LK&O

A Railroad with Relevance

Welcome to Maryland

Written By: Alan - Jan• 06•16

With the completion of the Lapeermine area module, layout building has progressed to the Maryland side of the railroad. Leaving Lapeer, the rails go under the backdrop-cutout-hiding bridge in Michigan to emerge from a mountain tunnel portal deep in the western Maryland mountains. Think of it as a layout wormhole. 🙂

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First up is the Mettiki Coal tipple. The Mettiki module is a key Layout Design Element (LDE) on the LK&O Railroad. As you can see in the picture above this LDE was given a significant amount of layout real estate. Moving coal tonnage will play a large role in LK&O operations.

Even though most of the coal had been mined out by the 50’s, on my layout the mining is still going strong in 1969. Ah, the freedom of freelancing!

maryland

Is this scene begging to be modeled or what?

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The modified photo below gives you an idea of what will be modeled and what will be backdrop. With the help of Photoshop the backdrop is likely to change considerably. Nonetheless, this a good representation of what I have in mind for this signature scene on the railroad.

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The module is on the workbench ready to be built up.

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Meanwhile there is an item I forgot to post when completed – dampening resistors on the power supply buses. Perhaps you remember the post where the smart kids on the electronics forum alerted me to the possibility my power buses may “ring” as loads are added and removed. The original post is here. To reduce the ringing it was suggested I add a dummy load of about 1 amp to each buss at the point furthest from the power supplies. Got that done. 20Ω 100W resistors have been added. They are the electrical equivalent of hydraulic shock absorbers on a car suspension. Their job is to dampen oscillation. Besides, they look really cool with the gold anodized aluminum finned housings!

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I have some responsibilities to tend to that will keep me away from railroad building for a couple weeks. Don’t lose the faith. I’ll be back.

 

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3 Comments

  1. John says:

    Thanks for the update Alan. Another great looking addition.

  2. […] module. It is a hobby, right? No rush. Module 10 is the Mettiki Coal Company tipple tracks. A previous post hinted at what I have in mind for this scene. Everything blackened with coal dust, long strings of […]

  3. Brad makaric says:

    Alan, just caching up. Impressive as always.
    Keep up the great work and thanks for posting…
    Brad

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