Saturday July 11th 2009.

For me today was one of the most significant and memorable days as the owner of the L&N RR Casey Sub-Division. After much planning and just over 3 years of work since relocating to a new home, the railroad had its first Operator training and viewing day. With almost a full crew in attendance we had many trains running, plenty of switching, and lots of railfanning. There was plenty of discussion and it was very pleasing to see the layout operated by the group of friends that I enjoy model railroading with.

There was also a little bit of trading of wares done by several of the crew. I will post new photos of the layout over the next month and a few from the running day.

April 20th 2010

A long time ago one of my fellow modellers uttered the phrase “Over my dead body”. This was in reference to converting his very nicely operating DC controlled layout over to DCC.

Well 3 “Over my dead body’s” later the conversion was done. This started the “Over my dead body”  rule within our operating group and to date I have only said this once about changing to DCC.

I did however say “Never say Never”, and as of April 15th I am the owner of a Digitrax Super Chief DCC system to operate the L&N. Now all the work starts with a re-wire of the layout and upgrade of the loco’s with decoders. It will be well worth the effort when it is finished.

I highly recommend purchasing from DCC Hobby Supply in Colorado. I placed my order and it arrived in Australia within a week. Excellent service great prices and freight costs. Please check out their site on the Links Page. Thanks John.

August 2011

Almost a year and a half since the DCC equipment arrived on the L&N and the installation is near enough completed.

There are currently 54 loco’s converted to DCC allowing several sets of loco’s to sit ready in the service area at West Knoxville.

The layout is split into 8 power districts and initially had 13 sockets for the throttles. Thanks to Rod, John F and Ron, DCC Wireless was added in April 2011.

February 2012

As of mid Feb I have 59 DCC equipped loco’s in operation on the layout. The most recent being Life Like FA2 and FB2 locos. a second Kato SD40-2, a CN SD40 and an Atlas GP9. I still have an ABA set of Kato F7 (early release) without decoders for now, Even without those 3 I have more than enough locos on the layout. With the addition of some Peco turnouts in the staging yard I have added a Loco Depot in both Corbin and Etowah where I can park space loco’s until needed. Thus not over crowding the Knoxville Loco Depot.