This is the Asphalt product from Heki, same stuffed used on the road.  Mocked up the placement of the roads at GERN Industries. I need to order another large sheet roll to finish the area in front of the distribution building.

Picked up some $3 sheets from Wal-Mart to use has a under-the-bench valence to hide the all the clutter on the bookshelves.  Simple and effective.  Now to just clear the clutter on the desk

And I don’t think I posted pics before but I painted my other GERN buildings a few weekends ago.

Started to work on the first road on the layout.  This is the road crossing the mainline along the Dixie River on the lower level.

I came across a product by Heki called Insta-road and decided to order some to see what it was.  It’s basically a thin piece of foam appropriately colored with a VERY sticky backing (ie: don’t let it accidentally touch something, cause it ain’t coming up).  If you get real up close and stare at it, you can see it’s a piece of foam, but standing out in the aisle where you’d normally be it actually looks pretty good. I cut some thin sheets of styrene to the correct shape and I applied the road to that for a nice flat surface I can super glue later to the foam bed.

I hand painted the strips with some paint pens.  I actually liked how it turned out. The foam texture I think gives it a good weathered appearance.  I messed up on the spacing on the upper piece and tried to fix the best I can with a double strip. I may eventually go back and redo it.

The road crossing is a Rubber Road Crossing from BLMA. I need to paint it black first before installing.

Here’s some pictures of the mock up.

Finished up wiring the first SIGM20 board in the panel.  Next step is to install some signals on the layout and connect those to a RJ11 Junction box.

The first level of the helix has taken shape.  Here’s the basic rundown of how I’m constructing it:

1. Insert helix slates into each support to construct a single level.
2. Using some sectional track, install a test loop just to test out the level.
3. One support at time, glue the slates to inside support only with gorrilla wood glue.  This allows me to remove the outer support to make inserting the next level’s slates easier.
4. Install roadbed material. I’m using foam as I can apply in one continuous piece easily through the whole the level.
5. Install track. Attached to roadbed with silicone caulk. All railjoiners will be soldered, and every other railjoiner will be a terminal feeder.
6. Repeat process for next level

I’m out of roadbed material I found so I’ve got an order in for some more, so it’ll probably end of the week or early next when I can go through and finish the first level to continue. But so far so good.

And just a shot of my signals I got the other week. I’ve started doing some of the wiring on the wiring panel for the hardware to run these.

After a delay, I finally got to work this weekend on doing prep work on the helix components before starting construction.

As previously mentioned, I’m using a kit from Ashlin Trains for my helix. This saves me the hassle of cutting all my own circular parts and supports, etc… since I don’t have the needed the tools. The one problem I’ve found though is some of the slots in the support columns are just a hair to small for the circular pieces. You can probably push and wiggle them in, but it can a be hassle and you risk breaking something.

So I grabbed some metal files from the toolbox and started filing away at the upper opening in each slot that needs a little widening. This leaves me a nice sized slot that lets the circular pieces easily slide in for gluing later.

I’ve also received my order of signals from Custom Signals Systems for the layout and they look fantastic! I can’t wait to get them hooked up. Of course, I still need to finish the wiring panel for logic hardware. I’ll probably get around to that in a few weeks once the helix done.

I decided to go ahead and redo my helix to a double track helix using an Ashlin Designs kit.

I’ve also started work on the 2nd wiring panel. My lower level signals will be arriving in a couple days so I need to get the control system for that in place.  Here’s the SIGM20 with some RJ11 jack ready for installation and wiring to each other.

Otherwise, not much progress going on lately. Being busy with side projects and playing with my other hobby, r/c cars.

Sorry for the low-res pics. Camera is in the shop for repair at the moment.

Over past few months I’ve been doing research and looking at a variety of N-scale signal companies to find ones that look prototypical, good quality, and reasonably priced. In the end, I settled for and purchased 4 brands for a hands on look. Those are:

Atlas
South Bend Signals
Single Track Hobbies
Custom Signal Systems

Atlas G-Type Signals

First up on our list is the relatively new signal line from Model Railroad Manufacturer Atlas.

When these signals first came out I wasn’t too fond of the style, mainly cause I liked the searchlight style more, but they eventually grew on me. So I thought I’d give them a try.

