The D&J Railroad -- From Scratch

[D&J RailRoad]

Testing the track and making adjustments. It seems that flaws in the track work are more evident with a train on it. The benchwork design makes adjustments quite easy. Here is a cut of 16 autoracks on the left most loop. The locos are on the track that has soldered leads. The tail of the train is on track that is powered only by the track connectors. The motive power is a BLI AC6000 BNSF and an Atlas GP35 SP, both MUd together. The train is on a 1% grade going uphill.

[D&J RailRoad]

I laid out the loco net cable, boosters, power supplies, UP5s, UR91 and UR92. I will operate them with extension cords running from one central control point to make turning the layout on or off easier. Later on, I'll tie it all together with a light switch that will turn everything on or off.
I've been putting off completing the adjustments on the right most loop that feeds the sorting yard. I have about another scale mile of track to lay before I reach one end of the yard. The track extends about a scale half mile past the yard on the loop that is under adjustment where it will join up with the first section of track that is laid. Soldering of the buss line is about two miles behind the track laying crew but is only working on one side of the double track mainline. A lot of work still to be done there.
Turnouts and crossovers are still being planned but none have been installed yet. Both types of turnouts will be #10 and will be tied to the signal system. I'm still looking at the turnout kits that can build a #12. The first ones to be installed will be for the yard leads and the crossovers to access the yard leads from the opposite track. Sidings will be planned after the mainline is up and running. Block control signal heads will be installed after the blocks are established.

[D&J RailRoad]

Getting some work done on the yard. The yard will make a slight right turn and then come back together on the distant yard lead. The mainline will be on the benchwork on the right edge of this picture, where the paper towel roll is.

The yard lead

and the loop going into the yard. The end of the cork roadbed for the yard lead is at the bottom of the picture.

The wiring is moving along two peninsulas to the left of this picture. I have started blocking the tracks for the coming signal system.

[railfan]

If you put solar panels on all those plywoods...and aimed them towards that window....holy megawatts casey jones!

[D&J RailRoad]

Got some more wiring done to the yard lead and the right most loop of the layout. The left most track is the yard lead with a cut over to the mainline so trains coming out of the yard can get around trains coming into the yard on the track that the SD70Ace (foremost loco0 is sitting on. That section of yard lead is about 45 feet from the cut over to where it terminates further down the mainline. The other end, behind the locomotives leads to the main yard.
All three Digitrax command stations are now synced and controlling their own sections of the layout. Adding more buss line and soldering each section of track to the buss is taking some time and patience.

[D&J RailRoad]

With the hot weather going on here in Virginia, I have been spending a little more time in the cool of the basement getting caught up on building the D&J Railroad.

I finished installing the cut over at the first yard lead so the right most track could have access to the yard. This is about 45 feet further down the track from the previous post picture. The spine train is snaking from the yard lead across track three to track two and will be left hand running up the 1% grade to the mountain pass (yet to be named.) Each turnout is a #10 as you can see the entire 5 spine cars are in transition. The two turnouts on the mainline will be powered by Tortus machines. With these turnouts and the two in the previous post completed, I can progress with laying cork and track to complete the mainline run of the entire circuit. That will be about 1 more scale mile.

[railfan]

Sounds like fun and looks great! You have nice rolling stock and 'motives.

Mike

[D&J RailRoad]

Looking across the basement and the three peninsulas of the layout from the top left to the bottom right of the layout illustration in post 10 of this thread. The cork roadbed is almost into the far corner with just about a 1/2 mile left while the track is just up to the lift out section that crosses in front of the door opening going into the storage room. The thing standing up in the distance is a lamp system for working on the yard turnouts and wiring. The Digitrax command station in the foreground powers the center loop and over to the door way and back justpast the camera to the left. If you look, real close between the pole and the central air system to the right side of the picture, you can see a AC6000 BNSF sitting on the track. Kinda brings a bit of perspective of how large this layout is. The ceiling is 9 feet high.



This is a little closer look at the line of cork roadbed that is in the distance in the previous photo. The yard is on the right. The double track mainline will curve to the right along the distant wall then come back toward the camera to the right side of the yard.

[railfan]

Wow...that is really a big layout!


Mike

[D&J RailRoad]

Finally got the mainline laid down where it passes the freight yard.



Track is glued down to the cork road bed and is being held down with wood and weights. The area between the runs of track, three on the left and the newly laid track on the right will be filled with backdrop to divide the two sides of the benchwork. This track will wrap around to the bench in front of the wall in the background and go over the liftout section pictured further below.



This is the lift out section in front of the storage room door. Note the #10 cross over just before the lift-out section. The freight yard lead track will join into the mainline on the other side of the lift-out and the crossover in the foreground will get the trains over to right hand running. The track in the foreground is concrete ties, code 83.