Streets and buildings outline - part 1

Now that the tracks are glued and wired, it's probably time to start thinking about the scenery. The first stage is ballasting and track weathering, but I need to do a bit of research on this to decide how to proceed. The second stage is to start drawing the outline of the streets and building and to decide the exact location.

The main issue here to have an outline at the exact scale. Here's my current thinking:

• I got a DXF file from cadastre.gouv.fr
• On that same website, I measure the length of the front of buildings
• I then convert to those dimensions into HO scale
• I build a rough prototype in foam board

DXF file

I found multiple software that can open a DXF file; those include AutoCAD, nanoCAD, or QGIS. The issue is that the DXF file has drawing units, not real measures. Therefore, measuring in the DXF file does not help scaling the outline. 

 

Cadastre

I chose one building: 25 rue des Martyrs that is lot #100 on the cadastral plan:

It is about 8.99 meters in real, so approximatively 10.3 cm in HO scale.

 

Autodesk Viewer

As I was doing some research on CAD software, I came across this free tool from Autodesk: Autodesk Viewer. It allows to open DXF file and do basic operations. One of them is to make measures and smartly enough, there is a calibrate function:

 

House facade

Now that I have the width of the houses, I need the other dimensions. For this task, I will use my own photos, as what you can get from Google Street View is too distorted:

Google Street View

My photo

While the photo is quite good, I still need to fix the perspectives. I was pleased to find this article that explains how to easily do this in Gimp:

1. Load the picture in Gimp
2. Place 2 vertical and 2 horizontal lines to help framing the perspective:
• Drag from the left or top ruler to get a line
• Place the lines where things should be vertical or horizontal, like doors, windows, and roof cornice
3. Use the Perspective tool (Shift+P)
• Drag the corners until things start to align to the reference lines
• Iterate until it aligns nicely
4. Select the facade and crop to it
5. Use Scale Image or Print Size to scale the image
• Go to cadastre.gouv.fr and measure the width
• Use this HO scale calculator to get the size in miniature
6. Print from Gimp to get a scaled print of the facade

Here are all those steps in images:

Other online maps

Besides the cadastral website, I think those two can also be helpful:

• https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr
• https://remonterletemps.ign.fr

Wiring the frogs!

 

I've been postponing wiring the frogs of the switches so far, but I thought today would be a good time to give it a try.

What's the frog?

I found this video on Youtube quite helpful:

Wiring the frog!

The Tortoise manual provides minimal information and the same goes for the Peco pamphlet. I'm using two of my previous posts: here and here.

I connect the frog (green wire) to terminal #4 or #5 of the Tortoise motor, then I connect the main feeders (red and black wires) into terminals #2 & #3 or #6 & #7:

Then, I can test with a multimeter:

The switch is not turned, the frog and the bottom rail have the correct polarities

The switch is now turned, so those two same rails have the same polarity

The switch is turned, the frog and the top rail have the correct polarities

How about a double slip?

The same principle applies to a double slip switch. Two things to note however:

• The frog seems to be that tiny element on each side
• Each frog relates to the opposite switch motor

Running through a frog-wired switch!

As usual, we'll conclude with a short video of an engine running through a switch with its frog wired:

All switch points tested!

 

Continuing on testing the layout, I focused on the double slip switch A4, which I knew had an issue. As mentioned before, wiring and controlling a double slip switch is a bit of a trial and error ...

In this current scenario, I just had to switch TA4a and TA4b. So, I just switch the wires at the terminal screw and the labels:

Before

After

And voila! Now, all switch points are correctly controlled by the ECoS:

ETR 400 "Frecciarossa 1000" - part 2

 

Today, I decided to run my ETR 400 "Frecciarossa 1000" from ACME. See here for the previous post about it.

Running the full set

Here's the video of the full set running:

It's a beautiful model:

It basically takes the entire length of my layout ...

Because of the tight turns, I could not use all the black pieces between the cars and only left one at each junction, instead of the two provided. I still experienced a small issue, because a couple of those black pieces have extra material at the bottom and it prevented the couplers to move freely:

Car formation

I found out on Wikipedia that the car formation is: 4M4T; 1 Executive car, 1 Business car, 1 Business car with a bar-bistro, 1 Premium car, 4 Standard cars. I also found this document; on page 9, it shows the formation mentioned here.

However, 2 out of the 3 Standard cars have a pantograph, and it is not indicated by ACME how those cars should be positioned. The last Standard car is one end of the set, so easy to position 😆

I found this website that lists a lot of train formations, mostly in eastern Europe. There are some nice pictures from the train and several train formations:

I could see how the Standard cars are set, but I also wanted a "real" proof. And I found it with this video:

So, here it is in the correct order and direction:

1	Executive
2	Business   (panto on the right)
3	Bistro
4	Premium   (panto on the right)
5	Standard   (panto on the left)
6	Standard     (no panto)
7	Standard   (panto on the left, car is slightly different than car #5)
8	Standard

That was fun to investigate! The next thing to find out would be when those 4 pantographs are used ...

Track alignment issue at X5

 

Continuing testing the layout, I found out that there is a track alignment issue right after switch C4 going into section X5; right here:

There are no problems for engines to go out from sections G4 and G5 onto the main tracks, but going into those through section X5 creates this:

Here's how it looks:

I'll need to think about how to fix this one ...

Power issue with switch C4 - fixed!

 

Following my previous post, I added some soldering materials for the two stock rails. It's not super discreet, but it should be okay once the tracks are weathered and ballasted:

And it is now working as expected:

Power issue with switch C4

 

As I continue testing all tracks and switches, I realized that engines cannot go through switch C4. I initially thought that the tracks needed to be cleaned further, but as it turns out, it is a power issue:

I tested the wiring underneath the table and it is all fine. It must therefore be the soldering between the wires and the switch tracks. After some testing, the closure rails are properly connected, but the stock rails have clearly an issue:

It looks like some soldering exercise for tomorrow ...

Rail gap - fixed!

 

As mentioned in my previous post, there is a rail gap by the switch C2 into section G9:

Interestingly, engines run fine going into this storage track, but derail when going out to the main tracks. Luckily, this is a garage track, so I can pull the rail to reduce the gap without an impact on the other end.

Here's the result: