The new layout is looking AWESOME !!!!!
Bob/IG
Looking reeeeeeaaaaaally good Crandell. I bet its nice finally being able to run some trains huh!
I like that you're ballasting the track as you go. That's what I should have done. I still have unballasted track. LOL
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
Thanks for the up date Crandell. Looks like a very interesting layout out so far. Well you have got a lot done with all the other things going on in your life.
Looking forward to the next up date. I have been checking every day I will add.
Ken
I hate Rust
Well, then , you must convince yourself that you dislike it intensely, Randy. Start when you awaken on Sunday morning. Before you leave the bed, tell yourself how much you hate building layouts. I'm pretty sure you'll manage to spend about four hours in the train room before you know it. LOL!!
This evening I recovered the wooden trestle I built for my last layout. I managed to free it from the roadbed and its abutments, which I will make anew, and I got the Code 100 track off the curved deck. I would not have bothered if I hadn't taken a pencil swipe image with paper overlaid on the tracks already in place on the new layout, where I envisioned using it, to see if the curvature matched. When I took the rubbing and overlaid in on the trestle the match was close enough for curvature and length of arc segment, so I went at it. It came away nice and clean after a minute to let the glue in the ballast soften when I wet it. Then with the trestle upside down and the tracks on the bench, I gently sawed with a steak knife and forced the blade between the ties and the wooden 'stringers'. I heard some cracking, but the ties were popping away from the wood, so I just kept at it and soon the entire Code 100 length was away. Trestle feels solid, looks great. I will have to cut it down, but I I had to do that when I first installed it. I purposefully made the bents too long so that I had something to cut away during installation to ensure a tight fit with the terrain of the gully still to be made.
I also figured out tonight how to make my topmost liftout bridge. I will make twin parallel L-girders long enough to reach across the loft entrance gap. Sandwiched between the two L-girders will be twin blocks of 2X2 pine to act as both a spacer and backbone, one on top of the other separated by about 1/2". The top flanges of the L-girders will face outward. In total, those two flanges and the 1X2 spacers between them all, level to form the deck for the tracks, add up to a 5" wide deck. The headblocks on the #6 Walthers/Shinohara double crossover reach out to 4" from tip to tip across the appliance. So, that gives me one half inch on each side outboard to the edges, and gives me lots of gauge loading clearance to the side of the bridge itself.
How will I connect it to power? Ah, here's the neat part: I purchased small metal L brackets, the chromed kind with two holes on each 2" shank. I will fashion U-shaped blocks of 1X2 whose lower inside corners are lined with one of those brackets. Also on the outside corners of the bridge, the lower edges, will be the same metal brackets. The supporting blocks will be just wide enough, with the L brackets in their corners, that when the bridge rests on them, the four brackets on each of the four corners will nest precisely. Metal to metal contact established. On one end of the bridge, its U-shaped support will have its inside corner metal bracket liners with a thin feeder wrapped around the top of the retaining screw. More metal to metal. On the bridge-mounted L-brackets, a feeder also wrapped around one of the screws rises up to feed the rails. Should work, no? Simple, robust, effective, and a quick and easy lift-out is all I need. I don't need an spade connectors, which is ideal.
I'll post a diagramme tomorrow.
Crandell
See I think that's my problem - I LIKE building layouts, so after I reach a certain point I sort of don;t do a whole lot - which is why my layout has been in progress nearly 3 years and I still have the entire cement plant area to build and I've only ballasted a whopping 6 feet of track. Not to mention I still have a siding, a spur, and the connection from staging to install yet. Instead, I sit here building covered hoppers out of open hoppers. OH well, eventually it will get done.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thanks for the tour of your "work in progress"... the new layout is looking great. Thanks for taking the time to give us that update.
Bob
Thanks for the update. It looks like you are doing really good work.
Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
http://s1082.photobucket.com/albums/j372/curtwbb/
Good to see an update, Crandell! Until I can get my own new layout started (have to buy the house first), I have to usually model vicariously through others' work on their layouts, and your efforts top that list.
