During this interesting time of following the “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” directive from the state, I am finding things a bit more challenging to avoid “honey-dos” since I’m in the house all the time.  Sure this may be a great time to work on house projects but what fun is that. 

So in order to get away from the world and especially chores for a while, I imagined a setup for my modules that could be used for testing and motivation to work on the real important home projects – model railroad stuff!

I am part of the Pacific Northwest On30 Modular Group and have six modules in my shop.  Most of the time however the modules are stored in their transportation configuration and are only set up if I need to fix track or plant a structure.  They share the shop with other vehicles and projects that usually get more attention and I normally don’t have a lot of time to work on them let alone set them up and run stuff on them.

Well the last few weeks have been a different story.  Being in quarantine and working all day from my kitchen table “office” on the phone and on the computer, I am pretty much toast at the end of the work day and need to get out of the house.  The only place I can go is the yard or the shop.  While out organizing some stuff in the shop while I was bored, I found some birch plywood that could be possibly be used make a couple 22 inch radius curves.  I thought, hey I’ve got four straight five foot modules that I could connect together and have an oval for continuous running.  And so was born the idea for the “Isolation Circle Central”.

Normally a storage area, this is now the domain of the “Isolation Circle Central”.

A few evenings of chopping wood and laying track resulted in a seemingly basic circle to run trains around on my finished and work-in-progress modules.  There is no way my ol’ lady is going to negotiate that duckunder – so the “social distancing” part of the setup was an extreme success.

Nemah Valley No 8, a 2-4-4-2 passing the water tank at Willapa Cranberry Farms module.

The layout is powered by a Digitrax Zephyr with a Digitrax PR3 to interface with a computer and run JMRI WiThrottles.  This way I can run two (or six) locos at once on the cellphone Engine Driver app.  I also modified one of my modules to provide a programming track for use with the PR3.  Normally we program locos “off layout” on a test track but since I’m using the PR3 for the computer anyway, may as well upgrade capability and use the direct programming feature also.  It is certainly much more convenient to program and test on the same track. 

JMRI “Engine Driver” app is used as a WiFi throttle with up to six locos that can be controlled at a time. One or two is plenty for normal use.
This engine house track has been modified to also serve as a programming track using a Digitrax PR3 interface.
The Digitrax PR3 can be seen temporarily screwed to the module support leg structure. Hidden switch provides selection between “Run” and “Program”.

For our PNWOn30 Group we use JMRI Operations Pro to provide switchlists for our operations under TT&TO rules.  My modules are already built up as locations with the appropriate spurs in the JMRI program for operations.  All I had to do was create a modified route to only include my four modules and select cars from my inventory to be used for operations.

Dedicated computer for JMRI is clamped to a plank that is also clamped to the module legs.

So, with little effort I had JMRI setup to run switchlists specifically for my setup.  I designated one of the corners as a staging yard and run a route from staging to staging traversing all the modules and performing set outs and pick ups according to the JMRI generated switchlists.  Between each module “location” I do a complete lap around the layout to get some distance before the next module stop.  All told the “Circle Job” takes a little over an hour to complete.  That’s the time for at least one cup of a refreshing beverage and certainly supports the “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” directive. 

Remember when black and white photos were all the rage. This is a Mount Blue kit On30 caboose.
The No. 8 heading through the Bay Lumber Company – Camp 4 modules. Setting up the modules and running trains allows for practicing some photography that I normally never have time to do at train shows.

Have fun and Be Safe.

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