Working With The Just Plug System

When I started this layout 25-plus years ago, I wanted to incorporate lighting in many of the structures. I did in fact do this, although the available means were basically 12-volt flashlight bulbs in little screw stands from Bachmann and Model Power. Over the years, these have pretty much all burned out, come unsoldered, been damaged, or whatever. Discovering the Woodland Scenics Just Plug system has rekindled my interest in lighting, and I'm beginning to install new lighting in buildings or reinstall Just Plug LEDs to replace old burned-out bulbs.

In addition, last week I picked up some woodland Scenics Light Diffusing Window Film at the hobby shop. This is very useful for letting light shine through windows, while keeping a viewer from looking inside the building and seeing there's no interior. For instance, here's the Light Diffusing Film installed in a Campbell Carstens Flophouse lobby. (On my layout, this is the McKittrick Hotel on 14th St in Bay City.)

Even without the lights, this is very useful stuff. For instance, I found a basic set of walls for the old SS Ltd San Francisco office building at the old Caboose Hobbies in Denver several decades ago. I built them into a nice oblique corner building for Zenith. I even went as far as to add floors and an elevator shaft, but I knew adding a full interior would be something I'd probably never get to, even though the large windows beg for it. Here was the result:

I added the Light Diffusing Film and another type of tinted film that comes in the same box to darken and block out the view inside. I think this is a big improvement even without lights in the building.

There's other capability available with the Just Plug system, which is the ability to set individual strings of LEDs to turn on and off at random. I am doing this with an option in the NCE Illuminator, which runs Just Plug LEDs off the DCC bus, but Woodland Scenics offers a light hub with the same ability. Basically, if you add interior walls to a building, or have LEDs in separate individual buildings, you can have them turn on and off at random. Here's how I've set this up in a pair of storefronts on 14th St next to the McKittrick Hotel:

Here are the lights turning on and off individually. The storefront windows have also had the Light Diffusing Film applied:

I'm doing the same thing with lighted buildings on the N scale T-Trak layout.

However, as I work more with the NCE Illuminators, I'm finding these have a high error rate -- like 30-50%. While NCE has a return policy, their support staff is hard to deal with, makes errors (I had to send back to them a set of decoders they'd fixed for a different guy, and they want to play phone tag instead of use e-mail), and they keep your defective decoder for weeks before sending a replacement, which itself will be iffy. As a result, I'm going to continue to use Illuminators only with the T-Trak modules, where running off the DCC bus will minimize wiring, while I'm going to move to Just Plug light hubs on my HO layout.

Virginia Railway Express Train

I'm feeling my way toward modeling contemporary passenger and commuter operations. Although there are N and HO models out there, the range is a little sketchy, and few commuter modelers post regularly on blogs or YouTube. The fact that couplers, wheels, and car weights aren't very well standardized in N makes operation using models from different manufacturers a problem, too. Her's a Virginia Railway Express train I recently finished and got into preliminary operation.

The lead car is a Kato Nippon Sharyo cab car with an FL12 decoder for head and tail lights and a lighting kit from an 11-212 set:

I also added Kato catenary bridges to the scene. I painted these for the red oxide New Jersey Transit uses on its Morris and Essex ex-Lackawanna routes, but VRE either operates under black ex-PRR bridges that have been de-wired or Amtrak bridges that are gray.

Here's a straight Kato Nippon Sharyo coach with an 11-212 lighting kit:

Wheels of Time brought out C&NW bi level cars in several schemes, including one Virginia Railway Express scheme. These cars were leased from Chicago METRA. The six-window style I believe was built for C&NW by St Louis Car Company, and these were completely withdrawn from METRA, while METRA kept running some of the ex C&NW Pullman 4-window style cars. However, the VRE 6-window cars were recently returned to METRA, which has put some back into service still lettered for VRE.

The Wheels of Time cars would not go around curves coupled to Kato Nippon Sharyo cars. I fiddled with some options to fix this until I found the Wheels of Time diaphragms would simply snap off the car ends, which eliminated the conflict, and both cars will now operate in a train around the T-Trak module curves. Even so, I think I need to tweak the way the Micro Trains trucks are mounted on the Wheels of Time cars to get more reliable operation.

