{"id":896,"date":"2016-07-01T01:23:20","date_gmt":"2016-07-01T06:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/?p=896"},"modified":"2019-01-30T18:29:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T00:29:00","slug":"about-those-distractions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/2016\/07\/01\/about-those-distractions\/","title":{"rendered":"About Those Distractions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the last post Spencer Sawmill Trackage Complete<\/a> I mentioned how I kept getting distracted from my trackwork mission in Oneida.\u00a0 It started when the folks at ESU announced a summer sale for their LokProgrammer.\u00a0 For the benefit of those not familiar with this device, it is a LokSound decoder programmer that uses a computer interface.\u00a0 While DecoderPro will program LokSound decoders nicely, this programmer has one interesting benefit that DecoderPro can’t match.\u00a0 You can download new sound projects from ESU, then load them into your LokSound decoder.\u00a0 I’m new to LokSound, but I’m quite impressed with their offerings at this time.\u00a0 Several months ago I purchased my first LokSound decoder and it came loaded with the sounds for an ALCO 244 prime mover.\u00a0 Then a few weeks ago, ESU upgraded the decoder file for this prime mover to include their new Drive Hold, and several other operating features.\u00a0 No problem . . . just download the new file, and write it to the decoder.\u00a0 It is now the latest and greatest.\u00a0 Lured by this prospect, I decided to take advantage of the sale.\u00a0 My first task was to upgrade my (still new) decoder.\u00a0 It went well, and I’m tickled with the result.\u00a0 Then I found out that I could actually modify the sounds in the LokSound decoder that came in my Rivarossi Heisler (it’s the top-of-line version 4 decoder).\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 I spent several days playing with that and I’m thrilled with what I was able to do.<\/p>\n

I also became distracted with my waybill generation program.\u00a0 Back in the early 90s I cobbled up a DOS based waybill generation program using QuickBasic.\u00a0 It worked quite well on my small bedroom sized layout of the time.\u00a0 Then later I decided to write an enhanced Windows version using Visual Basic 6.\u00a0 I’ve played with that program off and on (mostly off) for years now, and have thoroughly enjoyed working with it.\u00a0 The program is about 85% complete, but lately I’ve been thinking that it’s high time to get busy and finish the thing up so that it’s ready for use when the layout becomes operational.\u00a0 Trouble is, I haven’t done much with it for at least 5 or 6 years, and find that I’m spending a good deal of time trying to figure out everything I’ve already done!\u00a0 To complicate matters, I recently started reading the detailed writings of Tony Thompson on the style of waybills that he and friends were developing and using (I originally saw an article he did in Model Railroad Hobbyist<\/a>, then later visited his blog where his entire ongoing treatise of the subject is available).\u00a0 They’ve come up with some interesting “model railroading” waybills that bear a nice resemblance to actual waybills.\u00a0 They’re greatly simplified to be sure, but they capture the essence of the real thing, and I love them!\u00a0 Indeed, they have prompted me to completely redesign the appearance of my waybills, and to expand on the concept.\u00a0 Creating the forms was easy, but then I realized that I needed to add quite a few fields to my database to fill in all the new blanks on these new forms.\u00a0 And then the code to make it all happen.\u00a0 I’m not finished with this conversion by a long shot, but I’ve made good progress with it, and think the finished product will be well worth the effort.\u00a0 The downside to all this was, of course, adding another delay to the program completion.<\/p>\n

And that led to yet another distraction.\u00a0 The new waybills will be printed on 3″ x 5″ slips of paper (I’ve found a source for this paper size and my HP printer can handle it).\u00a0 Problem is, the larger than “normal” waybill size requires a larger than normal box on the layout fascia to hold them.\u00a0 I could of course make them myself, but I’ve taken a fancy to the nice boxes that are offered by Bill Brillinger<\/a> up in Canada.\u00a0 I contacted Bill and he says he can make up any size that I need.\u00a0 Excellent.\u00a0 But after some email exchanges, I realized that I needed to do more homework as to exactly what I’ll be needing (sizes, number of slots, etc.) so that Bill can work up a quote for me.\u00a0 It was then that I realized that I was doing everything that I wasn’t supposed to be doing (at this time) and I pulled in on the reins.<\/p>\n

I got back on the trackwork at Oneida, and I stayed there until the job was completed.\u00a0 The only trackwork left to do (on the peninsula) is a bit of mainline on the backside of the peninsula that brings the trains from Oneida into Monterey.\u00a0 I’ll be starting on that soon.<\/p>\n

Now, where did I put that programmer?\u00a0 And I really need to get back to Bill on those boxes…<\/p>\n

-Jack<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last post Spencer Sawmill Trackage Complete I mentioned how I kept getting distracted from my trackwork mission in Oneida.\u00a0 It started when the folks at ESU announced a summer sale for their LokProgrammer.\u00a0 For the benefit of those … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,21,12,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electrical-dcc","category-locos-rolling-stock","category-misc-layout-constr","category-operations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1479,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions\/1479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lacentralrr.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}