I use an NCE Power Cab and have been very happy with it. The system was recommended by a friend and has turned out to be perfect for my needs. Plenty of power for a railroad this size.
Today I started in on the foam scenery for the big canyons at Calico and Hanging Rock. The pink foam is cut to size with a hotwire tool and then rocky textures are sculpted with a Dremel.
Here's one of the balancing rocks at Devil's Garden. Rock pillars like this will sway to and fro when the trains go by. Calico siding is in the background.
It's gonna take a lot of foam to sculpt the walls of these canyons! At least I've made a start.
Checking sight lines for the new scenery.
This Kato power pack will provide DC track power for the On18 mining tram. It sits in a nook in the cliffs far below Hanging Rock.
The balancing rocks reminds me of the Donald Duck cartoon where he's a park visitor to the Grand Canyon and with the help of a mountain lion ends up having to re-!dig the canyon. Hum,you might end up feeling a bit like Donald when your done with your rock carving. I'm sure the results will be spectacular.
Yes the rocks will wobble and sway just like at Disneyland. My friend Sam Towler devised a very clever way to do this and I'll probably do mine the same way. Basically, a bent, flexible rod runs up through a loose hole in the center of each rock in the stack (they are loosely attached but not glued together), and the rods are attached to a slow spinning mechanism below decks. When the rod spins, the rocks wobble and sway. Several rock stacks can be animated by one motor and some basic gearing. All of this will be activated by a reed or optical switch when a train passes by. Fun, simple and effective.