th station, adding the center abatement. John McNamara continued hard work on the roundhouse, starting the back wall. John Shriver worked on the setup for the trolley into the Carbarn, making sure that all switches are the correct radii and have the right clearances. James and many of his friends from the area worked on setting up the new TMRC computers. The two new ‘advanced’ computers now have Linux installed, including a neat graphical login screen, internet access, and most importantly: Athena access. Soon it will be possible to update the website directly from the clubroom! March 17Andy worked on the retaining wall between P-yard and the Gifford City station building. While the part distant from the station is large stone blocks, the part near the station platforms is poured concrete. Having completed most of the stone sections, Andy worked on the concrete portion. He also added the entranceways that will permit the passengers to enter the station from the platforms. John McNamara has been working on the roundhouse rear walls out-of-place, adding the mortared appearance to the brick sheets. John Purbrick added non-functional trolley tracks to the bridge he is building. These will run from the Gifford City trolley loop out over the bridge toward the viewer. Alvar Saenz-Otero worked on the bridge he is building. This is a two section bridge, one part over a siding and a longer part over the multi-track mainline. The longer part is now complete, or nearly so, and tonight’s work was concentrated on the shorter section. He also worked the concrete supports beneath the bridge sections. March 20This is the first entry that comes directly from the new TMRC computers! That said, down to business: Andy worked hard on the ‘retaining wall’ for Gifford City station. He finished the top section of it, painted it, and even put it in place! His next job, he says, is the main boulevard that will cross above P-yard north of the station building. Meanwhile Bill, now with the windows for his building on hand, continued to cut the brick material to the shape of his vegetable oil facility. Alvar is now almost finished with his bridge in the entrance to Gifford City, the one that goes to 105th station. With Andy’s help, Alvar got the bridges painted, the pavement almost done (although a small miscalculation put the centerlines about 5 scale feet apart!), and the abutments finished. The only missing parts are to fix the pavement sections and to attach the stairway down to 105th street. Later on at night (or morning :-), Jeff and Alvar worked on the webpage to introduce a neat new feature: for those of you that wondered how many ‘random pictures’ there are in the main page, don’t worry any more! You can now ‘click’ on the picture to see the next one, and the next one, and … you get the idea! March 24John M worked on a sample of an inner wall for the rear of the roundhouse. Plastruct .030 material seems suitable. Andy secured the recently-painted concrete retaining wall that runs along the Gifford City passenger platforms. He also painted some passenger access and freight loading doors that will connect from the platforms to station. There is a possibility that the plaza in front of the station will have to be raised, or alternatively that clearances will have to be very slightly less than Plate C, if a passenger walkway is to be installed under the plaza and across the platforms. John P worked on the bridge that will be next to his produce terminal. He has some very nice Central Valley girders for this purpose. Alvar battled with our Linux-based computer and lost. He also did some additional stripping work on the nifty highway bridge that he built; Andy assisted. March 27Today James dropped by and fixed the computers, so we are back on the net! Therefore, this entry comes, once again, directly from the room. There is one for Wednesday, but that will be updated later on, sorry for that. Anyway… Andy Miller continued working on the retaining wall for Gifford City station. He built the doors that go into the station, and finished the first panel with an entrance, which is at the end of tracks #1 and #2. Bill began to cover the Vegetable Oil facility with painted walls; he began with the loading lock area. John Purbrick continued work on the bridge south of this produce terminal; he also brought in a few updates to the system, which let us program signals into the computers. Alvar finished most of the work in the 105th street bridge. All the streets are fully painted, including nice yellow double lines. Plus, he fixed the staircase to the platform. For the first time in TMRC history both Gifford City Station and 105th St. Station have real access to their platform! Ben visited today, and showed us a bunch of new things that we can play with using the new TMRC computers. Jeff was also here! And it was great, because he helped John P. fix a couple of dust bugs that were lying in the system (specifically, little dust particles preventing contact in several relays of System 2). With these problems out of System 2, it appears that S\&P is all ready to go for the Open House! March 31James did some system updates and other work on our computer systems. John M painted the window sills on the rear wall sections for the roundhouse. John P painted the underside of the bridge next to the produce warehouse and worked on the bridge abutments. Alvar added lots of neat new photos to the web page galleries, located at the New Pictures Gallery.
February 3John McNamara did some painting experiments in preparation for painting the new sections of the roundhouse rear wall. He discovered that Floquil makes two versions of “Tuscan Red” (110025 and 110184). John Purbrick continued work on his slip switch in P-yard. Alvar did some design work on a highway bridge that will cross the tracks near the 105th street station. February 10Alvar began the steelwork for the bridge over the tracks at 105th St. He has also purchased a good supply of styrene sheets and shapes for this and future construction projects, and some new tools. John continued work on the slip switch which gives access to the “top end” of the Amtrak Freight/Railway Express Agency siding. Although the switch is still unfinished, the main line route through it (block 13) is now usable again. February 13John Shriver finalized the location of the carbarn, and draw the final schematic for the ladder into the carbarn. It appears that we will be able to fix the last part of plywood for Phase one, since John S. decided it will be easy enough to work directly in it. John Purbrick continued the work on the single throw double switch for the Amtrak Freight/Railway Express Agency siding. He is done with the layout of the track now, and the part missing is to add the Tortoise switch machines and the electronics. John McNamara worked on an Amtrak passenger locmotive that someday will pull the TMRC Amtrak Amfleet along the layout. Then he helped Ben Frantzdale, who installed the last section of masonite required for the retention wall in the Gifford City loop. He also glued in the first section of stone material, and had to stop there because we ran out of painted stone. Bill Onorato worked on the pavement for the bridge next to the vegetable oil facility in the far east of Gifford City. He brought in a nice package of Paris Plaster, which made the task much easier. Andy Miller first fixed the platform for the third track of Gifford Station, which had a small clearance problem. Later on he began to work on the concrete retention wall for Gifford City Station. He supplied the club with a nice sheet of ribeted styrene. Alvar Saenz Otero continued his work on the 105th station bridge, where the ribeted styrene came very helpfull. The structure of the Truss section is now complete, only missing the painting and pedestrian handrail. He even had time and material to build the stair case, so (if the safety office allowed it), pedestrians would be able to go to the 105th platform now. Jeff Birkner came in, yeah! We were all happy because he was able to help out with System 2, which had been a little flaky lately. The major section of the layout is now working, with just a few things to change due to the addition of the new track for the package services. After that James Knight and James joined forces to start the design of a microprocessor board which will take control of the TMRC Coke Machine, and therefore will allow it to be operated over the internet, and other neat things! February 17After finally obtaining the correct tone of red paint for the walls of the roundhouse, John M began the work on the walls. Tonight he masked and painted the first section of the roundhouse rear wall. John P continued the work on the P-yard slip switch, which is very near completion, pending just a few details. February 20Bill Onorato is finished the pavement on the far east bridge next to his Vegetable Oil facility. The bridge is almost ready for the detail work, like handrails, and such. Alvar Saenz Otero put down the pier that separates the two types of bridges in 105th street (a through girder over the siding, and a pony truss over mainline). He then left the bridge and began to put together one (actually two kits) of the city-classics buildings which will go in the front side of Gifford City. Andy Miller worked on the support structure for the ‘last’ street bridge of East Gifford City, which will cross ‘south,’ perpendicular to Bill’s bridge. He also prepared the concrete handrails for that bridge, and cut a piece of styrene for the pavement. John Shriver came in and penciled in the track plan for the remaining track of the trolley line, until the bridge over the main river at the entrance of the room. The section is now ready for the roadbed, so that John Shriver can then lay down the actual track. James Knight began to work on a new interface for the coke machine, which will let TMRCies stablish an account in the TMRC computers, and be able to get soda directly ‘over the net!’ February 24Andy worked on a new bridge (1930’s cement style) that crosses the tracks near Bill’s factory. John M worked on the roundhouse. John P worked on the produce warehouse. February 27Approaching the new Gifford City, trains will pass under five bridges. The first is being built by Alvar, the second by John Purbrick, the third by Andy, the fourth by Bill, and the fifth (completed) by Andy. John Purbrick worked on bridge #2 and built the loading platform for his produce warehouse. Andy continued work on bridge #3, and Bill continued work on bridge #4 and its approaches. John Shriver performed some experiments on minimum radius for car barn ladder tracks; he found 7 inches too small, but 7.5 inches OK. He added some subroadbed in the area of the car barn. John McNamara masked, and Andy painted, the rear walls for the roundhouse. Andy and James picked up our new high-performance computer at Alvar’s lab. Jeff and James then assembled it, but there is more work to be done.
