Model Railroading > Levers Now In the Frame Box

The 40 levers are in the frame box for my Fort Wayne Union Junction Tower Interlocking in progress.  This coming week I hope to finish the full-size tower model board that goes with it that includes indicator lights and annunciators. Signaling is next.

The Humpyard Purveyance levers had to be soda blasted in order to take the paint. The levers were numbered with custom decals. Among other modifications, I  added number plates.

White levers are out-of-service levers, red are signal levers, black are switch levers, blue are facing point lock levers, blue over black levers are sliding lock motion levers for switches and derails (these operate without seperate lock levers), and red over yellow are train order signal levers.

With the 40 levers,  this frame box is over 30 inches long. The levers are about 3 inches tall but stick out the top of the box at about 2 inches.

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 7 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/15 18:55 by wabash2800.

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Really impressive Victor.  Look forward to seeing your progress.

Victor - You win OCD project of the day! <<<grin>>>> Great work!

Tom Y

 

OCD I don't have...<G> and my work is not perfect...

But you'll probably have Carpal Tunnel after working a couple of operating sessions with all of those levers.

Not really. They are hooked up to slide switches and push and pull back and forth with one or two fingers. You don't have to operate all of them at the same time either. For a given route you might pull six levers. Once I get everything hooked up, I'll do a video.

Are you going to build a locking frame, or do the interlock with electronics or software?

Barry Draper

Barry:
Thanks for asking. For the time being, a derail lever in the "normal postion" (derail open and the route not lined) will cut the power to that secton of track and the corresponding home semaphore signal (blade can not move from the stop position). However, in the long run, I plan on building a locking bed out of brass. I had planned on using some software and relays etc., but really would like to make it meachanical so the levers won't move if they aren't supposed to, like the real thing. I may actually put in real split-rail derails to cut the power but have the power cut further back so a coasting train will stop before hitting the derail (and the floor). (Think of how model rails wire their swinging gates so that the train stops before it gets to the open section.)

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/15 20:21 by wabash2800.