Staging Track work and electrics completed

Staging Completed!

Today marks the day were all the electrics and track work including turnouts and block control is completed for North and South staging including the 2 approach tracks and the return loop.

The below pics show a 24 car train with 3 x Atlas C420's on the point in North staging and on the north grade.

While I have not added weight to my cars I chose the heavier older Roundhouse box cars and a few FVM cars that are probably on the heavier side compared to the rest in order to load test the 2% grade out of staging.

While the 2 x C420's can handle the 20 car max that I have set for the layout, they stalled on 24 cars. So by adding extra power to the point the 24 car train was able to reach the summit.

I may just set up the layout so the loco roster is either 2 x 6 axle loco's or 3 x 4 axle loco's. I have the motive power to cope so time will tell.

I have also set up a basic panel in JMRI Panel Pro to enable me to test and make sure that the blocks are all appearing as they should per my spread sheets / plan.

As the computer is connected to the loconet over at the dispatchers desk (or near there), it is a bit hard to drive a train and check the blocks at the same time.
I then started the web server within Panel Pro and I was then able to browse to the web site hosted by the Panel PC on my iPhone.. So I can carry the iPhone with me, throw turnouts and monitor the blocks at the same time.

Here are 2 pics on the panel on the phone. (Note this is a very basic panel and was whipped together really quickly to serve the purpose for testing.)

Now for more bench work construction!..

Stay tuned for the next update..!