While back in Chicago, did a quick afternoon jaunt before our flight out, and hit Chicagoland Hobby and Des Plaines Hobbies. Prices…eh…not great, nothing like the local Model Train Warehouse, but I was not really looking to stock up on rolling stock for the staging yard. I did pickup a couple of Diesel Era’s (May/June 2006 and July/August 2006). There is a two-part series on the Santa Fe SD40-2′s that I enjoyed, and will serve as good reference for some N Scale Kato SD40-2 detailing projects. Also picked up a recent Model Railroading (not Model Railroader) and had a neat little article about signal systems that made my mouth water.

Picked up a Sabine River and Northern MDC box for about seven bucks…I remember seeing one on my Dad’s layout back in Cheyenne. Will need to look for some prototype photos as I thought they had white roofs, but mine is red (I think).

Of late, as the track is laid for the staging yard, and the next tracks to be laid will be for the helixes winding up 8″ to 10″ to the main level, I have turned my attention to the numerous turnouts in the staging yard. Over Christmas, my son and I (as well as my mother-in-law and dear wife) visited Caboose Hobbies on a sunny winter day in Denver. While there, one of the things I picked up was a pair of Tortoise switch machines.

I have had the switch machines tucked away in a drawer since then, waiting for the right time to crack them out and see how they will work. I debated on how to proceed with the staging yard, either using twin-coil machines sold as part of a turnout, or going the slow-motion stall type switch machine like the Tortoise model. Since I am looking for the staging yard to solid trackwork, I decided that wherever possible, I would use a Tortoise switch machine. The advantage is that once the switch machine throws the points, the motor stalls and holds the points tight. With a twin-coil machine, there is slack in the mechanism that can allow the points to float and potentially cause a derailment, especially in facing point scenarios.

Almost two weeks ago I took the first one out of the box, and read through the directions. Simple enough…drill some holes, bend a wire, and mount the sucker under the turnout. The only problem…all my turnouts are laid, soldered, and attached to track that is glued down. However, one tiny little detail was missing…a hole under the turnout throwbar for the switch machine to attach to.

Looking back, I should have realized this sooner, and I think at various times, I did consider it. However, I was more driven to get track laid and trains running then a little foresight to drill some holes before finalizing the turnouts. After some testing though, I should be ok. I have drilled a small hole a few mm away from the far extent of the throwbar from the top down. Then, I climb under the layout, slap on a larger drill bit, and slowly drill a few mm away from the first hole until I have bored through the plywood. Then a little bit of knife work to trim away some cork, and maybe some filing to open up the hole correctly, and I am in business.

On Monday night, I made a mounting bracket for the switch machine consisting of small piece of plywood so I can drill a 1″ drywall screw through the bracket and into the layout sub-roadbed, keeping the drywall screw from protruding through the sub-roadbed. Then, after attaching the switch machine to the underside of the layout, I filed out the hole for the turnout throwbar, and then installed the linkage from the switch machine to the turnout. Then, I hooked up the power, and flipped the direction switch back and forth to test the turnout throw.

After a little more filing, I am happy with the first install. The points are held tight again the rails, and I am looking forward to the ability to use some of the more advanced functions such as turnout indication, and hooking up with DCC to throw turnouts from a DCC throttle or a computer dispatcher display.

I will throw up some pictures of the install when I get a chance, stay tuned.

I finally put together an index of layout pictures for easy browsing here. I posted three or four new galleries of stuff from the past few months that was previously sitting in my to-do box. Spring cleaning time around the old hard drive…

I cannot seem to figure out how I am going to run this blog, so with the lack of clear direction, I’ll just throw whatever I have at it in a hap-hazard manner, and see what happens. Good news is better than no news, right ?

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on finishing up track laying in the staging yard. I started with the tracks nearest the walls, furthest away from my body, and worked inward. Awhile back, it was running the outer main lines around up against the wall. Then I worked along the north wall, and laid the secondary staging yard. After finishing up both ends of that yard, it was on to the Denver staging yard, and connecting it into the west end staging yard interlocking. That left the main staging yard.

Last year, I had started on the main staging yard by laying the east main staging ladder, and a few pieces of flextrack into each track. However, as this yard curves from the west to north wall, it becomes the near tracks, so I wanted to get the other trackwork out of the way to make the working environment more tolerable. So, after an order from ModelTrainStuff.com arrived about a month ago, I had enough supplies with the enclosed flextrack and turnouts to finally lay track for the main staging yard.

A few weeks ago, I started working west along the west wall, but it took some time as the main staging yard is eight tracks wide. Eventually, I had everything laid, and this past week, I took the soldering iron and soldered rail joiners and feeders. Once that was complete, I sighted in and made sure the track was reasonably straight, and started gluing it down on Friday night. On Saturday, I was able to pull out the track nails, and after cleaning the glue off the rail, the first train rambled through.

