The JACALAR RR

Thanks Tbone. It has been quite a journey, and I've learned a lot, from a number of folks here on TB, as I've made it.

 

Lift-up road, behind Roundhouse

I did a lot of work over the past weekend, and finished up the section of roadway that runs behind the round house and machine shop. This is the section that lifts up, so that one can access the subway tracks

Here's the right-end, where the road will turn left and cross the mainline "into" the window. A service road will also come down into the yard



A more ground level view of the road on this side



A non-artistic look down the length of the road. You can see the mainline track ballasting progress, as well. I'll actually take the screen out of the window and work from the outside to reach the next section.

I've only finished the roadway on the one section. You can see the ramp from it to the bridge, and the bridge itself, only have their base coats applied



A San Francisco Muni #35 Geary is coming down the road (Wheels of Time)

 

Traffic on the bridge at the tee intersection





Looking over the roundhouse down at the roadway

 

Close up of the roadway and the WOT bus



the black patches, etc., were all on purpose. Not the best maintained of roads

Traffic passing, seen between roundhouse and machine shop

 

Wow....progress is looking great! I just used several of those building backdrops too. Look great on your layout too. Keep the shots coming...enjoying it very much.

 

Thanks Nick - you'll have to come back over one of these days, to see the progress in person. Quite different than when you were here last year.

Thanks Jerry! I'll put a couple more of those buildings across the window. Was even thinking about mounting some to two sides of a clear acrylic sheet, to give some depth. Will have to play with it.

Thanks Bob! Appreciate the encouragement.

 

A new arrival on the JACALAR

SP 4832, a GP38-2 (Kato), was acquired recently to pull freight loads for the JACALAR excursion railway. An excellent runner, it has been refitted with all the modern accessories (i.e., DCC and MT couplers).

Here, we see the loco by the side of the road, waiting to proceed through the warehouse district



The evening sun begins to cast long shadows on the scene



Looking over the roundhouse at it

 

Washout

No sooner was the highway overpass completed, but heavy rains inundated the area (for real, as those of us in the Bay Area can attest over the past few days). This rainfall has caused an unfortunate rock slide, right near the tracks. Luckily, the crews have done a remarkable job clearing the debris from the right-of-way, but, it will be a while before the road crews can get out and repair the damage



The washout is actually on the lift-up portion. I may even add a broken guard rail into it.

Here's SP4832 and its consist pulling past the highway and along the warehouses

 

The Kato GP38-2 SP#4832 was purchased used. Ran "ok", but roughly on DC, original Rapido couplers. Spent the last couple days completely refurbishing it. Installed the MT coupler conversions (unfortunately, all anyone had was black), and put a DZ125 decoder in. The biggest issue on the conversion was getting the wheels and trucks clean, so that there was proper continuity from the rails to the decoder. In terms of overall effort, this probably took more effort than doing my first Kato Mikado conversion!

Speaking of the Mikado - I also changed the decoder in it, this weekend, from the DZ125 (now in the GP38-2) to a Lenz mini-Gold. What a world of difference! Runs so smooth, basically purrs going around the layout. :thumbs_up:

Having a lot of family over this Friday, so will now need to clean all the workings up, so I can have the big unveiling!

 

Detailing up the Mike is next on my to-do list. I didn't want to put the details on until I had the decoder work finished. I'm going to take a bit of a scenery break for now, and let the layout be for running trains. So, more time on the train "to do" list vs scenery, while dealing with one upcoming HS graduation, one college graduation, associated moves from college, to college, etc.... will be a very hectic next 5 months! I think the next 3 weeks are pretty much the remaining open weekends!

 

A REAL Viewing

One of my first cousins was in the Bay Area on business this week, so yesterday, we hosted a "cousins dinner" for all the local cousins and our visitor. This was the first time everyone, except my sister, got a chance to see what I've been building. I spent Tues through Thursday cleaning up all the work space, and had all the track operational.

Had three trains running at once - my BLI E8A/B UP 928 consist pulling a 6 car UP passenger set; my SP GS-4 #4453 pulling a 10 car Morning Daylight, and the WP F3ABB #801 pulling an 8 car Calif Zephyr. To keep myself sane (working from one DT402), I get the UP on my outer loop, and had the other two running on the inner, autoreversing loops (which run through the station). That allowed me to not worry about switching. Everybody just marveled, and loved the running. The sound effects from the GS4 and BLIs dropped jaws.

Of course, I ran into some minor problems, primarily with my (normally) smooth running GS4. The pilot truck kept derailing when entering one specific #6 turnout from the diverged route (ran fine the evening before), and the daylight observation car has decided to start derailing its back trucks at a couple spots on the layout where it always ran smooth in the past. Can't see any sign of dirt/debris on it or the tracks (nothing else, including some very light freight, have problems in those places). Will try adding a little weight inside to see if that will help.