Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Getting more track down!!!!

Even though the blitz is over, I'm still hard at work getting track down. I've still got the three yards and a few industries left to lay. This week, I've been focusing on the yard at Artesia.  

Here's a prototype view. Notice the four tracks in the upper left of the photo that curve off the the left side of the photo. These are the arrival/departure tracks. Since I'm building on a narrow shelf, I'm having trouble working these into the layout. If you look at the track plan for the lower deck in my first post, you'll notice that I've got one track going through the backdrop as a wye and the other three tracks ending at the back drop. I'm toying with the idea of taking all four tracks through the backdrop to use as staging. I'm looking for any suggestions on this. 

Here's a shot of the North end of the yard on the layout. I've still got the Wye track to lay where the brick at the left edge of the photo is. Also, working on the engine service area where the two bricks are in the background. 

Here's a view from the South end of the yard along the yard lead. In the center of the photo you can see the switches for those arrival/departure tracks. I'd like for them to be fully usable. 

I've also been working on getting the Tibbee bridge in and in service.  Here's a shot of the first train to cross Tibbee. This has been a fun project and it's getting closer to being done. I've got to replace the concrete T-girder section as I broke it during the install. For now, it's superglued together and the track on the bridge is just laying in place held by rail joiners. I'll just have to live with a slow order for a while. The T-girder section and both truss piers are all products from Scale Segmental Bridge Co. Keith at Scalebridge.com has been a HUGE help on this bridge. Both truss piers were custom made for this bridge but are now in his product line. I like having the first production run supporting my bridge. ; ) 

And here's a fun video of the second train to cross. I don't think Tibbee has actually ever had a double stack cross it but in my world it will. 

Been a slow layout week...

I've had a slow week working on the layout as I got involved in a few DCC installs on some locomotives. One thing I've learned is DC...