January 6Andy Miller continued work on a highway bridge that he is building near one end of P-yard. He added pavement (complete with double yellow line) and sidewalks (complete with cracks). A siding is being added in P-yard that will permit REA/Material-Handling cars (depending on your era) to be conveniently removed from, or added to, passenger trains. John Purbrick prepared the sub-roadbed, and Jeff Birkner added appropriate block wiring in The System. John McNamara painted window frames for use in the rear wall sections of the roundhouse. January 12 Announcing TMRC’s 1999 IAP Activity “Hacking a Model Railroad” which will take place from 1/20 to 1/23 at 7:00pm in the clubroom. Be sure to visit us and have lots of fun. Full information can be found in the TMRC IAP Page. The main page was changed to reduce its loading time - and add those funky ‘signals’ when selecting the menu. All the ‘section’ pictures are still there, but they load in a random order. January 13John Purbrick brought in a set of 8 System 3 block cards and connected them to blocks of the upper loop. There are a few bugs in them, but the basic design is there. Alvar studied the layout for the cabinets that some day will hold these block cards. James brought in the final version of the Time Capsule CD-ROM, which is now fully compatible with both PC’s and MAC’s. The CD-ROM is now back in the EECS Department, ready to go into the Time Capsule. January 16John Shriver continued to expand the trolley track, one of them is now in front of the Gifford City Station. Andy Miller worked on a new building that is to stand in the front of Gifford city, at the east end of the Passenger yard. He will also order a new Hotel building, that will rise next to the one he is building now. Bill worked on the street for the bridge he has been building on the east side of Gifford city. John P. layed down the final ties needed to complete the new spur on for the Railroad Express terminal. John McNamara worked on the windows for the roundhouse. Alvar installed all the cabinets and wire track for the block cards for System 3... which are being designed by John P. Jeff continued some designing in order to incorporate the new track into System 2. Alvar, Howard, Jeff, and Jason (a returning member) worked on organizing the old layout pieces in order to be able to exhibit them during the next Open House. Also, they create invaluable ‘under the layout’ space, even if that part of the layout is not operational :-) January 20Tonight marked the first evening of a 4-evening TMRC-sponsored model railroading course presented as part of IAP. Tonight’s subject was “Planning, Building, and Laying Track.” John Purbrick gave this course, with James help. This course attracted (and held the attention of) three undergraduates. Tomorrow the subject is “Building Buildings and Scenery”. This will be followed by “Car\&Loco” on Friday and “Control Systems” on Saturday. Speaking of control systems, John also did some work on the 8-block System3 prototype unit that he is testing in the clubroom, along with a new walk-around throttle based on a 900MHz cordless phone. John McNamara continued his work on roundhouse windows, and Andy Miller continued his work on “Walker’s Fine Dining”, a moderate-size building for the main street of Gifford City. January 23Tonight was the last session of TMRC’s IAP class. We had a couple of visitors attend the class, where we explained the past, present, and future of our System- the move from System 2 to System 3. Later on Jeff was able (after some learning from old documents) to fix the occupancy detection for Block 39, since it was acting in random manners. Meanwhile James \& Alvar researched on components to obtain a new computer for TMRC which will connect TMRC directly to the internet! Meanwhile, Andy put together the “Fine Walker’s Dinning” structure, with the next step being interior and roof. Bill continued to work on the bridge in the far east side of Gifford City. And Jason continued his work on the Box Car he began to build Friday at the IAP session. January 27John McNamara performed color-matching experiments in an effort to match the color of the roundhouse walls. It appears that the best match uses Tuscan Red as a base and adds a wash of white acrylic and light grimy black weathering. Andy Miller continued his work on “Walker’s Fine Dining”, a combined restaurant and office building for downtown Gifford City. It is a moderate-size building of cubic proportion slightly less than a foot on a side. John Purbrick continued work on a new switch in P-yard that will serve the REA/Material-Handling siding. It is similar in design to a slip switch. John and Alvar also discussed the construction and features of the System3 block cards in some detail. John Shriver continued his work on the trolley system, adding another foot or so of curved girder-rail trackage in downtown Gifford City.
December 2Andy Miller painted some more of the “50th Anniversary” cars that the Club intends to sell. They look really sharp! John McNamara continued his work on extending the roundhouse stalls. James Knight, John Purbrick, and Alvar Saenz-Otero continued work on layout debugging. After a tricky closed block gap and two wiring ‘typos,’ they were done! By mid-evening, John Purbrick was able to run his loco completely around the layout, powered by The System, and throwing switches via computer to change routes. We now have a FULLY FUNCTIONAL LAYOUT, needing only some human interface embellishments. December 5Andy Miller began installation of the stone walls for Gifford City, which make it look much better. He also painted more sheets of the rock material, which will be needed to complete the whole area. Bill Onorato continued work on the vegetable oil facility. John Shriver doubled the amount of trolley track; he is definitely going faster by using the pre-made trolley track, rather than making it out of code 70 and code 100 track. John Purbrick worked on the bridge that will cross over the main line next to his Warehouse. By building the bridge he’ll be able to finish the Warehouse. Alvar worked on the ramp for the bridge to 105st station. Andy helped Alvar to paint the street and tunnel. Howard and Alvar got rid of more old shelfs, making lots of space around the S\&P area. Dick Lord helped to ‘translate’ the old system occupancy documentation into new paperwork. This allowed Jeff Birkner to get ready all the System 2 side that will allow the new system to have D-Board functionality. John Purbrick brought in the hardware that will connect to System 2 for D-Board operation; the wire to connect the two Systems still needs to be done. December 9John M continued his work on the roundhouse floor; it is nearly ready for painting. John P worked on wiring the System occupancy circuits to the PC, enabling an on-screen D-board-like display. Alvar disassembled the temporary shelving that ran along part of the windows, to open up the space in the back of the room. In the process many lengths of old wire and the old switch kludges were discarded (since the new ones have been installed and are working!). Substantial other material, especially telephone equipment, was retained for sorting. December 113 New videos have been added to the Videos Page. December 12Bill is almost done with the design of the Vegetable oil facility, making it ready for the actual scenic material to be installed. Andy brought in the complete 50th Anniversary fleet and it looks incredibly good as a train! He then continued work on the stone walls around Gifford City. John Purbrick continued to work on the bridge next to the warehouse he is building, so that he can design the office building of the warehouse. He also worked on the material to build the 105th street platform, which will be a low level platform. John Shriver continued to expand the trolley line, making it all the way to the first ‘S’. Alvar, with the help from James and Howard, finished the room clean that began Wednesday. He also disassembled some unused wood structures to recover material, and installed 1x2’s along the bottom of the layout, especially to protect Switch Card #1. Andy, Bill, and Alvar discussed some plans for the future of the layout, especially that for F-Yard, which seems to be the most reasonable section to build next. December 13The progress gallery has been greatly updated with four new sections and over 60 pictures total. Check it out! You can always access it directly through he Progress Page. December 16John M. completed the roundhouse flooring. It is now ready for painting. John P worked on the access road that will serve his produce warehouse. He also began construction of the station platforms for 105th street. December 26Andy Miller worked on the truss bridge nearest the side door. Bill Onorato was doing scenery (ground cover, weeds) on the siding nearby. John Shriver laid out a new pair of test tracks on the homasote, to check the clearance for the double-track swerve after the station. That plan was then drawn on the plywood. Pieces of MITCo roadbed were lifted, glued down, and re-nailed. (The stresses are much higher, so glueing is in order. Also, some nails were too near the rail.) One more curve of trolley track was bent and spiked. Howard Gorin examined the Orr rail curving tool to see why it sometimes leaves a twist in the rails. (The rollers aren’t of a consistent thickness, some are too loose.) On Sunday, John Shriver stopped by again, and laid the roadbed for the double-track swerve, and the tangent track after it. The swerve isn’t fancy, but nobody will see it under the pavement… The roadbed can’t be laid in front of the station until I decide if I’m laying the carbarn ladder at TMRC, or in his basement.
