Great Northwestern Railway

The radio silence does not mean that progress has not been happening!  In fact, the main deck benchwork is complete and track is quickly being laid.  Here are some highlights and commentary: Before building everything out, I set up a temporary mockup of the elevation the main deck will be set at.  Recall there was some adjusting during design on this.  Looks like it is working out! Next set up backdrop supports along the peninsula. Framing of the main deck proceeding.  I built them off the layout, then set them in place.  Screwed to the wall and then temp supports for the front edge. Pieces coming together! I tried joist hangers on the previous buildout and really like them.  Did so again on this expansion.  They look flimsy, but in reality, they are rock solid.  Recall the lateral support comes from the back edge, not the front.  These just provide vertical support.   A couple more examples of the vertical support system. Note all the wiring for the s

Recall one of the drivers for trying out LCC was to avoid writing detailed code.   Yes, I ~can~ write code.   But it is not my interest or hobby.   As such, anything that can help me translate what is in my head to implementation on a chip somewhere with as little brain damage as possible is quite welcome in my book.   Additionally I did not want the brains of the layout to live in a PC.   There are days when I just want to come down to the basement, flip on the power switch, and run trains.   And… if I am going to go through the trouble of having signals, I want them to come up and operating properly immediately.   Yea, I know I can set up a PC to boot up, execute the right programs and get running on its own.   Sorta.   It’s just one more piece of equipment and step I just don’t care to deal with.        Anyway…. So a big part of my hesitation of leaping into LCC was the angst associated with programming one of these nodes.   I do not have any model rail friends nearb