NTS&B Merry Christmas 2019

Another year has passed, and the layout has progressed very little.   Kathy passed away this past August, and my daughter has moved in to help take care of me, and get help for herself.  It made the holidays much less lonely.  She made cookies, helped set up and decorate the tree, hung the stockings, and picked out and wrapped most of the presents.  It wouldn't have been much a Christmas without her.  We celebrated an early holiday in TN with my son, his wife,  and Jennifer's son, then had another holiday here with Kathy's daughter Carolyn and her husband.  Carolyn carried on her mom's tradition and made a nice lasagna, which Jennifer helped me finish off in record time.  All in all, the kids made it a much better holiday season than I had ever anticipated. Here are a couple pictures.

NTS&B Trump Train Passenger Car

Here are a couple pictures of a passenger car I recently acquired.

NTS&B Dedication To Kathryn

This layout is dedicated to Kathryn, my wife of 25 years, who passed away this morning at 7:20.  Even though she didn't actually work on it, she was the main influence to it's design and provided encouragement for the building of it.  She said my original plan, which was a nice simple layout down the middle of the room, was much to “Simple and Boring”.  She wanted multiple trains running over and under each other, at least 1 helix (spiral) to the ceiling, and 4 seasons (she only got 3), the Lionel Disappearing Mountain, and many other ‘minor’ layout aspects.  She even influenced the name of the layout, because she wanted something “Not To Simple and Boring” or NTS&B, which turned into “North Pole, Tinseltown South, & Bigville”.   I believe she regretted her comments on the design towards the end, but was happy with the results.  I think she just wanted to keep me out of her hair for the last 12 years. I decided to make a billboard in her honor.

NTS&B More Under Layout Train Shelves And Stair Steps On Back Wall

For some reason, I keep running out of shelf space to display my trains.  This time I built a 40 inch wide shelf and a 4 foot wide shelf under the layout. I also added some more stair steps to the end wall upper shelves to make room for my ever expanding 4x4x0 Generals collection.

Corner of Autumn Section

End of Autumn Section by back wall

NTS&B Cable-Stayed Bridge Finished After Only A Little Over 10 Years

I finished the cable-stayed bridge on 01/12/2009.  I originally planned to have the cables illuminated with changing colors similar to Niagara Falls, but could never get it to work. I could never get the lights to illuminate the cables.  Now, only 10 years, and 1 month later, I finally have it working.  I also added side trim, and repainted it to a lighter color.  I used a multi-color LED strip with the LED's surface mounted on a copper strip.  The unit came with an IR remote-control, so you can set solid colors, or blinking or fading colors, along with the brightness.  I mounted the strip face down, to limit the light showing on the ceiling.  I cut the string in half, ran jumper wire under the track, and ran a strip on each side of the bridge.  I also had to use some diodes in series with the controller to balance out the different color LEDs.   I then added the side trim to contain the light on the bridge.  Here are some pictures. I also made a video on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfKsEvBKUwk

Bridge in 2009 and up to time of upgrade

Updated Bridge

LED strips face down on bridge

And a few pictures at night.  The camera is very light sensitive,
so the ceiling looks like it is lit up a lot more than it really is.

And now a movie.

NTS&B Lionel 197 Radar Tower Motor Replacement

I finally got some time to work on the layout again. My Lionel 197 Radar Tower used a vibrating motor consisting of a coil, a rubber 'drive' washer with stubs on it that grabbed the base in 1 direction to cause the rotation, a medal washer, and the radar antenna.  The drive mechanism was very noisy, and currently undependable.  No matter what I did, I could not get to dependably rotate.  I finally decided to re-motor it with a 12VDC 60 RPM Gear Motor. I planned to run it off a 3VDC adapter to get the required 12-15 RMP for the antenna.  The problem is, my 3VDC adapter was actually putting out 3.5VDC, so I added 2 diodes in series to drop the voltage to 2.44, which ended up right at 15 RPM.  Here are a couple before and after pictures.

 Original Radar Tower

Parts removed from original Tower

12V 60 RPM Motor 25mm x 72mm w 4mm shaft ($4.99) 

 Created plastic mounting washers from medicine bottle

 above and below the tower to hold motor.

Resulting smooth, quiet running tower 

(with motor hanging way down).