November 4Jeff, James, and Alvar worked on wiring design and documentation for the control of switches. The layout switches are now fully documented, making the installation of the switch cards much more easier. John P worked on adding “corrugated tin” roofing to the produce warehouse and also improved some P-yard switches. John M paint-matched the floor in another extended section of roundhouse flooring. November 5The Building 20 Presentation is back online in the Live Presentation Page November 7John P. and Jeff continued to work on the interface between the PC and System 2 in order to enable call-on directly from the PC. This will allow us to have one single ‘dispatcher’ terminal again! Dick Lord put together the boards necessary to create ‘X1’, ‘X2’, and ‘X3’ swing blocks, which completes the electronics necessary for swing blocks for phase one. Bill Onorato continued his work on the vegetable oil facility at the East end of Gifford City. He also brought in many sheets of brick and stone material to work on scenery! Alvar did a lot of work in the new section of Gifford City. He installed all the roadbed, both for the trolley line and the sidewalk, all the way to the main passenger station. Also, he began to work on the bridge to 105th street, and the pedestrian tunnel under it. November 11John P. and Jeff worked on the assignment system, which is making excellent progress. The new assignment control allows the PC controlled microprocessor system to do cab assignments with System 2. This design completely eliminates the need for the PDP 11-based “S-board”, which has been decomissioned as of today. Jeff also did some System debugging- or better put, de-dusting. Alvar built a covered cable trough to convey control and power wiring from the new electronic switch-throwing system and the new power supply to System 2 and the tower (signal and power distribution centers, respectively). He also installed a ‘power-on’ LED directly at the new power supply, to easily see when power is on. John M installed another replacement section in the roundhouse floor. Now that test painting has been completed, final painting will occur when all the sections are in place. Andy Miller performed coupler re-alignment and other corrective surgery on the Aaron Burr cars. November 14Andy began to paint the stone walls that go all around the old sections of Gifford City. He used a technique that gives the stones a light background and a dark foreground. John Purbrick continued work on his produce plant, now that there is enough brick material! Alvar prepared the wires for the next switch card. John Shriver first transfered the center lines to the roadbed that Alvar placed down one week ago, and then began installation of girder rail for the trolley line. After some tests he said : “It will lay MUCH faster than the old way, that’s certain.” Jeff and James continued work on System 2, doing more and more de-dusting. November 18Now that computerized assignment, computerized switch-throwing, and The System are all operational, various layout wiring and block gap problems are more evident. Jeff and James did some trouble-shooting on the layout wiring and block gaps to deal with these problems. John M extended the flooring in another roundhouse stall. John P prepared another section of brick wall for the produce warehouse. November 21Bill and John P continued to work on their respective buildings (the vegetable oil distributor and the terminal, both on the east of Gifford City). John McNamara worked on the round house- he has only two more bays to go before finishing the floor additions (painting is next). You’ll soon see a big update of the Progress Gallery. Jeff, James, and Alvar worked on installing the last three switch cards. At 5:00am Jeff and Alvar called it quits, after fully installing #5, doing 70% of #4, and 40% of #6. This means that with one more session all the cards should be in! And, finally, the great news: John P brought in a new version of this Sys3 program that allows GRAPHIC SWITCH THROWING. That is, by ‘clicking’ on a switch in the monitor, the switch changes on the layout! The next and final part for a ‘beta release’ of the system is to integrate assignment… On Sunday Nov 15th an article on Model Rail Roads around the Boston area appeared in the Boston Herald. We have a copy of the article for you to read. Also, today, James and Alvar both brought in digital cameras, and took lots of pictures of the layout (over 50 of them!). These were added to a Progress Gallery which they added to the web-site. This gallery contains many pictures of the layout as it grows from the ground up. Finally, the links page has been added links of web-pages of club members. November 28Bill continued work on his vegetable oil facility. Alvar finished wiring all the Switch Cards, and ran power to the last three. John P. installed a new version of the graphical interface which allows both assignments and switch throwing.
October 7“Tuesday Night Work Sessions” have become “Wednesday Night Work Sessions” in deference to the problem set scheduling of two of our undergraduates. John M worked on the roundhouse. John P and Alvar worked on the switch control system. John P also worked on his produce warehouse building. October 14Jeff, James, and Alvar worked on wiring an electronic switch kludge into the layout. Now by pointing and clicking at the computer (although not on a layout diagram), any of eight switches (complicated crossovers, no less) can be operated. John Purbrick worked on a computer screen layout diagram that Jeff requested. The diagram is close to that which Jeff used to wire System 2 to the current layout. John also worked on the produce warehouse roof, awning, and doors. With its new brick walls, it is starting to look really sharp. John McNamara continued his research on duplicating the roundhouse floor covering for the extended stall sections. SP Lark Gray with a wash of black acrylic is close, but a little too blue. This Wednesday was the first Wednesday Night Session. In order to accommodate student schedules, Tuesday Night Sessions have been moved to Wednesday nights. October 17Bill continued work on the Vegetable Oil facility located at the far East of Gifford City. The back of the building is now defined, and ‘real’ walls are going to appear soon. Jeff and Alvar worked on refurbishing the ping-pong track, in order to support locomotives that may pull a lot of current. Now the ping-pong track does not reset all the time when non-perfect locomotives are used. October 21The final version of the TMRC Switch Cards came in! So, Jeff, James, John P, and Alvar worked on stuffing them. Within an hour FOUR of them were fully stuffed AND tested. We now have all the boards we need to wire all the switches for the current phase. John M did additional work on finding the right color to match the roundhouse floor. It appears that Floguil SP Lark Light Gray with a light over-wash of black acrylic is close enough. The acrylic wash should be thinned with water that contains detergent so that the wetting agent effect will cause the black to work into the cracks between the bricks. Next week an actual in-place painting experiment will be attempted. Andy applied TNP and loco number details to the E8A and E8B acquired a few weeks ago. The loco numbers, 1207 and 1212 are based on the TNP custom of 2/3 the horsepower and also reflect MIT courses 1.207 and 1.212: * 1.207 = Introduction to Intelligent Transportation Systems * 1.212 = Modeling Transportation Networks October 24Andy Miler finished the labeling of the new Aaron Burr locomotives (an A unit and a B unit) so that they can go in a westward direction. In a similar note the Talgo (from Ken Central) made quick appearance this Saturday. John Purbrick continued his work on the Produce Terminal, installing a structure (made out of track!) that holds up the ceiling. Meanwhile Bill continued work on the Vegetable Oil Facility. Dick Lord worked on some MoW track work to ensure its quality. James finished adding connectors to the new Switch Cards, and changed #2 to maintain a standard with the rest of them. Alvar cut all the wires needed to install SC #2, which should happen by the end of next week. Alvar also worked on the ‘new’ main TMRC page. Ben showed us a model of his implementation of the ‘never stopping’ belt for his model of the Flint\&Noble bulding. October 25Major revamping of the web-page! The main page now has neat java-script enabled image changes and an improved menu. A new Feedback \& Contact page has been created. The ‘Visit’ page and the ‘Contact’ page are now separated. Also, starting with the November meeting, the meetings will be announced in this section of the web-page, as above. October 28Jeff and John P worked on the design of circuitry that will permit the computer to make the initial assignment of trains to blocks in the existing System 2. When this design has been implemented, these circuits, plus the switch-throwing system now being installed, will completely eliminate the need for the PDP11-based “S-board” used in Building 20. Speaking of the switch-throwing system, Alvar installed “Board #2” providing an additional 7 computer-thrown switches. John M painted a replacement section in the roundhouse floor. Color match was good, but more work remains to be done on seam sealing. October 31Bill continued more work on the vegetable oil distributor at the east side of Gifford City. John McNamara continued his work on the Round House, by installing another section of floor. He is trying a new technique to make the seam almost invisible. John Purbrick brought a new version of the ‘pcb’ test software which now includes an interface to assign trains to cabs - although the actual hardware is missing (soon to come!). Jeff and Alvar installed Circuit Board #3! We are half way there with the switches!