These signals are well built, are in good supply, have nice clean details, and has a nice plug-n-play style system for running them. I’m not using their system though. One thing I liked about these signals is related to how I’m wiring my signal system. Atlas uses RJ-11 jacks/connectors for connecting everything, which also just happens to be my planned method for wiring signals and turnouts. So this would make wiring a breeze. A simple RJ-11 coupler and my signal would be connected to the wire running back to the hardware.

I’m not sure what kind lighting is used in these signals, I’m assuming a custom made R/G/Y SMD considering the size of the target heads.

Wiring from the signal is pretty thin, and I’m always afraid I’m gonna break a wire from moving it too much. All the wires are connected directly to connectors, so no soldering or anything is involved. It’s all plug-n-play.

Atlas offers Single target, double target, and bi-direction target. Check your LHS, modeltrainstuff.com, and ebay for prices as it will vary between retailers.

I highly recommend these signals if you don’t mind the G-Type target style.

These signals… well… not so good. While the price is right ($18.95 for a double target), the signals are grossely overscale as you can see in the pictures. Even just looking at them and knowing they should be n-scale, you’ll know right off the bat they are huge. Design is very simple with some basic details.

SMD are used for the lightning and resistors are included. Signal looks good with no “point of origin” viewable.

STH offers Single Target, Double Target, Three Light Single Target, 3 over 2 light double target, along with single and double dwarf signals.

If you’re looking for a signal and not really concerned about the scale size or fine details, and just want something that operates on the cheap, these are for you. Otherwise, I’d suggest avoiding them.

Signal Track on the right, compared to a Pro-Tech signal.

From what I’ve read about these guys, they seemed to be like the Cadillac of signals. Hand-built highly detailed signals, and they are. These signals looks really good and very prototypical in scale.

SMD’s are used for lightning. Included with each signal is a circuit board with built-in resistors. Soldering the signal wires to this board is required and then wiring from your signal system is then soldering to the other side of the board.

I found the wiring used to be pretty thin, like the Atlas signals. they aren’t marked either so I’m not exactly sure which wire is for which target/color, other than the brown common wire.

The downside to these signals… the cost. A double target searchlight will cost you $36.50, and single target $34.50, making these the most expensive ones out there. Stop Light, Triple Targets and Dwarf signals are also available.

Last up we have Custom Signal Systems. Currently they only sell HO Scale signals on their site, but I’ve been working with Richard (the owner) as a guinea pig for developing an N-Scale signal after I inquired about it a few months ago. I was lucky enough to finally test that first made signal a few weekends ago.

The signal is top notch quality, with excellent details and prototypical scaled items. Of the 4 signals I bought, in my opinion I think this one has the cleanest workmanship. For example, the back of the targets are nice and clean with no real obvious wires running into the mast.

The signal came with a good gauge wire that didn’t make me feel like I was working with strands of hair. The wire length was also about 2′ in length, something that I loved as it makes doing wire connections so much easier. Give you a little breathing room. The double target I tested was a R/G over a R/Y, and the green and yellow wires were indicated with a piece of matching colored electrical tape. The signal target signal came with 1 red and 1 green colored wire.  The common positive wire in both was blue and hard to miss. It might be a little thing, but I appreciate this. A resistor can come pre-soldered as well.

Signal lighting is provided by SMDs, and they looked good from my initial test.

CSS is planning on offering single($25), double($30), triple targets($50), and dwarfs ($15). You also do custom requests, such as having signal targets installed on signal bridges (and even get the bridge built for you). He also offers complete custom made signal logic systems, Block Detection, and other services.

Richard has been great to work with (even just over email) on this project and I plan on purchasing all my searchlight targets from him.

If you’re looking to do install Searchlight Signals on your layout, I highly recommend dropping Richard an email.

Been a while since any updates so here’s the latest:

Finally, my order for plastic cement arrived this past Saturday so I was able to finish up some buildings.  These two will be added to the GERN complex. They’ll be painted the same color as the Craft building (the tan color).

I also got the crossing foundation and track installed and the foundation for the road on the lower level:

And then lastly, signals. I’ve been working with Richard at Custom Signal Systems on developing an N-Scale signal.  He’s done a great job building to-scale searchlight signals for a relatively good cost.  All of my signals will be done by Richard, including two double cantilever bridges for the lower level. Here’s some pics of the prototypes he sent me.

Just wanted to share the layout schematic I’m using to keep track of all of the Turnout DCC address, Block address, and Signal addresses.