This is one of the rare instances where what I need to do for my second job – Iowa Scaled Engineering (aka ISE) – and what I want to do on the layout come together. One of the things I’m currently working on for ISE is a line of grade crossing controllers. The first one – the RoadReady Basic – is just a simple island-only crossing controller, designed for industrial tracks or other places where signals are needed, but train speeds are low and you don’t need approaches. However, the second piece coming out is the Track Expansion Module, which is designed to add full approach and island logic for up to two additional tracks. Turns out, testing such things on the bench with switches isn’t a lot of fun, so…

Turns out, my CRNW has a perfect application for such a thing. At Strelna, I have the McCarthy Road crossing the main and siding and then making a left turn. Since the road wouldn’t be able to use the not-abandoned-in-my-fictional-world grade up Kotsina Hill, I have the road breaking off to the south after the Copper River crossing and then coming back together with the line at Strelna. (Coming back in from the north, oddly, which means it went over the tracks somewhere in the miles between, I guess? Darn consistency errors.)

I installed both the basic crossing controller and a track expander, along with the eight required TrainSpotter IR sensors (one approach on each side plus two for the island on each track) and have had a ball both running a manifest freight of random cars back and forth, and working out the software bugs. It’s a lot more fun working out software bugs when you get to run trains at the same time, even if it is back and forth over the same 30 feet of track.

The bell speaker is mounted directly under where the proposed road will cross the track. Depending on how much scenery attenuates the sound, I may have to move it. And yes, the crossing signal is HO, and temporary. I won’t install the real N scale signals until after the base layer of scenery is done. Plus at least the one on the far side of the track is going to need heads in three directions – forward, backwards, and down one side.