September 22Jeff installed a replacement version of the doorbell that historically rang when FOO was pushed. Four new “feather-touch” push buttons have been installed around the layout to reinstate the traditional TMRC FOO BAR. John McNamara worked on the roundhouse and installed the first piece of replacement flooring. The question at hand is how to get it it to match the color of the existing flooring. John Purbrick worked on a tester that will be used with the switch control system.
August 1Bill Onorato and John Shriver sketched ‘version 1.0’ of the trolley route from the East side of Gifford City (old city loop) to the Gifford City Station (old Tuckerton Station) and the west side turning loop (new). The track is to become double track in front of the Gifford City station, and then single track once it goes down to the car barn. Alvar completely finished the work with track feeders under the layout, and did a map that shows the locations and connections of all the terminal strips that have been installed for phase 1. Jeff finished all the work on creating new block gaps and closing old block gaps so that the rail agrees with the new plans. Then he continued the work on the 14ga track feeders from the terminal strips to the power distribution panels. Alvar also worked on the case for the Building 20 time capsule. Pictures of the car and the whole setup will be available soon in the TMRC Building 20 page. August 8Jeff Birkner (after also spending Friday at TMRC) finished re-wiring the ‘Big Loop’ to System 2. This means that System 2 is, once again, operating the layout! Bill Onorato continued his work on the building at the East end of Gifford City. Andy Miller finished painting the new ‘B’ unit for the Aaron Burr, which now has new traction power! Jeff and Alvar then continued the work on the tower wall. The tower now has about 2/3 of its walls complete. August 11System2 (previously referred to as “The System”) ran three trains simultaneously on cabs 1, 2, and 3 this evening. This is the first time that this has been done since the Building 20 layout was decomisioned in April 1997. All present participated in some minor debugging of rolling stock and track work. There was also some discussion of a letter from our PC board manufacturer requesting additional information. August 25In preparation for Activities Midway, Jeff worked on the crossing flasher display and John P worked on the switching layout. John M continued his work on roundhouse restoration.
July 4Happy 4th of July to all! Due to the holiday, attendance was pretty low; only Jeff and Alvar showed up. Jeff continued to wire the ROM, and now it’s well over 1/2 done. When Alvar arrived, both he and Jeff put 8 carriage bolts on the new tower in order to hold together the old floor and the new desk areas. July 7Jeff and John Purbrick worked on restoring John’s throttle that uses a cordless telephone. As in Building 20, this will provide walk-around control. Operation of a train under System control by Freshman Open House is deemed a realizable goal. John and James did additional checking work on the switch control cards, which are about to go to a PC board house. John M continued his work on roundhouse restoration by permanently placing the foundations for the rear walls. Joe Onorato has found some flooring material that is a perfect match for the existing flooring. This will be a great help. Alvar worked on the flooring and inspection pits of the trolley car barn to create a unit that can be transplanted to the new lyout. He also cut a large piece of plywood John Shriver will work on (out of place) to install girder rail for the in-street portions of the new trolley system. July 11Bill Onorato continued work on a building in the far east side of P-Yard, next the east bridge of Gifford City. John Shriver finished Alvar’s work with the trolley car barn by fully removing the base plate of the carbarn, which will make installation in the new layout a lot easier. Alvar finished the work on the Gifford City structure. The Gifford City structure is now 100% complete! It is now time for scenery to start appearing in the city… John Purbrick continued working on the switch cards. He also showed the members present a prototype ‘bar code reader’ which reads barcodes in the bottom of the trucks of cars in order to identify them individually. A list of all tmrc members since 1946 has been added to the site. We have had almost 750 members since then! July 14Jeff and Alvar worked on design issues surrounding the construction of a scale replica of the Green Building. Alvar also added some wires to the System ROM. John M continued his work on roundhouse restoration. Andy Miller did initial painting on the Club’s recently acquired Proto2000 E8-A/B set. July 18James fixed a few errors found in the Switch Card, pointed out last week by John Purbrick. Since a few errors were found it was decided that a little more time will be invested in checking the card design before sending it to the manufacturer. Jeff continued to work hard on the ROM. He is now completly finished with 3 of 4 sections, and half way through the other one, which means that the ROM is now 87.5% complete!!! It won’t be long before the ROM is all finished. Jeff, James, and Alvar then worked together to label all the track and frog feeders under the layout to make the next job easier… Alvar and James worked on what is needed after the ROM is complete: track feeders. Currently there are short 24ga track feeders from the track to terminal strips (installed by John Purbrick). What James and Alvar Started was the addition of 14ga (to minimize voltage drop) from those terminal strips to the distribution panels. July 21Jeff Birkner continued his work on the System ROM, which is 92.5% done. Andy Miller did some painting. All present gave various parts of the “TMRC Tour” to visitors from the Toronto area, Tom (father) and Dave (son) Crawford. Several small projects were also undertaken. Also, about 3 hours of work were put into the switch card. Since a few problems were encountered about two weeks ago we decided to slow down a little and make completely sure that it will work exactly as planned, since it will be a very large investment. Still, we believe we are in the final version, with only the final test missing: checking each and every connection in the board layout with that of the circuit design. July 25The ROM is FINISHED! Jeff worked hard for over 4 hours, and by the end of the night (before midnight :-), the ROM was completely done. Next step is to test it… we’ll see what happens then. Thank you Jeff! James and Jeff printed out transparencies of the SwitchBoard cards last Wednesday dawn, and they were up for review this past Saturday. Today the cards were declared done by both James and John Purbrick, so they will go out to a manufacturer within the week! Alvar, with help from James, dedicated the night to making sure all the hard work by John Purbrick of putting the track feeders was fully labelled and then used Jeff’s staple gun to staple all the wires neatly under the layout. July 28James Knight and Alvar Saenz-Otero continued their work on making the under-layout wiring neater. They are running wires in right-angle arrangements and stapling them to the underside of the layout with telephone staple guns lent by Jeff Birkner. (Large wires like power feeders remain in bundles run through D-rings. The wires discussed here are the wiring to frogs, etc.) John McNamara continued his work on roundhouse restoration. He is extending the roundhouse stall subflooring in the stalls that have been lengthened. This will be followed by installation of brick/block paper to form the final flooring consistent with the existing flooring. Andy Miller painted the E-8 B unit, repaired a TMRC boxcar, and started painting the stone block sheeting that will form a major wall alongside the P-yard approach tracks.
June 2Jeff and John P worked on the installation of track feeders for each block. Alvar, Jeff, and James worked on the support structure for the tower desktop surfaces. James also worked on software installation. John M continued his work on restoring the roundhouse, and Andy Miller worked on a new bridge abutment near P-yard. June 16This is the first posting for over a month! Unfortunately things like finals, graduation, and vacation got in the way. We are up to date, except that no Saturday progress reports were available throughout May, new ones will start again soon. Still, lots of things have happened at the club, and you should not miss reading the progress of May; it is a lot! Oh, and thanks for visiting tmrc’s website. Jeff continued the process of wiring the “ROM” in The System that reflects which block follows which block through which switch (if any). John Purbrick continued the process of adding track feeder connections between the under-layout barrier strips and the rails. John McNamara continued work on roundhouse restoration. Andy Miller began painting the “50th Anniversary” box cars and the cars for the Building 20 time capsule. Andy, John M, and Alvar also began creation of a cardboard mockup of a layout piece to support the trolley car barn and surrounding streets. June 20Jeff has been working more on the ROM, with over 25% wired, which is more than 1/3 of the layout, but the P-Yard section is missing, which contains the largest concentration of switches. Also, Howard and Jeff took the job of removing the old P-Yard coffin and its wiring, since they will no longer be used with System 3. Andy brought back the almost finished commemorative cars for the Time Capsule of Building 20. They are looking great, but we need a large ‘50’ that marks TMRC’s 50th anniversary in Building 20 during 1997. Alvar worked on the structural supports for the rest of Gifford City, now that a plan has been made. After a lot of thought a plan was came up with that makes Gifford City almost flat, a great plus for large building construction. June 23Jeff Birkner and visiting pre-frosh Geoff Schmidt continued the process of wiring the “ROM” in The System. The “ROM” reflects which block follows which block through which switch (if any). John Purbrick continued the process of adding track feeder connections between the under-layout barrier strips and the rails in P-Yard. He is even labelling the feeders where they pass through the plywood! John McNamara continued work on roundhouse restoration. All but one of the roof girders has now been restored to full length. Alvar began work on raising an existing plywood piece to support the trolley car barn and surrounding streets. The planned height will put a siding off the mainline at the proper height for a major factory beside the Whatahack River and simultaneously put that siding at a proper height for a grade crossing on a Gifford City street. There will be a turning loop around the trolley barn. The switches for the trolley barn ladder and the turning loop will all be directly accessible under the layout. June 27John Shriver began to do models of street car track in order to start planning the design of the new street car routes. John Pubrick continued with the soldering of track and frog feeders for the layout. Bill Onorato and Alvar continued discussion on the plans to Gifford City. One main objective was to make sure both Tuesday’s and Saturday’s discussions agreed. Jeff Birkner continued to work on the “ROM” of the system. During the wiring process Jeff discovered a 30 year old bug on System 2, which required rewiring some of the original relays! Today the ROM got to the sections where “East meets East” (the part where the loops close electrically), at which point the wiring of the ROM stopped. Jeff and Alvar then tested 143 different routes around the ROM to be sure that everything worked. June 28In the mean time we can announce the first presentation in the club room, which occurred March 27th 1998. Also, on April 30th 1998 we held another presentation, of smaller magnitude, for a group of visiting alumni. We hope to announce more of these presentations as time goes by. June 29Today the web version of the Building 20 presentation was added to the web-site. The presentation on the web-site is almost a true copy of the original, without animations. You can access it directly, or first read about it in the page “TMRC @ MIT’s Building 20”, or through our live video presentation page. June 30Jeff designed the next additions to the “ROM” in The System that reflects which block follows which block through which switch (if any). This included the double throw switch, which will be possible to wire using only System 2! John McNamara continued work on roundhouse restoration - all of the roof girders have been extended and work on the flooring is about to begin. Andy Miller continued painting the “50th Anniversary” box cars and showed off the completed Building 20 time capsule cars. They look great! There will be a photo session for these cars on Saturday, July 4, 1998. This is the only scheduled photo session for the cars, but copies of pictures will be posted on the web soon after. We expect to have the car go into the time capsule early next week. John Purbrick continued the process of adding track feeder connections between the under-layout barrier strips and the rails. Andy Miller, John Purbrick, Joe Onorato, John Shriver, and Alvar Saenz-Otero (in various combinations) consulted at some length about the trolley layout plan and a solution amenable to all was agreed upon. Alvar then worked on the layout structure that will support the Gifford City station. This makes Gifford City extend fully across the width of the layout, all the way from East to West! Full plans for the replacement of a piece of plywood near the turntable with a larger piece are now ready. The new plywood will provide space for the trolley turning loop.
May 5Ishak and John M continued work on converting the P-yard switches to Tortoise machines. Andy Miller did some more work on the new P-yard platforms. Jeff Birkner did some electrical work, and John P worked on the “newspaper plant” siding. May 12John M installed another Tortoise switch machine in P-yard and John P worked on some new concepts in resistive wheelsets. Ben FrantzDale stopped by for a five minute visit to supervise our work. May 26John M constructed an additional area of plywood behind the roundhouse so that the roundhouse stalls that were shortened to fit into the old clubroom can now be extended to full length. This will be a long term project, as the floor has to be extended, some new rear walls constructed, interior roof trusses extended, and new rear-section roofing installed. Andy worked on bridge supports for a North Shore project and did additional work on our P-yard platforms. John P constucted, in rough form, a new bridge over the main line. This bridge is the second of two bridges across the main line that connect the Gifford City trolley loop area with other sections of the city located in imaginary space where the viewers are standing. It is immediately adjacent to the produce terminal building that John has been mocking up over the past few weeks. Alvar led a discussion amongst all present concerning the next steps in tower construction. The current tower consists of a 6 foot diameter circular floor located about five feet in the air and surrounded by two loops of track. It is anticipated that a drum-like structure roughly 18 inches greater in diameter will surround most of the tower enclosing the loops and also forming the exterior of the area where operators sit. Various methods of attaching this structure to the present structure were discussed, as were details about the countertop upon which operators will place their M-boards and Coca-cola cans. The new design is quite a bit different than that discussed by Joe Onorato on 14 April.
April 4Work continued on Gifford city. The last of the platform extensions were build by Andy Miller, and the street layout is now under way. Meanwhile Jeff Birkner, Dick Lord, and James Knight worked hard to get power to the layout in the center of the room. April 7Additional wiring was added under the tower. A cardboard mockup was made for the street layout in the Gifford City station area. Work began on the sidings for the produce center and the newspaper plant, two industries which will be just outside the boundaries of P-yard. Two pictures were added to the page: “LayoutL” and “LayoutR”. Both are shots from the tower taken on March 24, 1998. “LayoutL” shows the turntable and belongs to the left of the one that shows the Gifford City buildings (“LayoutR”). There are two loops around the tower. A train leaving Gifford City curves around the buildings in LayoutR and proceeds left into LayoutL passing the entrance to the turntable. The train then passes around the upper loop and returns to Gifford City (LayoutR) on tracks parallel to those it just used. If the train then passed through Gifford City, it would pass down the left side of LayoutL and drop down to the lower loop around the tower, passing under the roundhouse. It would then return to Gifford City (LayoutR) on tracks parallel to those it just used.
March 3As a result of much work last weekend by Alvar, Jeff Birkner, James Knight, Alan Kotok, Tim McNerney, John McNamara, John Purbrick and others, plus work since then by John Purbrick, plus some additional work this evening, TNP engine #2415 (which decommisioned the Building 20 layout) pulled a two car consist around Phase I of the new layout. The exact time is contained in James Knight’s FLASH message. FLASH: The first train successfully ran around the temporary loop of Phase 1 at 9:25PM 3/3/98 amid rounds of cheering. Power distribution was via block feeders powered from a heavy gauge common feeder operated by a power pack. The next steps are to install some separate blocks and a switch throwing system, plus (of course) some scenery!). March 7This weekend was dedicated mostly to S\&P as Jeff, James, Howard, and Alvar went under the layout and prepared 25 pairs of 14ga wire to serve as the power feeders for the tracks. Jeff and James also worked on figuring out the best scheme to divide the layout into blocks so that it works with both System 2 and System 3. Meanwhile Bill continued to work on the ping-pong track and the mainline sidings after that. He prepared two blocks to serve as the stand for a soon to appear bridge from Gifford City. March 10Alvar built up the ballast slopes on the “ping-pong” track where needed and added ballast. The ping-pong track will be ready for operation by on-lookers standing in the hall after 1) a control system is added, 2) a scenic backdrop is added, and 3) the cover over the viewing window is removed. John M retrieved the roof panels of the roundhouse from storage. We will probably buy a set of three stalls of Heljan roundhouse to obtain some added parts we need in the new location. John M, John P, and Alvar discussed the redesign that will be necessary at the rear of the roundhouse in its new location. The central stalls that used to go up against a wall will now go up against a hillside that will blend into the backdrop that surrounds the tower. Jeff, James, Tim, and John P discussed the connection of the current layout to the proposed electronic switch throwing system and (on an interim basis) to (existing) System 2. It is likely that all blocks, including those within P-yard, will be connected to System 2, and that switch kludges will be used in those situations where very short blocks and/or “swing blocks” are required. It is unlikely that the the P-yard control system will be resurrected in its previous form, although some of its relays might be used to control the elaborate P-yard entrance trackage. March 14A lot of work occured this Saturday! John Purbrick installed the electronics of the turntable and successfully tested its operation. Ben FrantzDale and John McNamara installed a switch off the mainline and into the turntable; the turn table is now accessible! Alvar installed the Tortoise switch machine for that switch and another switch at the West end of P-yard. Bill Onorato continued work on the bridge that will go above the East exit of Gifford P-yard. Howard worked on the track that is missing on the ping-pong track. Prof. Hidetoshi Katsuma worked