ROFL! "Five Fingers Maintenance" I love it! That's going on the layout. Actually, running a track from staging to the workbench has always been in the plan. I've got a router bit that is just a smidge wider than a piece of C55 flex, so I can sink the track down until the railhead is flush with the surface.
Construction is underway! I had to make a hard choice about where I wanted to maintain my build threads. Eventually, I settled on The Railwire and N Scale.net. The most detailed account will be on my blog at my website under "News".
I've been thinking about resurrecting this thread. When I began construction, I thought that maintaining multiple build threads was going to be a real hassle, and I didn't want to overwhelm myself. Since then, I've realized that it's really not a whole lot of extra work to post updates on multiple sites. Would there be any interest in bringing this thread up to date?
Definitely. Since this is a modern railroad you should have an N scale Linda Thompson sticking her tongue out and making a "nyah" face.
OK, step one in bringing everyone up to date. The layout plan has evolved a bit. Here is the current design for the upper level: And lower level:
Now for the construction. It all started about a year ago when the basement was finally finished. Within a day of completion, Altoona moved in.
Construction then began with the structure of the peninsula. I'm not really sure why we decided to start here, but it did prove to make things a little challenging later on as we tried to get long pieces of plywood around it. From there, construction progressed to staging and the work bench. Track was then installed. Staging was built with code 80 rail.
With the staging level completed and tested, attention turned to the upper level. I figured that it would be easier to build, wire, and troubleshoot the upper level before the lower level was in. First, one of the Gandy Dancers had a friend custom build some steel angle supports for the River City area. Next came the challenge of spanning a 12-foot space over the window. We used channel steel for the main structure, and later came back with a steel cable truss to provide extra support. It was around this time that TBX3401 paid a visit.
Work then progressed around the back of the alcove. Through Walnut Hill And out onto the peninsula I decided that I wanted to do something other than rolling hills in this area. I felt like the upper level was a little lacking in industries and freight destinations in general. I was inspired by Port Chicago and the C&H Sugar Refinery along the Sacramento River. I was having a hard time deciding whether to do a small port or C&H, because both offered interesting opportunities. Finally, I settled on the idea that the sugar refinery decided to put its pier to good use and has a small general cargo warehouse connected. I also changed the geographic location to closer to the present day city of Pittsburg along the Suisun Straight. My Pennsylvania Railroad came into the Bay Area via the Sacramento Northern's route. In this area, the SN, Southern Pacific, and Santa Fe almost formed a three-track main. Today, the UP and BNSF routes are still evident, with the BNSF route on the north, using the distinctive pink ballast. The SN route, although abandoned, is clearly visible ducking under the old SP and ATSF routes. The alignment is similar to the peninsula, and the duck-under gave me a good alternative for punching the mains through the backdrop. It also gave me an excuse to call the refinery/port an interchange location. That's going to be a busy little yard!
In the past month and a half or so, work has pushed the ROW around the back wall, through Keystone, and finally last week to the outskirts of Idaho Springs. Cork and track have followed the plywood, and I am able to run trains to the end of the peninsula. So that brings this thread up to date! I will continue posting progress reports as they come.
Despite in-laws in our guest bedroom and trying to get oriented in a new job, I've managed to get a little work done. First off, I've played around some more in Filemaker. I've built an admin screen for waybills: I need to develop a switch list interface so that yard operators can assign empties to the waybills. That among other things.
I also managed to get four more pieces of flextrack down, bringing the mains into Colorado. While it may not look like much, it allowed me to do this: Note that this train is running wrong-way. I've finally got enough track down that the Pennsylvania Limited can negotiate the crossover at Walnut Hill, meaning that I can run back-and-forth now. That shot should also answer the critics who said that I need to superelevate my curves. With this newfound running potential, the first train to run through the upper staging yard under its own power has come and gone. And the inspection train has run to the end of the line. There were a few minor issues, but most were attributable to facing-point turnouts that are free-flaoting (as in not attached to switch motors or otherwise secured in one direction or the other). Regardless, it's nice to be able to run trains.
During the TB outage, I get a little work in. First, a little prep tonight for the hardcore Gandy Dancing. The track gangs (who were diligently finding ways to get around rule G) managed to prepare grade up the Blue River and Snake River through Keystone. Work then progressed up to Loveland Pass. Although this curve seems rather nondescript, it is actually a significant milestone. This curve marks the crossing of the railroad over the continental divide from the Pacific basin to the Atlantic basin. For you historical sticklers, at least I've gotten into the right side of the continental divide. :tb-rolleyes: Work wound down grade toward Idaho Springs, and came to a stop at the end of the prepared ROW just outside the town limits.
The Gandy Dancers came the next day and put in a diligent two hours of work. Before some union rep pointed out that Management had kept them on the job for an extra 20 minutes with no additional pay, they managed to get some wiring done, install a few tortoises, and push the mains through KEY interlocking: and into Keystone: The next day, while the Gandy Dancers were on strike, Management tried to hire some scabs to continue laying track. Being unable to find any, the managers themselves showed up and began throwing down rail. They pushed the mains past the Keystone team track, up over Loveland Pass, and were closing in on Idaho Springs when the caulk ran out. Fortunately my Gandy Dancers are volunteers, so Management shouldn't have too much trouble finding the money to pay an extra 20 minutes at time and a half.
I've got some hard-core gandy dancing scheduled for tomorrow (be sure to turn your safe-search filters off to see the photos), and I'm back in design mode. I've been thinking about the N&W interchange in Morrow. Right now, it's set up to be a runaround as well as the entrance to lower staging. Or as a diagram I don't like the N&W line running next to the track pans, and I'd really like to have a couple of setout tracks so that I'm not blocking the runaround with interchange cars. My thought is to go back to my original idea for the area, with the N&W running along the Shurkyll River under the PRR bridge, and the connection to lower staging being in the approach to the helix. The connection between the interchange and the N&W would be off-layout, thus: I don't really care about the specific orientation of the yard, but I'm having trouble fitting it in the available space. Ideas?
Hi, it would help if dimensions of the available space are clear. Length of the siding and the length of the "tail" of the yard are needed as well. It seems to me the siding is placed more to the left, how far? Smile paul
There's a faint grid on the full-size version. The grid lines are at 24". In the diagrams, the sidings are exactly the same size. The diagrams are just for illustration of the general idea, so don't read too much into them for specifics. Here's one thought. The interchange yard tracks are just shy of 50" long.
Here's another idea. The thought would be to depress the yard a bit, as though it's on the grade down to the N&W line, and break up the plywood prairie a bit. In this arrangement, I lose the passing siding/runaround. There's also a bit of a complication with the support structure, but it's not insurmountable.
Here's the results of some more brainstorming. If I don't double-end the yard, there's actually enough distance to get the interchange line down under the PRR mains. This arrangement opens up another interesting possibility. If instead of going straight to the backdrop, the interchange line takes a hard turn to the left, I can sneak it across the river behind the PRR bridge. Mirrors under the bridge would conceal the track. There's enough room under Newark that with careful placement of the turnout motors, I could squeak a 15-inch radius balloon turnaround track under there. I could either turn the track back on itself, creating a one-train staging yard, or I could snake the track around directly down to lower staging. There's nine inches of separation, and to get under the PRR mains, the interchange track has to drop two inches, so there's only seven to go. The benchwork would be a little tricky, but I think it could be done.
