An opportunity arose to give the layout another run as part of Weymouth Model Railway Association's open day, this was an opportunity to test the new feedback controllers and make sure that the recent track tweaks worked ok, which they did.
I've made a short comparison video showing the difference the new controllers have made to the running of the layout, far smoother, no stalling on the shuttle or on corners and I deliberately ran locos that I knew were prone to stalling to see how they would perform with the Trax controllers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0ryVKCtDsE
I kept stock rotation to a minimum as I also wanted to check for any signs of overheating. Mallard must have run for over three hours continuously with no apparent side effects. Another benefit of being able to run at a more sensible speed is that there were fewer instances of derailments and uncouplings. Very pleased with the performance of these new controllers and definitely worth the investment.
Work will now commence to build the electronics to operate the electric points that will be added to the rear fiddle yard, in total and including the upper loop, I have 19 pairs of points to install, which should keep me busy for a few evenings at least.
Work on the control panel is nearing completion, all the LEDs are in place and just require soldering, then the new panel should drop into the existing control box with minimal modification required.
Next scheduled outing is January 17th 2015, the layout is perfectly usable in its current state so the planned modifications can wait if there isn't sufficient time to complete the work.
Again our layout was very well received, some nice comments and even a suggestion that we should be aiming to exhibit at Warley!
Never say never...
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