on another section of track missing in a spur on the West end of P-yard. John McNamara began restoration work on the back of the roundhouse. Jeff Purbrick installed a power cord that powers up System 2’s track power when “Power Goes On”. Then the meeting occured! During the business meeting the members present voted on not keeping some of the old layout pieces any more; and keeping the one with most scenery and dense switch work. After these decisions were made (and the meeting was adjourned) major re-organization of the room occured. Jeff and Alvar worked until late to clean up all the ‘back’ of the room. The painting area was completely revamped; the table was moved to be at the back of the room, as far as possible from the nice shelves. A metal cabinet was provided where all the painting materials are to be stored . The connections to the compressor were fixed to the painting table so that they won’t move any more. After the painting area was cleaned up, the remaining layout parts were compacted again; the womb-boxes were all stacked together, and the lumber was reorganized so that the 3/4in plywood pile can be accessed directly from the front. Finally the S\&P area was straightened up and the tables were cleaned. March 17John M worked on the roundhouse restoration, and John P added some trackside toggles to control his double crossover and the access switch for the turntable. Jeff, James, and Mike worked on some computer wiring projects, and Andy painted some models. March 21Today an important decision on the future of the layout was made when John McNamara, Andy Miller, and Howard discussed, and came with a concensus, on the location of the ladder up to the tower. The ladder was built and positioned approximately at the ‘south-west’ side of the tower (when using the orientation of New Gifford City as reference). The ladder is extremely sturdy, slightly slanted, and has a platform at the same level as the floor of the tower, which connects the ladder and the tower in a safe manner. John McNamara also continued to work on the roundhouse. Meanwhile John Purbrick worked on a method to use the tortoise machines with the old-style switches. This ‘hack’ makes it quite simple to replace the old 48v and 24v switch machines with the new 12v, slow motion, continuous force tortoise switch machines. Jeff Birkner and Alvar Saenz worked hard for several hours on the old D-board. With the help of others they were able to raise it and the D-board now sits happily above the long hallway window (the D-board is 12’ long; so is the window!). Jeff later worked on the clock. At 1:23am TMRC time, the D-board clock came to life again! Alvar was able to borrow a computer from MIT EECS for this week. Ben FrantzDale and Alvar worked on the new PC for many hours until, thanks to Ben, we were able to do a test live internet broadcast from the club to the rest of the world! This computer will be used Friday March 27th to transmit the first official run of the Aaron Burr around the Phase 1 loop. March 24John Purbrick worked on a control panel for the turntable control pad and the turntable turnout control. He also worked on a siding switch for a new industry to be located near the P-yard throat. Bill Onorato and John McNamara worked on salvaging scenery from one of the old Berkmanville modules. Jeff, James, and Alvar worked on a number of projects associated with the upcoming old/new TMRC presentation that will be part of the Building 20 retrospective this friday. These included electronics to control the ping-pong track, painting the clock cable that runs to the recently re-installed D-board, and mounting the power movie screen that will be used in conjunction with a video projector, high speed computer, network link, and other high tech goodies associated with Friday’s presentation. March 27“TMRC - the future.” A presentation for MIT’s Building 20 TMRC took part in the ceremony “MIT’s Building 20 : the Magical Incubator”, by MIT’s EECS Department, by holding a special presentation in the clubroom. The presentation “TMRC - the future” included information on the move out of Building 20, and the club’s plan for the new layout in N52-118. During this presentation the club held the first official run of the Aaron Burr around Phase 1 of the new layout. The presentation was broadcast live over the Internet, and a copy of the broadcast has been saved for everyone to watch. For all the information on the broadcast, including a link to the saved video, go to TMRC’s live-web cast page. March 28The presentation Friday was a success! Approximately 30 people, mostly MIT alumni and administrators/faculty, attended the presentation. The talk included information on the ‘phases’ in which the layout is being built, System 3, the “Big Move”, and the internet in the future of TMRC. The presentation was broadcast live over the internet, and a copy of it is available in our Live-webcast page. This presentation included the first official run of the Aaron Burr around Phase 1 and a demonstration of the ping-pong track fully operational. Work did continue Saturday night, since we obviously have a lot more to do. John Purbrick worked on Aaron Burr’s locomotive (2415) to improve its performance. Bill Onorato continued to work on the sidings and bridge at the far east end of (new) Gifford City. Then John, Bill, and Andy Miller began to unpack more buildings out of the old layout to start work on the design of (new) Gifford. After some discussion the need for a good plan (scale drawing) was recognized, so that everybody can agree of what is to become of one of the largest landmarks of the new layout. Ben FrantzDale enjoyed the equipment from EECS for a few more hours by creating a new short video of a ‘cabs-eye level’ view of a locomotive entering the turntable, turning around, and then going into the roundhouse. It will soon be posted in the web-page for people to enjoy! Alvar, for once, dedicated his time only to supervision, as any good governor would :-) March 31Work continued on an industrial siding switch just east of P-yard. A toe-shield was added to the tower ladder to prevent cruft from getting onto the tracks that encircle the tower. Specifications for a switch and signals receiver card were developed. Current plans are for the existing System2 to be used for track power administration until System3 is ready. However, track switches and trackside signals will step immediately into the electronic age via a data bus that will send commands to switch and signals receiver cards that each serve eight switches. Spare cards, to used for future phases of the layout, will be used temporarily to supply System2 with track switch position information so that it can route power appropriately.
February 3As trains leave P-yard heading for the lower loop around the tower (see last week’s photo), they will pass over a two track bridge over a river, through a double crossover, and into the trackwork approaching the lower tower loop. This Tuesday evening, John M worked on a temporary version of the bridge, John P worked on the crossover, and James and Alvar worked on the switches and trackwork approaching the loop. February 7On Saturday, James, Jeff, and Howard removed the bottom structure of the roundhouse area so that it can be moved into place above the loop switchwork now being completed. This is scheduled for either next Saturday or Tuesday 2/17. February 10For all parties concerned, this Tuesday evening was a continuation of work done last Tuesday evening (and last Saturday). John M worked on a temporary version of the first bridge, completing one track of the two planned. John P worked on the crossover, and Alvar worked on the switches and trackwork approaching the loop. All switches and track necessary for the loop trackwork are now in house and nearly complete. Tim, James, and John P also had additional design discussion for the Club’s new electronic systems. February 17The turntable and roundhouse area from the old layout was moved into a proposed position at about 3 am last Sunday morning. Tonight, Alvar, James, and John M worked on a support structure that will be useful for it and for the surrounding trackwork. The final position of the turntable and roundhouse area depends upon the following factors: 1. the grade of the mainline in approaching the area - the clearance underneath the area, as there are tracks running beneath a portion of it - the relationship of the roundhouse to the scenic backdrop that will surround the nearby tower structure John Purbrick worked on his double crossover, which is well more than 50% complete. Jeff Birkner worked on adding track feeders to the blocks around the tower loop. February 21 Early on Saturday (around 3pm) Alvar began to cleanup the layout area of the room and making more workspace. All the front half of the room is now clean and the layout itself is clear of tools or other undesirable objects. John McNamara helped, later on, sweep the floor so that the clenaup was complete. Andy Miller worked on laying the last curve of track out of P-yard, which goes to the second track over the river. Prof. Hidetoshi Katsuma helped with this later on. John Purbrick completed the trackwork in his double crossover switch - a great pice of work! Joe Onorato worked on finishing two switches coming out of P-yard. At this point the last parts missing to end the ‘West’ end of P-yard are : the second track of the bridge and a switch connecting tracks 2 and 3 of the yard. Then Bill Onorato, John McNamara, and Alvar Saenz Otero figured out the final position for the turntable and have fixed it in place. The roundhouse and turntable, therefore, are all set. With this done it was determined that the height for the temporary loop was go be 45.5” to the bottom of the plywood. With this information the loop section was build and put in place. The plywood is there for 3/4 of the loop, with the only part missing being the one tha connects the turntable to the loop. This need further analysis to make as much permament work as possible. After this work was done Alvar built the door to cover the back of the DC breaker panel. Once this was done he took a ‘Governor Priviledge’ and, after compiling previous input from members, decided to work on the old D-Board. The D-board was reconfigured so that the Clock can be easily accessed from the front, and therefore it can be saved and installed directly to the wall. February 24Jeff added some more block feeders. James, Tim, Joe, and Alvar added a piece of plywood which connects the main part of the layout with the newly positioned turntable/roundhouse scene. Two more pieces, each about 4’ 8” long, are needed to connect this new piece with the second-deck loop that Alvar constructed around the tower Saturday night / Sunday morning. When these two pieces are added, all the plywood for Phase I layout construction will be in place. The general plan is that a train will be able to run loop-to-loop “great circle route” over the Phase I trackage by March 27th, the MIT Building 20 celebration day. In addition to the above work, John M completed the second track over the temporary western bridge across the river. The eastern bridge will go where the plywood was installed this evening. Immediately adjacent to the just completed bridge, John P has completed a marvelous double crossover complete with four new Tortoise switch machines. February 28First and most incredible of all: Today, thanks to the work of John Shriver, Jeff, and Ben, a locomotive ran from one end of the track to another, through P-yard, around the bottom loop, and back up! This was possible also thanks to John Pubrick and Tim who worked on getting the very last switch in the p-yard area working. In summary, all of P-yard is ready to go, and work now continues at the other end of Gifford City. Meanwhile a lot more work was done. All the plywood needed for Phase I is in place! It has been fixed with risers, leveled, and put together. Howard, James, Jeff and Alvar helped to get his done! Phase I is soon to be completed as far as construction goes, S\&P and SceneComm will soon have lots and lots of work. This new plywood now also has all the necessary lattice stock for roadbed. It was decided that the temporary track around the loop did not need roadbed, so James layed the track down, later on helped by Jeff. The roadbed goes on until the curve of the loop starts.
