Rewiring Project Proceeding

The video below documents the biggest reason I undertook this rewiring project: I wanted to add more signal detectors, but this part of the layout was moved from an earlier location and has several layers of wiring kludges. Eventually, about three years ago, I more or less realized I needed to tear all this out and start over. Around the same time, I started converting to DCC, but things like basic loco decoder installation (and climbing that learning curve) took priority.

Finally a few months ago I got the confidence to rewire this section of the layout. I can't quite give a schedule for completion, because each time I think I'm getting close, I find something else I have to fix, but things are moving along. This video shows the result of some new track and complete replacement of wiring at CP CONN

I spent a good part of my career in the IT field, which has been a good background for starting in DCC. It's just as well that I didn't touch DCC until after I retired, though, because otherwise it would have been too much like work. Documentation is very important.

Digitrax provides some good worksheets that help with this kind of chore. I realized I had to figure out an address scheme for all the stationary switch decoders. Here's the address layout for the section I'm working on:

I think this will pay off down the road.