Technical Highlights

Track

All track and switches are LGB. While this is a large rail size I had a couple of reasons for
using this track.

• Strength. I have two fruitless mulberry trees that need to have their branches cut         every year. Some get up to twenty feet long and two inches in width. Some of  these branches come crashing down on the rail. So far I've only had to replace one section of track.
• Reliability. While I like having the railroad follow a scale I like running trains even more. The tall rail allows for deeper flanges on  the wheels. I get a lot of comments from visitors who say "Your trains just keep running!".
• Fear Factor. When I started in 1994 I really didn't know that much about garden railroading so I picked something I knew would work well.
• Convenience. Luckily for me one of the best train shops in the country is only 15 minutes from my house. The Train Shop in Santa Clara carries a full line of LGB and made it real easy to run down there when I needed a quick track section. No waiting.

Almost all the roadbed is done by digging a 4" trench with bender board sides. The trench is first filled with round drain rock for the first 3" and then a layer of granite fines to top it off. The track floats on the fines.

In the town areas the base is 3-4" of a very fine rock called "California Gold". Since this is already a drainage of sorts and I tend to change spurs and sidings in the towns as needed the track is laid down a small layer of granite fines that are on top of the gold. No trench.

Note. The granite fines are the same type of rock used by the Southern Pacific R.R. (Now the Union Pacific R.R.) on the mainline about a mile from our house.

The layout is controlled by a Wireless Digitrax DCC (Digital Command & Control) booster and control station. When completed, all track, building and engine functions will be controlled by walk around hand controllers. One for each engineer.

DCC takes standard DC from a power supply and converts it to digital packets on a +/- 18 volt range that are sent along the rails turning the track into what is essentially a network. Engines and anything else you want to control (switches, turntables, lights, signals, sounds) have decoders which pick up the packets off the rail addressed to them and then follow the instructions in the packets.

DCC allows for multiple train control without the need of traditional isolation blocks or sections.

At this time only the planter flats switches and engines #37 and #21 are under DCC control. But one unmodified engine is allowed too so I can run three engines at once.

On a DCC modified engine the engineer can control lights, smoke, bell and whistle from the hand controller.

The switches are controlled by a decoder attached to a low voltage AC adapter I built for the task and both boards are housed in the line shack at Planter Flats.

To allow continuous running the reverse loops automatically change the main line polarity with LGB  magnetic sensors and DPDT 1203 switch boxes. Each engine has a magnet attached underneath in order to trip the sensors allowing automatic runs. (DCC doesn't care about the polarity switching on the fly.)

Other Goodies

All rolling stock have metal wheels and Kadee couplers for operation. Kadee magnets are spotted at de-coupling points around the layout for this purpose.

The Orkney Pass labeled cars and engines are painted my me. Dry transfers are designed by the family and were made by Dean Larson. The trestle bridge is my first scratch building attempt. The truss bridges are built by Al McCracken. I  scratch built the pond bridge out of blue Styrofoam cut, etched and painted to look like stone. The Shadow Mountain Mine is the latest scratch project built.