I hope the personal churn is behind you - I know that can not only eat up the time, but sap your energy while doing it.
Your slow pace is my blistering speed. I'm constantly amazed at how easily and fast you seem to progress. I'm looking forward to seeing even more!
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
Now THAT'S an update!
Thanks!
Terry in NW Wisconsin
Queenbogey715 is my Youtube channel
Hi, everyone. Sorry for the slow pace, but much has gone on personally over the past couple of weeks. I haven't been slacking off in the loft, but it has been fits and starts such that progress has been slow. The spring is always nuts at our house with all the pent-up pressures from a long grey wet winter spewing forth in one way/place or another. I don't want to sound indelicate or biased/unedujumacated, but I am the lone male who is surrounded by wimmin. Springtime means I have to dig deep and take care of all sorts of anxieties, troubles, emergencies, illnesses, breaks, maintenance, and so forth. We men may not live as long, but it's a lot better quality...wouldn't trade it for a week of the longer life if I had to endure what the womenfolk do. Sheesh.
Back to the fun stuff. What was it again? Oh, yeah, building a layout...my favourite pastime...NOT!! I do it because I can't pay anyone else to do it, and I have to have one in order to enjoy my trains the way I like to enjoy 'em. [...sigh...]
Seriously, it isn't so bad. I am enjoying some aspects of it, but this build seems to offer all sorts of puzzles and challenges the second/last layout didn't. The helix was a bear at times (you were right, RRCanuck), but I think it is mostly my inexperience and inexpert skills. The next one, if I were ever to attempt one, would go differently. Figuring out how to wire the turning wye was also a challenge. It seemed straightforward on paper, but the reality was something else. I was having all sorts of shorts, and it wasn't until I went back and traced my feeders on the tail end of the Peco that splits the two wye routes that I found I had crossed two of them. What the....!!! Once corrected, so did the problems go away.
I am happy to say that the whole side of the loft is now laid, ballasted, and tested. I have some ballast tidying yet, and have to lay a small industrial spur of the long curved turnout at lower left of the first photo. That turnout was salvaged from my old layout and was scratchbuilt. The diverging route descends at about 3% so that I can lay level trackage running through a village and industrial comples. Nope, no idea what either of them will look like or represent. I like to wing it as I go. First I want to get the entire double mains and liftout bridges working flawlessly.
The helix is complete, although once I construct/scenic the mountain covering it, I will remove two already cut sections of the upper deck and insert bridges and portals. You might be able to make them out with zooming. They are both at left, close to the right side of the turning wye tracks.
This is a view from left of the last image looking toward the door and bridge area.
I have proved the power and tracking with an Atlas Train Master and a hand-pushed Walthers CPR passenger car with twin-axle trucks. Next test will be with the J Class 4-8-4 at speed, and finally with the CPR Selkirk. Later, the BLI Niagara 4-8-4 or the BLI Hybrid 2-10-2 Union Pacific TTT-6, which I intend to run before I begin to lay down scenery, because those are the most twitchy engines when it comes to decent track.
It was great to run the FM H24-66 and to hear its engine thrash loudly while it loaded and began to move. My trackwork seems to be paying off. I do have to be reminded of some tips now and then, but that is just a way to recover/recollect the excitement and learning during my first two attempts at making a layout.
Next up is pondering the construction and powering of the two liftout bridges. The upper deck is for the mains, and it will have the double crossover if you recall. The lower is offset a bit laterally and affords the descending ramp access at that point to the other side of the loft benchwork and eventually the staging yard after a 90 deg turn toward the yard bench.
