October 23, 2005
I had a work crew from our club here the end of September to help clean things up in preparation for hosting a club meeting. One of the tasks I assigned some of the club members was installing my pneumatic switch system. They quickly discovered that I was missing a number of components needed to complete the installation. They did get four actuators installed on the switch points, but the rest of the job had to wait until I got my act together.
When the club met at my place on the first Friday of October, we agreed to meet here again on Saturday, October 22, to make people. Some club members hoped to bring trains to run also. I figured that if we were going to run trains I would need to get some trestle work done on the mine loop so it would be operational, but then I decided that a control center from which I would run both track electricity and pneumatic tubing for the turnouts was a higher priority. I spent as much free time as I could find in the week before October 22 building my control center.
The center measures three feet high, two feet wide and about 21 inches deep. The depth was pre-ordained by the distance I had from the edge of my operations patio to the first railroad tie along my path. The width and height were determined by the size of an evaporative cooler weatherized canvas cover I picked up at Lowe's.
The center piece of the control center is the switch board which is installed at a 15 degree angle. The board base is 1/4 inch plexiglass covered with a self-adhesive vinyl tile. Because I included the electrical box in the center (the red switch powers the patio lights and the cord runs to the transformer that powers the track) I had to cut the tile to less than its original 18 inches. I used the extra piece along the top of the panel. The toggle switches send air to the actuators at the turnout points. Also included on the panel are the regulator and pressure guage. Eventually I will have to add the track plan and directional arrows indicating which direction the switches will send a train going through the turnout. The track is controlled with a Crest Train Engineer. I have one controller and two receivers so I can run two trains independently, one on each loop.
Seen here is a view under the control panel showing the tubing configuration.
Here is a side view. Eventually, after I have run all the tubes and wires I need for this part of the layout, I will cover the back and sides with criss-cross privacy lath like I used on the fence and pond filter housing.
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