January 13John Purbrick demonstrated the switch-throwing capabilities of his electronic control system (“System 3”) using a roll of 100 feet of twisted-pair ribbon cable. A stall-motor Tortoise switch machine was used in the demo. The temporary use of ribbon cable conductors for power distribution provided a slighty too “soft” power source, but otherwise things worked well. John also began work on a double crossover that will be a few feet beyond the west end of P-yard. John McNamara continued the work that Ben FrantzDale has started on Saturday, i.e. installing more flextrack on the subroadbed that Ben had completed around the tower. Speaking of Saturday, Bill Onorato and James Knight installed the support system for the first river on that day, and Jeff Birkner and James installed the cable tray from the System to the layout. Another Tuesday completion of Saturday work involved Joe Onorato making more progress on some trackwork that Bill Onorato has added to P-yard. Joe also turned up some of the other trackwork. January 20Jeff Birkner and James Knight installed the old circuit breaker panel under the new tower on Saturday (or more precisely, Sunday morning) and more work was done on it tonight. Power cables from the new John P power supply have been run through the James/Jeff power tray to the circuit breaker panel, so electrons will soon be flowing under the new layout. Work is continuing on the trackwork for P-yard and the approaches thereto. This includes a new double crossover that will be located five or ten feet west of the yard. John P is building the double crossover out-of-place on a board to which a computer-plotted diagram of the trackwork has been glued. When it is all soldered together, he will remove the spikes and install it in place. A slight amount of work was done to continue the Ben FrantzDale / Bill Onorato / John McNamara Saturday efforts on the track loops which will encircle the new tower. Additional planning details for that area are needed. A new Grizzly band saw (weight 45 Kg) has arrived for use in cutting roadbed more expeditously. It was transported from East Campus, unpacked, installed, and tested this evening. January 27Some clean-up work was done to remove the accumulated sawdust from Saturday’s work. Work was done on another P-yard switch, and additional flex-track was added in the loops around the tower. This photo, taken December 16th, shows a new two-person tower (more may be built) and a turning loop around it. Most of the loop area shown as bare plywood now has track on it. A second loop will be added above the one shown. The tracks in the lower right corner of the picture are the P-yard loop tracks shown in the previous pictures. When the second tower loop has been added, a train will be able to traverse one tower loop, come over through the P-yard loop at lower right, and return to traverse the other tower loop. This will provide so-called Phase 1 operation of the new layout, hopefully in time for a Spring Open House.
December 2Tim McNerney worked on track at the West end of P-yard while John Purbrick added more ballast and worked on track in the 105th street area a few feet east of P-yard. John McNamara and Alvar Saenz-Otero secured the additional 2x8s and bridging that Alvar had installed in the tower this morning. The tower floor will be a six foot diameter circle of 3/4 inch plywood supported by 2x8s on one foot centers. John, Alvar, and Kevin Burleigh constructed three 30x38 inch panels which were added between the legs of the tower to provide dimensional stability for the legs and to provide a means of anchoring the tower to the floor. With the assistance of Jeff Birkner, the tower was positioned in its proper location and secured to the floor with concrete anchors. This will provide the basis for subsequent construction of the tower superstructure and for the turning loops that will provide Phase 1 loop-to-loop operation. December 9Last Saturday, Jeff, James, and Howard Gorin installed the 3/4 inch plywood floor in the new tower. It looks great! The support structure for the tower will be surrounded by track loops whose inner diameter is 6 feet (circumference 18.8 feet). The four corners of the tower support structure will provide support points for the loops - one every 4.7 feet. This evening, John Purbrick and John McNamara began work to add four additional support points for the loops, cutting the support distances to 2.3 feet on the average. During the second half of the evening, John P devoted his attention to track work (yet another switch), while John M, Jeff, and James began enclosing one of the columns near the middle of the room. This enclosure will not only hide an ugly drain pipe, it will also provide support for a cable tray coming from the System and will provide a path for cables to drop from the overhead cable tray to layout level. Mike Newman worked on upgrading our computers to make them more compatible with the NetPhone system his company is donating. December 16John Purbrick worked on switches and Jeff Birkner painted the column enclosure that he, James Knight, and Alvar Saenz-Otero constructed on Saturday. This enclosure hides an ugly pipe beside one of the columns near the center of the room, provides a support point for the cable tray coming over from The System, and provides an out-of-sight cable route to get cables down from the tray to under the layout. Saturday’s work included benchwork construction for the first of two loops around the tower. These loops will provide initial loop-to-loop layout operation. Here is a scanned draft copy of the layout plan. December 23There were no regular Tuesday evening work sessions during the winter break.
November 4 This evening’s major project was discussion of a tower. For those not familiar with the layout as it stands, the following piece of ASCII-art may be useful: ``` ________ / P-yard \ / \
_____
West
/ \ GC
East
/
loop
\
\ \ \ / XX
October 7 More ties were cut, installed, sanded, stained, and ballasted. Rail installation on the new P-yard loop began. October 14 James Knight and John McNamara re-installed the buildings that used to surround the Gifford City trolley loop. They have been installed in a fashion that will be convenient for removal during wire work. It’s great to see buildings appearing in Gifford City again! Bill Onorato and Joe Onorato resolved some issues about future routing of the trolley line. Bill installed a plywood base and lattice stock for extending P-yard track 3 as an additional through track rather than the stub it used to be. Joe Onorato and John Purbrick installed additional rail and the beginnings of a switch on the new track at the East end of P-yard. James Knight created some additional ties for this area. Alvar Saenz-Otero did additional ballasting on the gap created by the 18-inch expansion in the center of P-yard. About half the P-yard through tracks are complete and the rest are now ready for rail. Jon Reed and John McNamara constructed lattice stock roadbed for some of the tracks at the West end of P-yard. October 21 John Purbrick worked on some new switches on the “East End” of P-yard where it formerly connected with F-yard. Trackage is being re-arranged there to provide a slightly different “freight bypass” track to go around P-yard. James Knight and John McNamara laid additional ties. As our new Treasurer, James also serviced the Coke machine, which seems to be gaining customers in its location just outside the clubroom door. Many thanks to Alvar Saenz-Otero for securing the permissions necessary to re-establish this important source of revenue. October 22 This picture is similar to the picture taken August 19, 1997, except that * the Gifford City buildings have returned to their position within the trolley loop * ties, ballast, and some rail have appeared in the foreground * plywood has been added at the far end of the picture. October 28Last Saturday, a J-shaped piece of 3/4 inch plywood was added to the West end of the layout and supported by saw horses. This piece will carry the mainline across a canal and into a tunnel which will run under the roundhouse. At tonight’s work session, work began on a permanent support structure for this portion. A 48-inch long, 32-inch high wodden panel of 2x4 and 3/8-inch plywood construction was bolted to the floor underneath the J-shaped section. As with other parts of the layout, this will support a 1x4 construction above which small 1x2 uprights of adjustable height will support the layout. The section of old F-yard that contained the turntable and roundhouse was severed to retain only the portion containing the turntable and roundhouse. This section was mounted on temporary stilts at placed at approxiamately its new location in accordance with the Onorato/Onorato/Miller plan. John Purbrick continued work on a new switch at the East end of the passenger yard. Alvar and Jon worked on a new change box.
