Town turnout Panels

Electrical Department of the D&H hard at work

Over the last week, I have been busy getting ready for my first open shed on the D&H.
The aim of the open shed is to open up for some of the guys to come and have a first look at the D&H and run trains over the route. As all the towns have passing sidings and Whitehall and Willsboro track work is completed, I decided that I needed to install turnout control at each town.

Per my earlier post, I have already completed the North and South staging as well as Whitehall. So I set about making the other 4 town panels.

To make the panels for each town I use the following process:

• Create the artwork for the panel in Microsoft Excel
• Print the panel on normal A4 size paper in a colour inkjet printer
• Laminate the page and cut out the panel
• Mount it on re painted 3mm MDF using thin double sided tape around the edges of the laminted panel
• Predrill the holes in the panel using a 3mm drill and then drill the final 7mm holes
• Mount the push buttons and solder the wires to the buttons
• Wire up the buttons to the inputs on the various loconet devices that are configured to throw the turnouts.

All in all, the finished product is neat and clean and very quick to make. So, if there are changes then I can remove the buttons from the panel, create new artwork, and remount on the 3mm MDF or just cut new MDF.

Here are the finished panels for the rest of the towns and the staging by pass.

As the track work in all towns apart from Willsboro is not yet completed, I have only wired up the turnouts that have been installed.

Once the fascia is installed, there will be holes cut in the fasica for the panel to sit in and make the finish neat and tidy.

Now for the big clean up starts to get the shed ready for the open day.

Thanks for checking in..