Urban Commuter/Light Rail/Modern Streetcar News!
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LOS ANGELES, CA - The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (L.A. Metro) has begun utility investigation work ahead of the construction of the East San Fernando Valley transit corridor project.

The utility investigation work involves potholing and trenching along Van Nuys Boulevard from Plummer Street to San Fernando Road during the weekdays, weeknights and weekends, L.A. Metro officials said in a construction notice.

The project calls for construction of a a 9.2-mile light rail system extending from the Van Nuys Metro G Line (Orange) Station to the Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink Station. The initial operating segment, which extends 6.7 miles from Van Nuys Boulevard at the Metro G Line (Orange) to San Fernando Road, is entirely at-grade and includes 11 new stations.

Additional studies are underway to determine the remaining operating segment from San Fernando Road continuing to Hubbard Road, according to L.A. Metro.

SEATTLE, WA Sound Transit began transporting riders on the Northgate Link light-rail extension at the end of September. The 4.3-mile line adds three new stations to the system, at Northgate, Roosevelt and U District, with trips of 13 minutes from Northgate to downtown Seattle. Of the 4.3-mile extension, all but 0.8 miles of the elevated track at Northgate is located underground.

The opening marks the start of an unprecedented period of transit expansion in the region. In three years, the Link light-rail network will nearly triple in reach, from 22 miles to 62 miles, with service to Tacoma’s Hilltop in 2022, East King County in 2023 and Lynnwood, Federal Way and downtown Redmond in 2024.

The project’s $1.9 billion baseline budget includes a $615 million credit agreement under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which provided significant long-term savings for regional taxpayers through reduced borrowing costs. The project is coming in approximately $50 million under budget, Sound Transit officials said in a press release.

Voters approved the Northgate Link extension in 2008 as part of the Sound Transit 2 ballot measure. Construction on the project began in 2012 following six years of planning.

 

One of the first things a modeler does when acquiring a new DCC model is to change the DCC address from the address 3 with which the model comes. Usually CV 29, a CV with which you should be familiar, was 6, the CV29 default value. The address 3 is a two-digit or "short" address. For most locomotives, you will have a cab number higher than 127. Addresses higher than 127 are called four-digit or "long" addresses. Original DCC inventors gave 127 numbers, 1 through 127, to modelers to use for their locomotives. Because they were not model railroaders, they never imagined that it would be easier to identify locomotives by the number printed on the locomotive itself. Since short addresses are placed in CV1, CV17 and CV18 were later developed to handle the long addresses.

CV 29 value	Action Indicated
1	Reverse Direction	A
2	Enable 28/128 Speed steps	B
4	Enable Analog Operation	C
8	Enable Railcom	D
16	Make speed steps loadable	E
32	Recognize addresses 128 or higher	F

The value 6 was composed of value B, which is 2 and value C, which is 4 for a total of 6!

DCC systems normally have methods to do this for you so when you change the address from 3 to, say 5322, you will end up with CV29 being changed to 34, (Value F plus value B) or 38 (Value F, plus value C, plus value B)

So when an address change to a number over 127 "does not take", first check CV 29. It has to be 32 or higher for an address over 128.

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