I have yet to recover the old turntable and roundhouse section of the old yard, but I will have to cut it out and set it in place soon as I lay track past it and have to insert a section of new plywood next to it for the top surface of that bench. Meanwhile, I have harvested three Fast Tracks type turnouts from the old layout, and about four Peco #6 Code 83's. Soaked all of them, and then used a paring knife to dislodge the most clingy ballast and glue. A quick brushing and rinse, pat dry, and they are as good as new. They are running about $27 at M. B. Klein's, discounted, so I won't be chucking any of those into the landfill if I can help it. I even took up the Walthers/Shinohara curved #8 because it is/was expensive and does a good job on most steamers. The curved #7.5's with the fibbed claims of inner radius will probably end up in the landfill. I had to butcher them badly to get them to spread into wider radii so that I could use them.
I hope to update soon.
Brunton Gave up on keeping us up to date, huh Crandell?
Gave up on keeping us up to date, huh Crandell?
You must know Crandell is busy working on it doesn't have time to take pics and post. No pressure or anything!
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Thanks for the up date Crandell.
Glad you found the solution to your problem... I'm looking forward to your progress reports.
A lot of time has passed since I last updated, but a lot has happened, not all of it related to building the layout. We had hurricane winds and very heavy rainfall this past weekend, so bad that much of Vancouver Island was without power. We were down long enough that I felt concerned for the freezer contents and the stuff in our fridge. So, for the first time since buying it three years ago, I hauled out our 6.6KW generator and fired it up. I isolated the house from the mains by throwing the main circuit breaker and then plugged in the generator using the double male chord I had made years ago in anticipation of such a necessity. I had powered the house for only three hours when the power came back on line. That was just one intrusion...there were others.
What I have been working on is the scissors-style turning wye. I have fiddled with the curves, soldered up the segments leading away from the 30 degree Walthers Code 83 crossing, and generally got ready to test the critical steamer on the various curves and the approaches to the crossing. I powered up the area with my Super Empire builder and promptly got five quick beeps...and a refusal to power the rails. CRAP! What had I done wrong? I finally decided, after much thought, that the first easy test would be to cut through the tiny soldered joiner quarters I have decided to use (instead of the way too long full metal joiners), but only the four on opposite sides of the crossing...one route IOW. Powered up the DB150, no beeps, and I ran that gorgeous Selkirk around the curves I felt were going to be the closest to its minimums. Success!!
The steamer ran over and beyond the crossing, about a foot into the unpowered curved arm of the wye...meaning the Walthers Code 83 crossing is not DCC friendly or that it affords isolated routes...it must be powered with a reversing mechanism and gapped. Well, that, in turn, means I will have to relocate the PSX-AR and move it over to reverse the crossing...only that litle bit, or the entire route to which it is still soldered. Not sure what I'll do just yet...I suspect the latter, and leave the two isolated segments to be fed separately by their own feeders.
This has been a big pause, sleep-loser, and point of irritability for me for the past 10 days or more. I can now rest easy, ballast the tracks here to fix them in place, and get on with laying roadbed and tracks for the rest of the double mains. I should fly from here.
I'll get some photos in the next couple of days to show how it is looking.
Slow, Mark, with a couple retraces of steps in laying my rubberized cork roadbed at the place that has the 30 degree crossing and scissored turning wye. I think I have the geometry right so that even my Sunset Selkirk with its 30" minimum radius will be able to use both legs. I have tracks laid on most of that complex, and will finish it this weekend with any luck. I'll post a photo later today.
Crandell - progress???
I am back home from the visit down south, but I have things on my plate for the first few days before I can return and get myself out of a jam over the turning wye. I have to lay some tracks, figure out where to put the Atlas Code 83 30-degree crossing (or else hand lay one to fit better), and then test it all before I can continue with 'building'. I figure this will take me until next Tuesday at the earliest. Once I have the helix$1***$2scissors-type wye figured out, the rest should be easy. The only head scratcher that will remain for me is the yard, and that's months down the road.
bump
Can't wait to see it.
Roll on Crandell, roll on.
Sue
Anything is possible if you do not know what you are talking about.
