Garden Railroad Update Sept 1, 2022 - The Garagemahal Railroad

The garden railroad continues to develop! We now have the connection to the inside finished and working well. The hill to the garage opening is completed, all waterproofing in place, track laid, and working from the "kitchen" through the bathroom and onto outside.

ALSO, the wiring from one end to the other is finished and working, with DCC and LocoLink, so the Connie's are now operating outside in the weather. Fears of DCC not working well in the harsh environment are baseless, everything works great, EVEN IN THE RAIN! Our system is overkill, we have a 10 gauge bus running under all tracks, and 14 or 16-gauge "drops" to EVERY RAIL. Soldered so that no rail joints are required to carry power, even though they do, a redundant power system! AND it has never failed us.

The Digitrax wireless is working fine. I had assumed we would need a range extender, but no. The throttle works well all the way to the west end about 75 feet from the controller, outside, and through two walls. One cinderblock.

We have been laying track in temperatures of 100º - 107º. which is not great, and record-breaking for Salt Lake City. The roofing we are applying over the OSB rooking "plywood" is heated to almost 140º in this heat making it difficult to instal but easy to cut and form. The rails end up at almost 170º!! To hot to even touch! The upside is they will never get hotter than this, and so they are as expanded as they will ever get to. So I feel safe to close all the rail joints knowing that as the rails cool the gaps will open but as the track is Llagas Creek Nickle rail it will not open very far. When I'm laying track in the cold I leave the joints open by about 1/16" or so to allow for expansion. In this case, no need to guess. 170º is as hot as it will ever get! WE HOPE!!