Photos of the anticipated grade drop down to the lower level industries and completed upper level with street viaduct. Jerry
Ah, the smell of fresh benchwork in the morning! Looking good; will enjoy following your progress. Jamie
Thanks guys for all the kind words and encouragement. I have completed sub roadbed / track work on the grade extending from the lower level industries into the west end of yard. Track work is also in place for the lower level industries. The 2 1/2 inch grade extends over a distance of 12 1/2 feet. After factoring in the curves this comes out to approximately a 1.8 percent grade. A single Kato SD40-2 was able to pull 15 Atlas 50' box cars up the grade. A single Kato AC4400 was able to pull 21 Atlas bathtub coal cars up the grade. Both were near their pulling power limits. I think I'm ready now to build the folded loop on the east (peninsula) side of the layout. Wish me luck. Jerry
oh my gosh! I can't wait to see this finished.. One of my favorite areas to railfan.. only being about 30 minutes from me!
Time flies when you're having train fun! Sub-roadbed and track placement has been completed. That makes operations and continuous running of trains possible. Fascia has been added; however I have yet to trim it down to match the proposed scenery contours. Aluminum screening used to fill the gaps in the bench work is partially complete. I have temporarily filled in the remaining gaps with cardboard to prevent any locos or rolling stock from hitting the floor due to unforeseen causes. I attached slide out trays to the underside of the bench work for the computer and keyboard/mouse. Also started playing with the intermodal yard. Enjoy the updated pictures. Jerry
Given my use of wood for the sub-roadbed it has been very easy to form and attach the screen to the open areas. I staple the screening to the plywood with 1/4 inch chisel point staples. In hard to reach places I use thumb tacks. Plaster should be fairly easy to apply to achieve the desired landforms. I still intend to use foam for all above board landscaping. My first attempt at scenery will have to be the tunnel. This is necessary due to the nature of the construction as I will not be able to gain access to this area once I attach screening to the upper deck. The track in the tunnel must have feeders attached and ballasted. The inside tunnel walls, ceiling and pillars must be finished. At the moment I am preparing to install buss wiring and determining layout blocking for the BDL168's. This will set the hooks in place for my LCD layout panel and layout signals to come. There may not be a lot of scenery work done in the near future; however I do plan on "mudding in" the screened areas so that I can trim the fascia to match. Thanks guys for the encouraging comments. Jerry
I’ve been having so much fun running trains it seems I forgot to do any work on the layout. That’s not entirely true; it has just been too cold to prepare some needed wood work to fill in the edges of the layout. I did get the layout panel created in PanelPro and the turnout table loaded. Now I can use the onscreen capabilities and run routes. My newest acquisition is a Kato UP SD40 to compliment the Kato BNSF SD40-2. Now I have a yard switcher for use by an operator at both ends of the yard. This also gives me a decent livery of locos in both UP and BNSF for single road name operations / running. All those op sessions have helped me make way for an improvement in the floor plan of my soap industry. After many hours of studying soap manufacturing plants on Google Maps I have decided to drop my chocolate industry in the S. Chicago section of the layout so that I can expand the soap industry. Track work will remain the same; however a network of overhead pipes connecting numerous holding tanks to the plant and loading/unloading siding and a pump house will provide interesting visual scenery. All pipe work / supports will be done in brass, while the tanks will be made of PVC. The building will run the length of the two box cars and three 2 bay hoppers. That will leave room for five tankers. Enough rambling, here are some photos. Jerry
To Hide or not to Hide? Performing Op sessions to prove my layout's functionality has led to a need for staging of at least two trains. I have been using a couple of yard tracks for this purpose; however that gets confusing at times.:tb-frown: I have also wondered about the possibilities of buying another foot of yard length, as it seems the majority of made up trains is always longer than any given yard track by a couple of cars or one loco.:tb-frown: My quest has brought me to the realization that I need to lose a couple of yard tracks and add a couple of staging tracks. In making these proposed design changes I have solved both of my problems. I have come up with a visible staging design and a hidden staging design. The hidden design would be behind industries / yard back shops with a removable roof for access. On screen occupancy detection would display staging status.:tb-biggrin: To hide or not to hide, that is the question. What do you see as the pros and cons? Thanks for your comments. Jerry
Note: I'm not an operations oriented person. In my mind hiding or not is psychological. On my layout there is open staging as part of the yard. It give the image of a larger yard and can be quite impressive to me and visitors. The visual impact of the non-prototypical aspect of having a couple of made up trains waiting to roll is lost on visitors but not on operators. I am strongly considering hidden staging for my unit coal / ore trains as they will hopefully be "emerging" from under the flood loader having just been filled. Don't worry about the length of the train. It's your railroad - do what you want Pros and Cons: Pro - Visually it is more impressive to have it all out there Pro - It's easier to keep track of everything, er, I'm guessing Pro - You are all set - no additional work required Con - *In theory* it "appears" to be less "realistic" Hope this helps from a non-operations guy
Jerry, I vote for visible. Those tracks aren't that different from the remainder of the yard to create the extra hassle. You just have a couple of trains in the way back which were "made up and ready to go".