Removing the existing layout

The first step was to remove the existing layout. It was built in 2008 and the past few years the layout has been difficult to use because of electrical problems. Fasttrack is a nice track for some uses, but for long term layouts it does run into problems with electrical contacts between the sections of track. The existing layout was prone to dead spots and weak spots. Back then I did not install enough electrical connections to the track to compensate for this problem. This will be accounted for.

Wire Harness Installation

The new layout requires more wiring then the old layout. To try to keep things neater, cabling was used to go between the layout and the controls. Each cable was numbered and marked as to its purpose to keep track of everything.

PLC Controls wiring

The next step was to wire the PLC controls side. When the project was first designed, moving it to the wall layout was not considered. The automatic and manual control of the layout is located on the engineer control panel and not on the PLC controls so it means more cables were needed to go to the controls. There was not enough room on the PLC controls for the relays needed to select manual or automatic control.

Test run and 4 inch HMI panel

Test run of the new layout. Since the track section lengths are different then my test layout some changes to timers and such had to be made. In addition, I have this 4 inch HMI panel which I had from my early days of learning. I found a way to utilize it.

Tour of the new layout.

With PLC control, I built a few more lighted boxcars for my Christmas themed train so now I can have three trains on the layout and let the PLC run each of them.

November 2024 Update

Made a few changes to the programs. I added in a routine to stop the train in the event the cars break apart from the running locomotive. I also added in when a train is going to be parked it will ring its bell (if equipped) Third change is to add an offset for throttle for each train that is on the layout. The video explains this in more detail.

Recently purchased a MTH Railking ES44 locomotive and like my O&W Railking, it acts a little weird with the CW80 and that my layout has the outer rails decoupled. Looking into purchasing a Z-1000 transformer and adapting it to the PLC controls. Video of the locomotive test run is below.