Getting Real Column - 7
12: The front of the Grand Avenue bridge houses two speakers.
section of the building's interior. To ensure that the sound can
be heard, I did not put any glazing in the clerestory windows
for that part of the building. Styrene "equipment" placed over
the speaker partially obscures it from view. Also, I sprayed the
speaker the same concrete gray color as the floor of the build-
ing to further help conceal it.
Coach Yard:
I put the righthand speaker for the coach yard
beneath the layout. The lefthand speaker is located beneath the
Pullman Commissary building at the left-rear of the layout. The
roof of the Commissary building lifts off to expose the access
hatch in that location. The sound emanates from the rear of the
building, which I deliberately left open. The sounds of diesel
and steam trains passing and switching give a tremendous air of
realism to this part of the layout. It makes it seem as if there is
action going on even when no trains are actually moving.
12
13: Here is the second speaker for the downtown channel hid-
den behind the grill seen in font of the Swift truck.
Turntable
: the ringing sound of the "bull gear" as the turntable
rotates, the heavy pounding as the drivers move across the rail
gaps to the turntable and off again, and the hissing sound as
a steam locomotive waits on the turntable, are all distinctive
sounds of the roundhouse area. However the sounds need to be
synchronized with the movement of locomotives on and off the
turntable and the turntable itself.
To accomplish this, I placed a speaker beneath the turntable.
There are two pushbuttons on the fascia which are used to begin
play, and to advance to the next track on the MP3 player. When
the locomotive begins to move toward the turntable, the play
button is pushed. This plays the first track with sounds of a heavy
locomotive moving onto the turntable.
Once the locomotive has come to a stop on the turntable, the
“next track” button is pushed. This plays the track with the
13
MRH-Jun 2013
