Rebuilding a 4x8' N Scale Layout - Part 15

A bit late for the monthly update. I picked up some Woodland Scenics Fine Foliage at the local hobby shop to add some variety to the vegetation on the layout. I wasn't crazy about the first couple I put down but after a few more in I'm starting to like it. (They're the larger bushes on the layout).

I continued painting the middle hill on the canyon side after putting down a nice bit of sculptamold.

AK Terrains "Desert Soil" added after the paint had dried.

I finally got around to adding sculptamold to the inside of the canyon in the riverbed. Usually I would use hydrocal to blend the rock castings together but sculptamold is a bit thicker and there were some large gaps back here. Once painted it'll look alright as it's not directly in the line of sight for most viewing angles.

I decided I didn't like the painted area between the two castings here so I glued in a few small pieces of hydrocal rock and plan to blend the whole thing in with newly mixed hydrocal that I can carve, as I have on other castings on the layout.

I haven't done much on this end recently, but I have been trying to get some track issues sorted out here. There's a small rise in the curve (about center of the photo) that causes the occasional freight car to derail. I've cut into the foam to try to level it a bit, it's worked a little but I may need to cut more.

The rise is a bit more noticeable at "ground" level. It's where the two pieces of track connect.

Another Kato ES44 arrived, this is an older release from 10 or so years ago.

I've also had issues with locomotives derailing on the switch here. Normally you're supposed to have a straight piece of track between a curve and a turnout/switch to line up the wheels before they get to the diverging point. The section I used here doesn't seem to have any effect, though the inside main works just fine. I swapped out one Kato #6 turnout for another to see if that was the issue and it still kept causing derailments.

Now for the BIG update, or change. I've decided to go "digital" with the layout. I was fine with DC/Analog but DCC was too tempting and I decided to make the change. That means buying a ton of decoders like this one, one for every locomotive I want to run on this layout. Analog locomotives can run on a DCC layout, but it's not really good for them.

The difference between DC and DCC is that with DC, you place a locomotive (or two/three,whatever) on the track, turn on the power, add a bit of throttle, and all the engines move in the same direction at about the same speed. More locomotives will draw more power of course and cause others on the same track to slow. DCC works by having a controller send a signal to a decoder in a locomotive that tells it which direction to move, independent of any other locomotive that's on the same line. They can be paired together (known as MU-ing. MU = multiple unit) to run realistic consists. Locomotive lights can be turned on or off and generally don't flicker like they do with lower power on a DC controller. DCC also allows for sound though it's a bit expensive to add that to every locomotive.

Decoders nowadays are pretty simple thankfully. This particular one is a "drop in". You slide the original (DC) board out off the top of the frame. Add a little kapton tape below where the copper tabs go to connect with the motor tabs, so the decoder is insulated from the frame, and then you program it.

While buying a couple decoders at the hobby shop I decided to get something else to try out while waiting on more decoders to arrive. This is a Broadway Limited Imports ES44 painted for Norfolk Southern as their Southern heritage unit. It has lights (obviously) and sound, including the motor, horn and even crew chatter if you press a certain function on the DCC controller. One can also "record" movement to playback (if you wanted it to move forward and back in the yard with the bell for instance). It has a factory recording in it that one can try. Truly all the bells and whistles. It's also quite picky about having clean track, as the least amount of dirt will cause it to start/stop, so I've had to work on that.

One of my first decoder installs complete, lights on!

Going to DCC means I'll likely re-wire the layout. The mains are fine but I want to run feeder wires from the siding tracks on the yard side. I've been thinking about using these for that purpose. I can run a bus wire to one slot on one of these connectors while running wires to the tracks from the others. I have some Atlas red/black wire that is 16 AWG (lower number, larger wire) that would probably work great for this, Kato Unitrack feeder wire is 24 AWG, which is also suitable for this.

With the move to DCC it also means the Kato Unitrack signals had to come out, as they're not DCC compatible. I decided to put the other crossover back in and so far everything seems to be working well. With DC I had two controllers for this layout, one for each main. If I wanted to cross a train over I had to make sure both were on, set for the same direction at about the same speed. With DCC I no longer have to do that!

I also moved up the switch I had mentioned earlier in this post and shortened the siding in the foreground. This seems to have helped lessen the number of derailments to almost none, though I think the track rise on the other side leads to the occasional derailment here.

To round out the post for this month, some video! These units are both DCC. The Kato CSX SD70ACe I received as a gift from family, it had a decoder installed already so it was the test unit I used to re-learn the Digitrax controller I owned.

A second video with the two Kato SD90MACs I added decoders to. The camera seems to make them sound a little noisier than they are in person though one or two other decoder installs I've done have been a bit loud. I probably need to add a little oil to the internals. I've bought 9 more decoders since these first two and have installed a few so far, with one decoder being a possible dud unfortunately, but it happens. Most of my locomotive fleet needs the same kind of decoder so finding enough to install in all of them will take a bit of time. I'm going to try to get the western US stuff that fits on this layout done first (BNSF/UP) before doing the others. I haven't looked up how to add decoders to my Atlas locomotives, and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to do my ScaleTrains locomotives, they have a bunch of fine detail parts and I don't feel comfortable trying to take the shell off of those just yet.