Construction

The Coastal Titan Railroad has taken several years to design, plan, and construct. Check back here to see the challenges and triumphs of the first rails laid on Baja Fibiger and the first railroad to deal with dinosaurs.

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Santa's transport

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 For this year's holiday decorations, I wanted to do something more than a circle under the tree that I have been doing the past years. I started thinking about it in early fall so there was plenty of time to design something new (or plenty of opportunity to procrastinate past the time when anything new could be designed).  My first thought was a simple point-to-point trolley or street car. I've seen plenty in displays or builds in the club so I could envision what I wanted. It also seemed like a pretty simple Arduino project to build. But, I don't have a trolley. And looking on line, even used ones were a bit expensive for a "maybe-I'll-get-to-it" project.  My wife liked the idea and found a box car transport for Santa's reindeer that she gave me for my birthday. We could use an existing engine and pull it along. She has a small LGB engine that would be a great size and it still runs on DC so easier to program using the Arduino. My plan was to put a senso...
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My own DCC control station and a new engine

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 As discussed in my recent Santa Transport post, I received a new LGB engine for Christmas. The Christmas point-to-point set up runs on DC power so  I can control it directly with an Arduino. It is nice that the engine plays sounds during DC operations but the real glory is all the capabilities available via DCC. This weekend I finally had the chance to set up a DCC test track for the engine.  Arduino Mega, Motor Driver Shield, wifi Shield,  and power supply for DCC EX Last year I started experimenting with building  DCC EX , a DCC control station running on an Arduino board. Not only is it small and homemade, it would give me a chance to play with some automation without taking the computer into the backyard. I purchased the boards needed for the DCC EX and  built the station up but ran into some challenges and then I got distracted with other activities. Testing the new engine is good motivation to get DCC EX fully working. I found I had not made good no...
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Learning to take a dump

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I bet that caught your attention. Back in the fall, someone in my local train club sold off a bunch of equipment from a guy who was closing down his railroad. Among the items available were a couple of log cars, something I had been thinking about adding to my collection. I usually wait-and-think with the result that everything good is gone before I'm ready.  Not this time! I made a quick offer for one of the log cars. The price was good so when I was offered both for about 50% more, I went for it. When I picked them up, I found out they came with a piece of track with a middle rail to trigger the car to dump to the side. The cars are in fabulous shape and in their original boxes. They are MTH Operating Log Cars . The instructions talk about hooking up the middle rail to a separately-purchased switch box to activate the dumping. That system was more than the cost of the cars and I figured I should be able to figure it out without much trouble. To start working it out, I thought I...
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