Working on the Railroad

I’m sure you’ve all been wondering if I’m still alive, or maybe you’ve just given up checking for updates. All I can say is my mind has been elsewhere, and my free time has been devoted to pursuits away from the computer.

Most of my “me time” over the past few months has been spent in research, development, purchasing, and general fiddling with the various aspects of the garden railway. . . and I don’t even have track laid down yet. The track plan is pretty much finalised, and the blueprints for the trestle are almost done. The goal for this summer is to get trains running, and Sheila and I will spend next winter in the basement making buildings and other such things to beautify the miniature world.

The past month has been a bit frustrating, thanks to my temperamental locomotive. It used to be that trains were powered through the track, and speed was controlled by cranking more or less electricity through the rails. You can still use these systems, but they have their limits. I’ve gone with a newer type of control system called Digital Command Control. The trains still get their power through the rails, but there is a signal encoded in the current. Each locomotive has a decoder inside with a specific address, so your control unit can communicate independently with each locomotive. What this means is, you can control multiple locomotives on the same bit of track, giving each independent instructions. The other thing it does, is allow you to control a whole bunch of accessory effects like lights and sounds. This allows you to run your models more like real trains. It makes them way more fun to operate, because you literally have all the bells and whistles to play with.

The problem is that on a lot of locomotives, you still have to install this sort of thing yourself. Up till now, the most complicated thing I’d ever rewired was a floor lamp, so trying to figure out how all of this stuff goes in has been a real challenge. It’s been complicated by a short circuit caused by a loose wire (the manufacturer’s fault) that was making things behave in strange ways. I finally tracked down the problem last week, and am now ready to start hooking things back up. Once my loco is running with lights and sound and smoke (intentionally mind you), I’ll see if Sheila can show me how to post a video.

Now if you’re like me, you’ve probably glazed over at this point, cause you really don’t give a rip about the technical aspects of someone else’s hobby. But this is what I’m up to these days, just in case you wondered. Thankfully, all of this electronic mumbo-jumbo should be over with soon, and then, THEN Sheila and I can focus on creating our miniature world in the back yard!

Our little railway is what they call “freelanced”, as opposed to modelled after an actual bit of a real railway. They say if you’re going to freelance, you should still try to have some purpose or theme for the railway to make its existence plausible. So this is our railway’s story.

The Asgård Railway

The Asgård Railway is a modern heritage railway linking the secluded Midgard Valley to the rest of the world somewhere in the Valhalla Mountain Range* of southern BC.

After over 100 years of operation, the AR continues to provide essential freight service for the Midgard Growers Co-Operative, allowing them to ship their fruit, wine, cider, honey, and mead to the rest of the world. As access to the town of Asgård is limited to one winding road, the AR also provides passenger service for commuters and day-trippers in and out of town.

The AR runs both freight and passenger service with vintage rolling stock and locomotives, and thus has become a favourite of railfans everywhere. The summer calendar is full of steam excursions** and photo-freights***, but the real work comes in the late summer and early fall with the autumn fruit rush.

The town of Asgård was settled by folks with a variety of Scandinavian backgrounds, and thus many of the local business and geological features sport names from Norse mythology. There is “Iduna’s Apple Orchard”, “Sleipnir’s Barn” the “Niflheim Ice Plant”, and the “Muspelheim Blacksmith’s Shop”. “Mt. Jötunheim” looms to the north of the town, and a mountain spring, “The Well of Mímir” emerges from beneath the ancient tree “Yggdrasil”.

So, back to the basement to wire my little diesel, and dream of the world we get to build.

*The Valhalla Mountain Range is a real place, and there is even a Valhalla Provincial Park.

**Once I actually acquire a steam loco.

***Freight trains using vintage locos and rolling stock, staged for the cameras of rail history fans. Yes people actually do this!