I suppose it's time for an update.
I've been plugging away at it when I can, but 58 hour work weeks don't leave a lot of spare time, plus nicer weather means outdoor "honey-do's" compete for what little free time I do have!
Anyway, I've been working on soldering some feeder wires about every three feet, plus at least two sets per turnout, before and after the frog. I plan to power the frog on all turnouts, and use Caboose Industries powered ground throws on all turnouts.
http://www.cabooseind.com/product-page/220s-sprung-w-contacts-165-travel-for-ho-and-n
In the meantime, I was
FINALLY able to get some Atlas Code 100 #4 right turnouts to be able to finish up the yard and industrial area, so I took some pics of them mocked up to let you see what they will look like. I won't be permanently installing these until I get some 1/8" thick cork sheets. I want the yard and industrial area lower than the mainline, which will be on 3/16" Woodland Scenic's foam roadbed.
Here is what the yard will look like. At this point it is all just laying on the table, nothing's fastened down.
The two tracks to the extreme left will be engine service tracks. I will be building a small triangular section to go under the track, so, no it won't be left dangling in midair!
The two short little tracks up by the curve will be caboose storage, while the two tracks on the right of the yard will be for switcher storage.
I would love to have the room for a big double ended yard, but we make do with what we gots!
I also mocked up the industrial area. I took the track plan from here:
http://www.gatewaynmra.org/2010/build-gateway-central-15-ho-scale-switching-railroad/
and modified it somewhat to give more industries and interest.
The 'empty spot' in the middle of the turnouts will be filled in with a piece of flextrack to give the run around for the switchers. I will need to relocate the turnout control to the other side of the rear turnout.
Looking towards the east. The runaround is comprised of the unattached piece of track in the middle, plus the turnouts to the east and west of it. I actually had this built once as a stand alone layout, and it works pretty well. The track to the right is the tail track for the switcher to back down, with a car in front of it, to position itself to serve the facing point industry sidings off to the right of this photo.
The track next to it, with the gondola on it, will be the siding for Rusty I. Beams scrap metal business. I have not yet decided what will be served by the two tracks to the left of Rusty's siding. At this point I'm leaning towards a stockyard, because I have some stock cars and need a reason to use them! To the left of that is the siding I will be using for my programming track. It is electrically isolated from the rest of the layout by plastic rail joiners.
Looking towards the west we see the facing point sidings. The two tracks on the left are a 'build it and they will come' sort of thing. IE: I don't know what's going to go there! The team track next to it serves the Rust-eze Medicated Bumper Ointment factory. I will probably be enlarging that door slightly when I actually make this out of styrene. I also need to find a photo of Doc Hudson and Photoshop him on there in place of Lighting McQueen to better fit my modeled era of the late 50's. The track to the right of the Rust-eze factory is another 'build it and they will come' industry.
The upper management of the railroad has also decided that before any more work is done to the line, the mainline will be taken up section by section and the Woodland Scenic's foam roadbed installed. The reason is that management has decided that running all the feeder wires, wiring the turnouts, and all that ballyhoo, and then having to undo all THAT to put in the roadbed is not worth it. So laying the roadbed has begun.
Section 1 has been removed and the guide lines drawn for the roadbed. What I did was to take a black Sharpie and make a dot on the layout between each tie in the center of the track. This gave me my track centerline. Then I took up the track, cut the roadbed down the middle on the score line, and pinned it into place on the layout following the center line. I then used the Sharpie and drew a line along each side of the roadbed. I then removed the roadbed. I now had a dotted line in the center and two solid lines equally spaced on each side. Now I know where the latex caulk has to go. Why not just use the dotted line, you ask? Remember that old Johnny Cash song "One Piece at a Time"? It has the line it "When we tried to put in the bolts, all the holes was gone!" Well, when you spread the caulk out thin with your putty knife, all the dots is gone! But with the two lines on each side, you still know where the roadbed has to go. I am using the roadbed in 24" strips, and I have 72 feet of the stuff, so I should have plenty. When the caulk is spread out thin and the roadbed applied, it pretty well holds itself in place, but I'm still using 5 foam nails on each side of each section. The first two sections are drying as I type this.
To power an Atlas turnout, a wire must be soldered to the frog. I don't know what material they make those frogs out of, but it doesn't take well to soldering at ALL!
The number 8's have a little tab to which a wire can be soldered, while the 6's and 4's have a small hole on each side of the frog. What I plan to do is tap that hole for a 2-56 x 1/8" screw, to which I will solder the wire. So last Sunday I went looking at hobby shops and hardware store for 2-56 screws. The hobby shops had nothing, and the train store is closed on Sundays. The hardware stores had some stuff in #6 and #8, plus a tiny smattering of #4. But #2? Nope, don't got it. So to the web I went. And found:
https://www.microfasteners.com/
They have all kinds of small screws, bolts, nuts and washers. And they have pretty good prices, too. A package of 100 2-56x1/8" black oxide pan head screws was $4.50, compared to the arm and leg Du-Bro would want for that many, and the $4.98 that Athearn wants for 24 plated round head screws of the same size. I ordered $45 worth of various lengths of #2 screws, plus flat washers, toothed lock washers, and nuts on Sunday and had them here from Pennsylvania on Thursday. Check them out if you haven't already!
Well, I hope I didn't bore you too badly with my rant!
More to come eventually.......