I usually end up getting a know on my head when I am working underneather the layout doing wiring. Plenty of room above for me.
After a final test running session before they fly home tomorrow, Matt declares the layout will be interesting to operate with enough variety to keep me happy.
We have my sister, her husband and my brother coming over for a two week visit in about 4 weeks time, but we will be going over to Matt's later in the year, so I can get a look at his layout. Then hopefully he and family will come over to us again next January.
Fitted a dedicated socket for the mains plug on the dcc controller and the dc transformer, so all wiring is hidden and permanently pinned in place. Also tidied up some other under-boards wiring. Replaced a dodgy short length of track which was causing wagons to jump a bit. All nice and smooth now. Just need to check and glue in place all the turnout switches and shorten control rod where some of them are sticking up above the tie bar and fouling the kadee coupler bar. next job is then painting and ballasting the track.
Looks like you're making some good progress. Starting to look real good. When ever I get my next few order in, maybe I can start getting some more work done on my project. It looks like spring has finally arrived and yard work does cut into the time available to do layout work. Here's a picture taken from my front steps. Tired of winter.
Nice view! Snow stays on some of the mountains in the Julian Alps most of the summer, but gone from the ones around us. Just ordered some 1.5mm brass rod off ebay as I need to alter the cross-spans on a number of catenary posts to fit the new track configuration. Past the station, each post and span covers three tracks, so the ones I have from the old layout need to be extended.
I really like the looks of catenary. I spent a lot of time as a kid riding on the Milwaukee Road, which is electrified in my area. I have an out of state friend who models the Milwaukee Road and years ago I worked with him and made a jig so we could make HUNDREDS of posts. His layout room was 10 x 15 meters, most of his basement. At the time he operated DC and all of the catenary was live. He has since changed over to DCC as it was not available when he built the layout. It looks fantastic. Depending on our snow fall, we usually have snow on the peaks until late July or August. These peaks are about 3600 meters or better high.
I had no idea you had that many trees on your old layout. Good to get some green on it. Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191
It looks like you were able to salvage a lot from the previous layout. Things like catenary posts and trees and structures really add a lot of time to a layout build; yours looks like it'll be running and covered with details in short order.
Yes Geeky, it should come along quite quickly now. About to drill holes for more catenary posts, then on to ballasting before fitting the contact wires along the catenary. My wife and I have made a start this evening on fitting curtains to the edge of the boards to hide the clutter - sorry 'stored items'! - under the layout. Should get them completed tomorrow. Will make it much more respectable to have in the house.
Alan- Are your catenary posts a factory manufactured item, or did you make a jig and build them yourself?
Made using jigs Ken. It is impossible anyway to get correctly configured catenary for anything other than plain track. Take a look at www.andersley.co.uk and click the Catenary link for blow-by-blow account of how I made them. That being so, I now have to modify a lot of the cross arms to get the new track configuration. I have more brass rod on order for this. Should be here next week. All the fittings for the arms will be reused. The insulators are from Sommerfeldt and reused from previous posts. Sent from my Galaxy SII using Tapatalk 2
I decided to use the siding alonside the turntable to stable the Gomulka, so this will need catenary. As the wires are not yet installed, the Durica was used to push the Gomulka into the siding to determine the length needed. Just fits!
I hope that siding is protected, don't want that covered in graffiti... Sent from my HTC Desire HD A9191
