The D&J Railroad -- From Scratch


Looking good Ken. I agree with Sherrel, nice to see you getting more work done on the layout. I have followed the construction of your layout since your first posts and really enjoy watching everything come together. Are you going to have an access hatch to access some of the area towards the center? Don't think your arms are 6 feet long. At the club, they made a lift up hatch to reach some of the hard to reach areas. There's one area where occasionally a train will come uncoupled on their 2+% grade and come roaring down and sometimes derail where it can't be reached from the edge of the layout.

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The freight station between the two power towers can be lifted out to clear up the wreck at the bottom og the grade.

Keep up the great work on your empire.
 
Ken,

It is good to see you back at work on the layout. The Intermodal Yard expansion will be great to watch come together and watching how you fill the areas in ... one of my problems with the open grid method of bench work.
 
Yes, I'll be adding the lift out section to access the center of the pit. That will be made using the blue foam board, screen and plaster.
 
I have a lime stone quarry that is actually an access point for a section of my layout. The opening is approximately 24" x 24". Since the layout is at 48 inches above the floor at this point, I plan to install a wooden step stool that I can stand on while working on the layout. Arms are shorter now.

Visitors can see the side walls of the quarry, but not the bottom. No need for a lift out section. The quarry is actually square in shape just like one near my home in Lannon, Wisconsin. A prototype for everything I guess.

Greg
 
I got some plaster laid down on top of the contoured foam board.
As I have an op session coming up on Saturday, 30 Dec, I have to start getting the layout in order. I placed all the containers and van back onto the container yard. I'll have to go back later and paint the yard concreat color then add the guide lines on the ground for the drivers.
I counted them as I pulled them out of the storage container. A little over 450 containers and vans on the trains and in the yard.

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The Diablo Canyon bridge is still sitting on my kitchen table getting a little bit done ever days or so. it's a slow tedious process building the cat walks.
 
Yeah -- glad to hear that you have been working on it! Sometimes - a little news is better than No News.
Hang in there, Ken.
 
While doing some prep work on the bench support system to accommodate the Canyon Diablo bridge, some rail traffic was distracting my work.

 
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Ken I enjoyed your video with that nice long freight. Watching a model train running has a calming effect on me.

Keeping posting.

Greg
 
While I was doing the measurements on the bridge area, I got ambitious and cut some foam board to fill in some more area where the benchwork was exposed.
The bridge area is up on the top left corner of the picture. The doorway goes into the storage area of the basement.
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While I was doing this work, I had the two trains running that I had made a video of in post 868. One of the times the train came around, it was pushing some of the cars that had been on the end of the train. Closer inspection showed that a couple had broke on the front of the coil car. Yep, a McHenry non-coupler lives up to its specs.

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I pull short trains (10 cars max) and I never had a McHenry coupler fail, but I also am slowly changing over to all KD couplers. My ore cars that are in service all have the draft bars replaced and KD installed. Cabooses will keep whatever couplers were original equipment since they are at the end of most trains.

Again great weathering.
 
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