Hi All, Would anyone here be able to help me get in touch with the T-trak club in Denton. TX? Their name is Denton Area Model Railroad Club. I have sent a few emails and have yet to receive any response.
I'm the primary admin of the Denton (DAMRRC) Club's Facebook page. I just sent a PM. Thanks for alerting us. I will check into why no one is checking our email. Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk
Well, the rebuild has begun. I just ordered a pair of singles and a double to replace my Qunit (double & triple) Inglenook Sidings module set. Going from 50 foot covered grain hoppers to 40 foot (39 foot) tank cars. Here is the plan with some placeholder buildings.
Looks good. I’m building one on a quad. Just out of curiosity where are you sourcing your modules? cheers, Ed
I was sourcing them from a club member previously but went with Masterpiece Modules this time. Several friends have built modules with Masterpiece Modules and like them. I was going to go with CMR to test them out but apparently they are sold out and are waiting on another delivery of Baltic Birch.
My first couple modules were from Masterpiece but I’ve been using CMR ever since. I was just wondering since CMR is out of wood. Thanks!
If you're planning to switch cars to and from that stub siding on the left-hand module, then you might want to consider adding another pair of switches/turnouts between the inner mainline and the adjacent sidetrack to enable the loco to run around its train.
Ok, some of you may have noticed I’m working on a Nightmare Before Christmas single module. Well I figured since it is T-Trak I would post my progress here. So I printed the graveyard and hill with my Ender 3 V2 with some colored filament and it turned out great… minus the fact that it’s 2 different and wrong colors, but hey, that’s what paint is for. I found some figurines for a reasonable price that were intended to be a cake topping and now I have the major pieces of this project. I also got some black filament, to I am recreating the graveyard in the correct color. I will be adding some dry brush highlights and painting the pumpkins . Here is the wrong color graveyard. Here is the black graveyard being printed… this takes almost 42 hours to print. Here is the figurine set, and the figures set out on the module. I have the fountain from the town square coming soon, that will also be on the module.
So, I have a few T-Trak projects in the works. Right now I have a show coming up and it will be my first show with the club I’m in. So time to shine… at least I hope I do… and I put to work on my Route 66 set. I got some more of the desert laid out, no bushes yet, and started on some balasting. The buildings in the “new” area of town are glued in and that unit is almost good to go. The middle triple is just about good as well. The old town part is still a WIP so not much new there. I did mount the old depot though. The roads will get their striped eventually. And if you have read the “Workbench” thread you already know about the kiddie layout from my club, but since it is T-Trak here it is here for all to see. Ok, ok I know it’s not much but the kids should love it. I am also going to make a “challenge coin” on my 3D printer for the kids that says they are a Junior Engineer which will be a little gift for their donation and something fun to take home with them. More on that later. And lastly, I bought a new train to let the kids run. I imagine there may be some fighting over this, I hope not, but kids love the little blue #1 very useful engine, so I bought one finally. Well that’s it for now, I will keep you posted on the coins and stuff as they develop.
So I just got back from my first show with my T-Trak club. It was great! I discovered that my modules which are wired BWBW are backwards to the club, so we had to make a couple modifications… no problem with Power Poles. I also have a red and yellow line but they only have red. Time to make an adaptor harness as I want to keep independent control for when I set up at home sometimes I like to run DC and DCC at the same time. Everyone there liked my suitcase command station with JMRI and I found out I can’t program a Big Boy on it… my programming track is too small. I am going to build a power management module, we don’t have one, but really could use one. I would have liked to have fit something like this in my case but there wasn’t enough room with everything else in there. Oh and maybe upgrade the computer to a Raspberry Pi 4, it has a 3 right now and sometimes it was a bit too slow. And the kiddie layout was a HUGE hit. I ended up buying a Thomas with Anne and Clarabel, and a Percy and 2 Troublesome Trucks. Kids loved playing with them and since top speed was still pretty slow, there was no issue with trains flying off the layout. all and all good show, I can’t wait for the next.
I’m working on my next module. It involves a couple vehicles, and some buildings. The buildings need to be 3D printed or fabricated and consist of some road cones, a few pistons, connecting rods and a giant air cleaner. It will be built on a triple module. Here is a pic of most of the vehicles for the layout.
So I got some work done tonight on my modules. During the last show there was some issues with trains stalling on my branchline module. I wasn’t there to troubleshoot the issue, the club removed the module from the layout and everything else worked fine. So I got it home tonight and got my meter out and sure enough there was an issue. My red line had continuity from the plug to the rail up until one point on the module, then the resistance shot through the roof… and same thing from the other side at the same point, just in the other direction. Lucky me, I have a bad rail joiner. Since these tracks are glued down already, I’m just going to solder the joint to improve the resistance issue. Next on the list was to build a wiring harness between the power manager box and the command station. This was simple enough, I had some wire already cut to about 6 feet and it just needed to be assembled. So I made the harness just like my others with the web wrap. I tested the PM42 and all works as planned… oh and I used the JMRI from the command station’s Raspberry Pi to program the PM42.
Stopped by a train show in Columbia, SC today and found a nice T-Trak layout set up. I'm an N Scaler, but don't know a lot about T-Trak and was really impressed by what I saw. Here are a few photos.
Curious... Do you hook up a monitor, keyboard and mouse to the R-Pi, or do you VNC into it from another computer/laptop? I just VNC into mine from my laptop, and only for programming or maintenance (installing SW updates, etc.). The R-Pi runs Panel Pro and the Wi Throttle server in headless mode for running trains (I have a Pi SPROG 3 hat on it).
I made this: This is what I call my Command Center. It is a laptop monitor attached to the lid, and a couple power supplies and some other various equipment inside to handle the needs of my railroad/club. The 2 switches at the top are for turning on track power and choosing between DC and DCC. There are LED lights on the switch panel that correspond to the color of the line they control.
T-Trak is a really versatile format especially for those who have very little space in which to build a layout.
