Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Layout Update #13: One Summer Later

The subtitle is what I wrote in my layout notebook between the entry for April 24 and the next entry on - drum roll - September 16. On that day I managed to get the remaining cork roadbed sanded and ready to be painted prior to tracklaying, and did the initial cutting and fitting of half of the 3/16" cork sheet for the west (left) side of the yard.

Last weekend I managed to put in a fair bit of time in the trainroom, in between rounds of laundry, birthday parties, and painting swords that Fiona and Bryan picked up at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. Laundry and painting are also basement activities, so I didn't have too far to travel. The cork for the west end of the yard is glued down, although I will probably trim it back a bit from the mainline, and most of the track for the long interchange/staging section is down as well. The two turnouts forming the lefthand side of the lower industrial area are in place although not yet wired or attached to their ground throws, and part of the rural industrial track is a soldered and wired sub-assembly awaiting installation.



In the second picture you can see the arrangement for the "remote" mechanism for one of the industrial section turnouts, with the wire throw rod running in a plastic tube under the tracks to the layout edge. Because of space considerations there will be a fair amount of this kind of engineering required for the yard, so this is serving as a good practice run for the larger task ahead.

Overall there is not a huge amount of visible progress, although I did get the interchange/staging track secured last night. However, the weekend was more important for getting me back in the practice of construction, and in figuring out how to divide larger tasks into sub-tasks that can be fit into the "here and there" moments into which the bulk of my spare time is divided.

I did achieve a sentimental milestone a couple of hours ago, when I attached a terminal strip I had used on my previous layout to the underside of the benchwork to hold one end of the bus wire for the interchange/staging track power. This is the first official incorporation of a first layout element into the new project.

Here's the updated Track Progress Diagram:


Until next time!

1 comment:

J. said...

I hear that train a comin', it's rollin' 'round the bend...