NP Lester WA T-Trak Z Module Set Project

And I miss you being around, and your enthusiasm towards Z too Jeff. Happy New Year!


I ran into my first obstacle, albeit very negligible, this morning. While laying out the roadbed for the track, I knew I wanted to have Rokuhan track at the module set ends (Remember that these are fully compliant T-Trak-Z Modules), and use the more realistic Atlas track within the Lester module set, so I had planned to just solder on some 1" short pieces:


As I was preparing to solder the 2 brands together, I noticed there is a slight height difference between the rail tops when joined. Also, you can use Atlas joiners to connect the rails, but the Rokuhan joiners are far too tight to connect to Atlas rails. I will have to sand a transition between the two tracks:



Here I soldered them together, and sanded the bottom one for comparison. Soldering these together requires extra flux and they still fight it, so the Atlas ties bent and distorted, but that's OK, because ballast will hide them:

 

Nice to see this project back on track! What was the purpose of the fire box? A firefighting supply cache of buckets, water, shovels and axes?

 

I don't know for sure what they stored there, but it is placed where the many section crew employees would be during their off time, and the section crew shed and speeder shed is just to the right a couple hundred feet, so you could quickly round up and equipt some extra help in a hurry with that fire box placement. Being that is is BOX 5, there must be 4 more in the area, so I have to carefully examine photos for more.

 

It's not really a warpage, more a rail height difference between Rokuhan and Atlas. I really grew up on flextrack instead of roadbed track, however the all the variants of the T-Trak format use metric module sizes and tie spacing, and sectional tracks like Rokuhan and Kato, so to be compliant I want to have a smooth connection at the ends of my module set, so I transitioned to Rokuhan for Z. Here is where I ended last night before all the party action began:


So any modules connected to the left of the Lester Module Set will be the standard Rokuhan, but within the Lester module set I can enjoy the Atlas track system which is lower and much more realistic for my modeling subject. I just finished my first cup of coffee this morning, and am going for another before I finish the trackwork here, as I just got up.

I can't believe it but people were popping off fireworks from 4 in the afternoon yesterday till after 4am this morning. Idaho law says they have to stop at midnight, but that's when they kicked it into high gear! Even at the state capitol, where they dropped the potato, it was after midnight Jan 1 that they let loose the fireworks.


Idaho Statutes Authorized dates for the sale and use of fireworks. (1) Nonaerial common fireworks may be sold at retail and used beginning at midnight June 23, and ending at midnight July 5 and beginning at midnight December 26 and ending at midnight January 1.



11:59:58 Dec 31:


00:00:00 Jan 01:


00:00:01 Jan 01:


a few seconds later, continuing through Auld Lang Syne:


Happy New Years Everybody!

 

And for the day mostly spent researching photos on the NPRHA historical society website, I got all the track pieces soldered together and glued down:

 

Not this stuff, its just a more plastic type alternative to Walthers Goo, where Goo is more rubbery.

I started using it because you can get it in 5 packs of smaller tubes that if they dry out you can toss a small amount. With Goo, the caps get gummed up well before you have used 10% of the tube, and you waste a lot.

When it was $2 a tube it was not an issue but it's $12 a tube these days so I switched 2 years ago to Gorilla Glue Clear Grip 5 packs for $8. Still it's less glue but I get to use more of it before it dries.

 

Now that the glue had set, I started working on the fine alignment of my Atlas track between modules. I do this before ballasting, because that will cement everything in place. I am a big fan of soldering stiff feeder wires to all my track withing the last couple inches of the module both for good electrical pickups as well as support to prevent peeling up the rails.

First I placed the modules together to check alignment. As far as alignment between Rokuhan track modules, the gray plastic roadbed joiner will correct that. It's a simple but elegant solution, although I did not install them in this photo because I want to see how far off I am without the joiners. I will pry the glue up under the roadbed, and using the joiners, connect the modules, then ballast to hold fine alignment:



As far as the Atlas track modules that will NOT have any joiners between them, I take a photo of the track misalignment's and zoom in to inspect. You can clearly see this will be a derailment hazard as is, especially with so many tracks between the modules. Although I used a pinned alignment template, it is still a bit off:


Next I examine the photos and draw correction lines on the edge of the module. I use a knife to peel up the last couple centimeters of track, then I hold the track parallel with the correction lines and drill 1mm holes on the sides of the rails. I use pieces of 1mm brass rod, push through the module, and solder to the sides of the rails, which both act as feeders, and bendable adjusters for fine aligning the rails to match the joining module:


After all the rail feeders have been aligned and soldered down, I can bend the ends of each track left or right as needed and fine align them to perfectly match the connecting module. Remember that this is a 4 module set to represent Lester WA between 1956-57, and will always be setup in the same order together. So once aligned, I can ballast the module to fix the track permanently:

 

Hi Loren, I decided that I will only build modules for a layout, to keep is easy. I was thinking that I can mount benchwork framing directly to the wall, and just set the modules on that framing. I will keep the outside loop of modules here in the garage for a test loop track. As I move on to the next town after Lester, those too will be TTZ modules, and somewhere in the middle I am going to build an interface to the one Z-Bend Track module that I did keep, so I can have that as an island extension into the room. Maybe I will make a nonstandard balloon module for the end of the Pair-O-Dice ZBT module so I can build a town with several streets of downtown area too.

So when will I do it? Maybe next summer I will start on it, but for now, I have 10 TTZ modules that need to be sceniced. I still need to lay track on one more module before I can have a running loop of TTZ modules, and the goal is to do that this winter.

Today I finish with airbrushing the track Floquil Roof Brown:


And I applied the ballast, When it is dry, there is usually one more touchup layer of ballast applied then I can start to work on the Switch Machine installation underneath.

 

Well I ended up loosing a whole day repairing a faulty turnout. When I tested all the turnouts, one of them sprung into pieces. The little plastic part that holds the points was broken in half, and the whole point shot out. There was nothing holding the point in place either, it was just sitting in place, so would have had poor electrical conductivity had it not broken.


So I thought and thought, and decided to repair instead of replace, because these turnouts are glued, soldered, painted, and ballasted in place. I finally had an idea. I used an aggressive acid flux because it works so fast that you hardly have to apply any heat before solder flows, so no damage to the plastic happens. I tinned the side of the rail that no wheel flanges will ever touch just before the frog:


Next I formed a bend in a piece of phosphor bronze spring wire and soldered it to the side of the point rail, again using the acid flux:



Then I placed the point back in it's hole and soldered the phosphor bronze wire and tested that it flexed without effort like the original configuration, it was good. So I pressed in some 0.8mm brass rod into the throw bar, added a dab of acid flux, then soldered the new pin to the point so fast that the rod did not even get hot enough to melt the plastic throw bar. If it had melted that throw bar, I was prepared to make a new one from FR4 PCB material. But it works just fine as is:



And the spring wire holds the points over center just as before, taking hardly any effort to throw the switch and hold the points in place. Nightmare averted with a little careful thought.

 

So I finished today's work by drilling feeder holes and soldering feeder pins into the 4 turnout frogs for power routing of the turnouts:


And after hand paint touchup of track with the Floquil Roof Brown, I applied the touchup layer of ballast so I can move on to switch machines tomorrow: