3) Technical Description:
SIgnals: The B&O is double track operating under Rule 251 (CTC) with 9 aspect Color Position Light (CPL's) signals. The WM does not have any signals.
Towers: There are five interlocking "towers" with touch-screens that control switches and signals with pseudo Standard Signal graphics (classic CTC like panels).
Operations: Hybrid DCC system consisting of NCE command station with a NCE control "booster" bus to Loconet "railsync" cable adapter to interface to existing Digitrax boosters.
Throttles: 100% NCE radio throttle system.
Power Management: The
power is split up between B&O, WM and Staging power. DCC
specialties "PSX" series of DCC circuit breakers and auto reversers are
used for creating local Power Districts.
Layout Control Bus: LCC. Block detection, Signal control, Local manual turnout panels I/O and turnout motor control. Using RR-CirKits LLC products.
Interlocking Tower and Staging Control:
JMRI Panel Pro is used to implement signal logic and control, track
train movements, route control and implement Automatic Train control for
staging.
FastClock: Dedicated but normal "real time" 1:1 clocks are used.
The history of the layout is that it was powered originally by DC. The wiring was setup for long DC blocks. It was quickly converted to DCC when Digitrax offered the Chief system. Power was initially setup by allocating a booster to power multiple designated DC blocks. This has also created a less than optimal DCC wiring setup for this layout. Many electrical noise issues related to loss of control issues of locomotives at specific areas of the layout unrelated to throttle control along with false occupancy detection nagged the layout for many years. Digitrax Two way Radio throttles also had loss of control issues at the throttle level. Could not acquire a locomotive or eventually had no control. Switching to NCE solved all the throttle issues. The BLD168 block detectors were all replaced with LCC coil based detectors providing electrical isolation from the DCC track power and eliminated the false occupancy issues. The DS54's were all replaced with RR-CirKits LCC equivalent devices.
Today the layout works much better with several changes indicated above put in place.
4) Map of layout and Operational Photos.
B&O is in Blue and Western Maryland is in RED
Layout diagram. Click on it two magnify.