I appreciate everyone's interest and encouragement. It happens that I am in Indio, CA, at the moment visiting my aged father. I have done nothing on the layout since last Monday, and it isn't looking good for this coming Monday either. I will return Wednesday, and commence laying track on the newly completed ascending spiral ramp.
Sue, the layout's mean surface elevation is now 25 inches, not 29. I learned that the batter of the walls and the wide main curves I wanted would not allow sufficient 'gauge loading' for the larger locomotives and rolling stock. So, I had to drop it for more head room. Honestly, it isn't much of a loss, but it is so much easier to work on than at 36+". I have an older computer desk rolling chair that I will definitely put to good use.
OH, it was Ken bumping the thread. LOL I saw it was updated and I figured, oh, he's got the layotu finished now
At this rate you WILL have a second layout finished before I even get all the track down on my first one. I guess I need to start workign a little faster. But then I do things like I just did - picked up 3 undec USRA hoppers to turn into covered hoppers. I have too many projects going, that's my problem. Or at least that's my story and I'm stickign to it., As long as we're all having fun, right?
Crandell,
I just found your progress thread. I don't get over here very often. Looks like you are having fun. It is easy to go crazy on the benchwork.
I have one question. If your benchwork is 29", do you operate mainly from a chair? Even as short as I am, it makes my back hurt thinking about bending over.
Great Job.
Bump
I'm very impressed with your progress so far. It is obvious that you have put a lot of thought into your new layout.
I can hardly wait to see the finished project. In the mean-time I will watch your progress and enjoy the show.
Thanks for sharing.
Allan
Remember its your railroad
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/
Your benchwork looks fantastic, crandell! It would win an award in my book, that's for sure.
Your train room is awesome just in itself....
One of theses days I will build my new layout!
But in the mean time I will watch you work.
Thanks Crandell!
Thanks for your comments and compliments. I'm afraid my handiwork won't be winning any awards any time soon. It may look good in imagery, but in person it looks like what you would expect from a guy who hadn't gotten any skills builiding since Grade 10. I do fret about its stiffness and strength, but when I put my weight on it or 'reef' on parts of it, there is very little discernible movement. Followed by an explosive expulsion of breath...and drop in blood pressure.
Gabe, I have run a steamer, a J Class 4-8-4 towing a single small passenger car up the ramp and around 3/4 of the spiral in the helix until it ran out of powered rails. It was only in backing it down the ramp that it ran into a high join rail end, which I found attributable to insuffiicient caulking under the roadbed. I squeezed some into the gap, weighted it, and forgot about it for a day. Sliding under the helix for a better look next day, the rail tops are aligned. It was sweet running one of my favourite locos up the first rails laid. It was just as sweet to find that all my connections were correct and robust.
Yesterday and today I corrected the ascending spiral ramp in the helix. It is much better now, and I continued it. to the point where it has commenced its long descent outside that module across a double wide girder bridge (maybe a truss, not sure), and it will turn a corner to join the yard on its main layout level. It was well enough aligned, in all aspects, on its robust 2X4 short risers that I felt comfortable using a jig saw right away to cut away two gaps which will get bridges, and between which will be a tunnel...a half-tribute to the Othello Tunnel complex on the Kettle Valley Railway.
Here is the 'corrected' ascending ramp with bridge gaps already removed in the roadbed. I am using 1/2" sheeting ply, by the way. It will be hidden anyway, and it is plenty flat and sturdy to do its job.
Here is a side view, moving 90 deg to the right of this view and the camera about 7' forward from the position in the last shot.
Operate the layout Yet?
I know I would be operating.
"Mess with the best, die like the rest" -U.S. Marine Corp
MINRail (Minessota Rail Transportaion Corp.) - "If they got rid of the weeds what would hold the rails down?"
And yes I am 17.
I don't post very often and I have been in a deep funk since I moved from Arizona to Maryland but your layout progress has been an inspiration for me to get started on my new,but much smaller layout. Your benchwork looks great and I can't wait to see your progress as you build this layout. Great job!
Joe