Today, I ran a few trains around, and did some switching. We pulled out Flossie’s Great Northern FT’s, and ran them around too, and ran they ran pretty well. After checking things out, and interacting with Tyler here and there. I started what will be one of the two last things left for the staging yard; installing switch machines. I pulled out one of my Tortoise switch machines and the drill, and worked on getting it installed on the first switch entering the ladder for the secondary and Denver staging yards on the east end. I was able to get it mounted and test the throw, powering it up with my powerpack, and letting the slow-motion stall motor do its thing. The test run went well, but I have to work on a mounting pad, and working on clearing out enough space for the throwbar. Only thirty-someodd of these things to wire install.

I have some pictures and video of things, and will have to post at some point, stay tuned.

Ok, slapped together a few quick galleries with Picasa this morning:

The gallery from 03/30 shows work on the secondary staging yard, which was populated with all my rolling stock I own, unless it is sitting on the rip track on a few cars on display. Note the WB Rio Grande train getting underway (or shuffling around cars, I cannot quite remember what I was doing–it is an age thing).

http://trains.mtnaircomputer.net/graphics/layout/20050330-layout/

These views are work on the Denver staging area. 01703 shows work on the east end, and what the ladder looks like for the five staging tracks that make up the Denver staging. Then a couple of shots from the west end at various staging of construction.

http://trains.mtnaircomputer.net/graphics/layout/20050409-layout/

No pictures at the moment, but I did spend a little bit of time on the layout this weekend. Last weekend, I was able to get a majority of the Denver staging yard completed, after finishing up the secondary staging yard earlier in the month. If you check out this partial overview of the staging yard, the secondary staging yard is on the far left, and the Denver staging yard is the center group of tracks.

Anyway, was back at it today, finishing up the Denver staging yard, soldering the feeder wires, and soldering some of the rail joints on the west end. All went well, and I was shoving cars into the yard and filling it up this evening while Atlanta and Philadelphia battled in a nice pitchers duel.

Before bed this evening, I started laying out track for continuation of the main staging yard. This will be a larger task, as I have eight yard tracks, plus two main line tracks to lay along most of the west wall, and much of the north wall. When complete, each track will hold approximately 55-65 cars.

As I near finishing up trackwork on the staging yard, there will be three tasks ahead. First, I will need to get all the wiring and power districts figured out. All feeder wires and soldering is done as I lay track, but hooking up all the wiring, and then gaping the rail and creating several power districts will follow. Then, I will have to embark on adding switch machines to the forty to fifty turnouts that make up the staging yard. Lastly, once most of the trackwork is done, I’ll need to make a run for some plywood to begin on the Archer helix.

All for now, stay tuned…

Oh hum hoolie doolie…have not posted much here for quite sometime. However, I have been busy working on the layout, just have not dropped into the blog to post about it. Such are things.

I toyed with going back and posting some updates from February and March today, but I occupied myself with other chores. I did want to throw up a few shots though of some recent acquisitions to the motive power fleet, UP5799 and CP9532. Both are gifts from my Dad, and made their break-in runs this weekend. They will be quite at home, either teaming up on PGEX coal trains, potash trains, or manifests. Good thing N Scale Supply had a sale on centerbeams last year.

I pulled out an earlier Kato C44-9W model, UP9702, and coupled it up to the rear of a QHKED like train running from the UP up to the CP at Eastport, ID. At first, the DPU experiment was a disaster, as the UP9702 showed its age with a dirty set of wheels and a squeaky gear. After some maintenance, the WB manifest made another test run, and the results were a little better. The empty centerbeams proved to be somewhat of an issue, as the UP9702 was shoving fairly hard compared to the two AC4400CW’s on the point. I am thinking that restricting CPU operation to the mainlines only is a smart plan in the future of operations. Of course, a little DCC tweaking could set things up quite nice too.

I have some shots of the completion of the secondary staging yard, seven tracks of about 30-35 cars capacity. All my rolling stock is currently holding the yard, with two tracks open. for various switching. More supplies, hopefully enough to finish the staging yard, arrive on Tuesday according to UPS. Until then, I better post some more pictures

As my work world turns from fun and games to goals, ambitions, delivery milestones, process, and such, I find it trickling into my every day life. For example, I had to give Flossie some action items to follow-up on last weekend, and I dread my dear wife’s performance eval for FY04.

While I do not have a Gantt chartcreated yet for my endeavour (I have been considering it however), I did reach a significant milestone this evening, the completion of laying roadbed for the staging yard. From one helix on the east-end, to the helix and reverse loop on the west-end, cork is now laid. So how long did it take ? Well…while I do need to get some historical information documented here, from my archives, it looks like I threw up the first construction around March 4, 2004. So, in about ten and a half months, the second major part of the staging yard is complete. A few shots of the current view are over here.

In the coming days, I’ll glue down the cork, then shortly after, flextrack will be rolling around, as well as laying turnouts for the interlocking.