Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Whiting Street Yard trackwork is complete

All of the track (including 7 turnouts) is installed in the Whiting Street Yard. I still have to install a number of feeders, but the track is in and works. Details and scenery will be installed sometime in the future.

The next step is to complete the track for the Berlin branch up to the main deck. In the process of laying the track I found that the lift-out and the deck for the Whiting Street Yard weren't leveled quite the same. There was a slight downgrade in either direction, with the seam between the two as the peak. This was easily fixed by shimming up the end of the lift out that is farthest from the yard. This has the effect of cutting the length of the grade to the main deck by at least 1/3. The grade is still 2%, just not as long. I would love to start the grade at the same point, which would reduce the overall grade % a little, but I'm using the Woodland Scenics risers and they don't have anything less than 2%.

The issue is that I need to raise the deck for the section that is no longer on a grade. It will be easy, since it's the exact thickness of the OSB. But my scraps of OSB are in the closet behind the lift out. So I need to cut the three tracks that connect the lift-out to the yard, but I'm not quite sure how I will do that cleanly. My basic choices are the Dremel or a hacksaw, I just haven't decided yet. I'm hoping to get Dremelman/Sawman (Chris) up to do the dirty work.

I also trimmed and rounded the rest of the corners on the helix that face the aisle.

So quite a bit of work over the last week. I'll install the rest of the feeders tomorrow, and figure out how I'll deal with the modified grade. I really want to get that track in because I can use it for staging and actually operate the Whiting Street Yard.

More to come (and yes, I'm still working on the pictures).

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