September 2Jeff and Jonathan completed the wiring of track feeders between The System and the new terminal board (which will provide the ability of The System or System 3 to power the tracks). The next step is construction of ceiling mounted cable trays to distribute track power wiring to the layout. John McNamara and Joe Onorato, with the assistance of Howard Gorin and George Mitchell (TMRC alum visiting from Washington State), added substantial quantities of track underlayment for the curve at the exit of P-yard. This underlayment continues to a small suburban platform about 10 linear feet from the end of P-yard. Joe Onorato redesigned the switch alignments for this area to improve their build-ability. The next step is beveling the edges of the underlayment where required, and the creation of drainage ditches between the tracks using wood putty filler. After that, ties can be laid. September 9 Jon Reed completed the spiking of the second through track in the expanded P-yard, and with the assistance of John Shriver cut down some more wires on the System wiring distribution panel. John Purbrick, with the assistance of Joe Onorato and John McNamara, mounted a Signals and Power reference materials cabinet (that had been on the S\&P desk) above the desk so as to provide more desk space. September 16John Purbrick brought in his new -48, -24 power supply all neatly packaged. All parts are mounted except for the terminal strips, and the internal wiring is about 1/4 completed. He and Alvar will work on it later this week. James Knight installed additional rails across the 18-inch addition in the middle of P-yard. John McNamara added to the stock of pre-cut ties. September 23John Purbrick brought in his new power supply, which supplies -24 and -48 in sufficient quantity to operate “The System”. The power supply also provides some additional voltages. After an initial no-load power-on test conducted by John P and John M, it was decided that a load test should be performed. What better load than The System? Two System circuit breakers popped, and The System behaved somewhat strangely. Jeff arrived, and with the assistance of Howard and Alvar, found three problems: * a cab was needed (Jeff finished wiring Cab 1) * two wires were touching in the lower portion of the jack field (they had been pushed together by a cable bundle during transport) * there was a short at the minor alarm bell, where the process of moving had rotated some parts into electrical contact. After about 1.5 hours work, AT 9:57 PM EDT ON 09/23/97, THE TMRC SYSTEM CAME TO LIFE AT ITS NEW LOCATION AND RAN A “J-TRAIN” VIA THE MOVEMENT OF PLUGS IN THE PATCHFIELD. THE SYSTEM LIVES!! Of perhaps even greater import, on Saturday 9/20, Alvar Saenz-Otero appointed a committee consisting of Andy Miller, Bill Onorato, Joe Onorato, and John Purbrick to produce an agreed-upon Phase II plan for Club approval on Saturday 9/27. They met at Andy’s house last night and have achieved that goal! September 30The new Purbrick power supply has been enhanced with a protective plastic plate over the high voltage terminals and a contactor to turn the unit on and off. The new power supply was mounted on the wall near The System and Jeff ran neater power wiring between it and The System. Since this unit is very quiet, Jeff and James installed an indicator light on end of The System to indicate when power is on. It is the same 3-light “beehive indicator” that was used in 20E-214. Mike Newman brought in and installed a NetPhone PBX-on-a-board. It has a total capacity of 6 trunks and 18 phones and seems to work very well. The only drawback is that it requires tone phones rather than rotary dial phones. We also need to accommodate access to dial switch-throwing somehow, but we’re sure the system can be programmed for that. Howard Gorin added some ties to the mainline track exiting P-yard. About six feet has had the ties installed / sanded, ties stained, and ballast added.
August 12This is the first posting of the progress report! Using the construction standards developed by Alvar and Joe, and the resulting construction plan drawn by Alvar, benchwork foundation pieces have been installed for all of the new “P-yard loop”. These include space for Coke (R) storage near the machine :) Horizontal 1x4’s and with vertical 1x2’s to support the layout pieces have been installed for the restored portions of P-yard and the Gifford City trolley loop. The coach yard end of P-yard has been trimmed to size and secured into position. A piece of plywood about 18 inches wide has been added between the two pieces of P-yard to provide longer platforms per Andy Miller’s suggestion. Lattice stock for subroadbed has been added to connect the two pieces. At the block 45/46 end of the yard, a new piece of plywood has been installed to begin the loop portion of the “P-yard loop”. Some questions remain concerning the exact height of this. These will need to be resolved with Bill on Saturday. Due to the construction methods used, height adjustment will be a simple matter. In addition, various boxes were moved about to provide access to one of the long tables for use as a work surface, and Andy Miller has commissioned the new compressor and fume venting system in preparation for some painting. On the S\&P front, the old P-yard control system was connected, powered-on, and tested last Saturday. It works! The plywood panel for the terminal blocks that connect The System and System3 to the layout has been completely installed. A sample set of telephone punch-down terminal blocks has been installed. At last night’s session, a cable trough from The System to the terminal board was installed and cables placed onto it. The TMRC lantern, now equipped with a higher wattage bulb, has been installed outside the clubroom in a position where it shines brightly down two corridors. Also, Alvar has created new inserts for the MIT-provided room identification panels which hang beneath the room numbers. These feature the new logo and look sharp! August 19Below is a picture of TMRC taken Tuesday night, August 19, 1997 In the background of the picture, John Purbrick is installing ties on an 18 inch section that has been added to the middle of P-yard. Behind him is some Masonite which is covering a viewing window that allows passersby in the hall to see into the clubroom. The fresh plywood in the foreground is logically equivalent to the loop that went past F-yard (which will be elsewhere). The gray (sort-of) square is the Gifford City trolley loop, which will eventually be surrounded by buildings, much as it was before. This picture shows about 20% of the room; the other 80% is full of “stuff”. August 20Howard Gorin and Jeff Birkner worked on punching down System wiring connections on the new terminal block panel and other miscellaneous System-related tasks. Joe Onorato and John McNamara installed the final mounting supports for pieces of plywood at the end of the Block 45/46 end of P-yard. These begin the loop portion of the “P-yard loop”. One of these pieces was initially installed last Tuesday and one was initially installed on Saturday. Final height of the related Gifford City trolley loop and the exact shape of the next piece to be installed both await inputs from Bill Onorato on this coming Saturday. John Purbrick continued the tie-laying in P-yard that was begun by Bill Onorato last Saturday. These ties are located on the 18-inch expansion piece recently installed in the middle of P-yard. It is hoped that one through track may be available for Midway, but that the others will be left unfinished to provide a hands-on project for the Freshmen. Alvar Saenz-Otero brought in some new graphics for use at the Midway, and selected photos from John McNamara’s collection to add to those he has selected from Jeff Birkner’s collection. These will be used in a photo display. The final displays in the TMRC window will use some of these plus prints from some of James VanBokkelen’s slides. Alvar, Jeff, and John M also unpacked and selected some locomotives and cars for use in the switching layout at the Midway. Since there is a chance a through route in P-yard will be functional, part of the Aaron Burr consist that closed the old layout on 4/26 was unearthed for a possible inaugural run on the new layout. John Purbrick demonstrated a program which incorporates both his previous program of a “red train” and a “green train” traversing the old layout, and his F-yard throat signal bridge displaying the three-head signal indications generated by the “red train” and “green train”. It was suggested this be taken to the Midway. August 26At the clubroom, John McNamara and Michael Leganita raised the Gifford City trolley loop a few inches, and Bill Onorato taught Mike Leganita and Jonathan Reed all of the various steps in track laying. (Jonathan and Alvar has also done some track work the night before.) Thanks to the efforts of Bill and new members Mike Leganita and Jonathan Reed (plus previous work by Alvar, Jeff, and others), an historic event occurred: On Tuesday night, August 26, 1997, four months to the day from the decommissioning of the old layout, a short Aaron Burr consist using the same locomotive (#2415) and two of the Burr cars traversed the new expanded P-yard. As of midnight, Jeff Birkner and two new members were working on returning switches on the Switch 44 end of the yard (beyond the exapnsion section) to operating condition. Obviously, tonight’s activities were the result of a great deal of effort by many people, and the Club owes them all a great deal of thanks!