Another Kato Nippon Sharyo coach. One thing I like about the newest locos and passenger cars is the ability -- at least with Kato -- to add lighting kits that give an extra prototype dimension to the models. It's a shame the Wheels of Time cars don't have this ability. However, Kato will be bringing out the C&NW Pullman style 4-window bi-levels in METRA in another month or two, and I'm assuming these can be lit like the Nippon Sharyo cars.

The way N scale works, I'll be looking forward to running METRA trains with both Nippon Sharyo and Pullman cars that are fully compatible via Kato. Here's a Pullman I shot in Elmhurst, IL in train with later stainless cars:

I'll need to check to see if VRE had any of the Pullman 4-window style cars. If so, it would be great if Kato would bring them out for VRE.

And here's a Kato MP36 shoving the train.

How To Assemble Kato N Catenary Masts

My focus in N scale has mainly been contemporary passenger operations, and this includes things like the Northeast Corridor, New Jersey Transit, SEPTA, and other prototypes with electric operations. I've been intrigued with adding Kato catenary components to parts of the layout as scenic detail features, although actually powering N catenary is more than I want to take on. So the Kato components are an interesting idea, snce they're meant to be scenic features only. But they aren't much used in the US, and attempts to get info by posting queries on Facebook groups have been unproductive.

So after some searching, I've come up with an explanation of what the various components are about and how to use them. I found this English-language web page on the Japanese prototype for Kato catenary is very useful. This discussion will cover the catenary components that are used for standard Unitrack, not the wider plate track.

We'll start with the 23-056 catenary pole base set. This provides bases for either style of standard double track catenary bridges, as well as the single track gantries. The set contains two styles of base. Both come in the same package:

If you separate the bases into two types, the style on the left is for use with standard Unitrack, both wooden and concrete tie. The style on the right is for use with viaduct sections. I'll concentrate on the standard Unitrack in this post, although I've also added the viaduct style to viaduct sections on one T-Trak module.

The standard Unitrack bases have moldings that will either let them fit onto the bezels under the track centers or the gussets under the ballast slopes:

The bases extend from beneath the track on two sides. One side goes to a socket for the catenary bridge base. The other side goes to an interface that will allow two bases to keep two parallel tracks at the correct distance for double track catenary bridges:

For single track, you just use the one base with a Kato single track catenary gantry, 23-059. For double track, two bridge styles are available. The one below is 23-057, a curved arch.

This, according to the Sumida Crossing site linked above, is a modern Japanese style used on both the Shinkansen and narrow gauge lines. You can occasionally see arches like this in the US, but they aren't common. Here's one that's been cut out and installed on the bases with double track:

The good thing about this system is that the bases can be permanently attached beneath the Unitrack, but the bridges can easily be removed, replaced, or swapped out with a different style. Especially for T-Trak, this is very desirable to prevent damage in handling the module. Here's a first crack at installing a Kato bridge in scenery:

However, the Kato 23-060 style of Warren truss catenary bridge is much more like what you see in the US, in some parts of the Northeast Corridor, METRA electric, and New Jersey Transit. I have a set of these on order. I find that unless the bases are glued down and permanently attached to the Unitrack, the whole assembly is pretty flimsy. But the components make good scenic details for passenger operations in urban areas. In addition, on former Conrail electrified freight lines where the wires have been removed, the catenary bridges are still in place, so they're also prototypical in modern freight only areas.

More Little Hell Gate Progress

I got around to testing the electrical connections on the Little Hell Gate module. Here you can see trains operating on both tracks from the main layout:

You can also see that I've completed and test fit the basic pylons for the Gustav Lindenthal portals, made from 1/32 sheet basswood. More work on these will proceed this coming week. I will also be adding Kato catenary bridges to the viaduct a la the prototype.

I added labels for the DPDT switch on the fascia to indicate the positions that control whether the T-Trak wiring is BWBW (my home preference) or BWWB (T-Trak standard for meets). The center off also removes any electrical connection between the two tracks.

Below, the corner module is connected between the main layout and the Springfield Amtrak station module, showing that all electrical connections are functioning as they should:

You can also see that I built an N scale Joe's Pizza to match the HO version I built in last week's post. These low relief buildings with paper images are very inexpensive and movable temporary stand-ins until I can add better detailed, more permanent structures.

All electrical connections, including building and scenery lighting, run off the DCC bus and travel via the Unijoiners that connect the Unitrack between modules, making a layout built this way easy to reconfigure. I have another module under construction that represents the Richmond Main Street station that can simply be swapped out for the Springfield station module.