Update

It has been a while since I have posted to the blog and I have been working a lot and have some great progress! Things worked on since my last post:

• Lift Out Section- Complete! Pictures coming soon!
• Masonite fascia installed along entire benchwork. This really finishes off the layout benchwork nicely. I will be painting it in the near future. I am not sure what color though... earth tone? Pullman green? boxcar red? I have seen all three colors used and I like all three.
• DCC walk-around throttle jacks installed in new fascia. I am also very pleased with the way these look. Very clean and professional. They are easily "removed" when it comes time to paint the fascia. I had five from the previous railroad, so I installed all five. It may be a little over-kill, but I didn't see the point of leaving one or two in the box collecting dust.
• DCC electronics shelf has been constructed under Walnut, Illinois. I decided to build a separate shelf to hold the Lenz Set 90 and associated items. I was not happy with the idea of setting it all on the larger shelf I constructed to help stabilize the benchwork. The large shelf is a great place to temporarily store larger construction tools and I thought that having the delicate electronics nearby would not be such a good idea.
• Started wiring track leads to the power bus which I had previously installed, actually even before the 2" foam was installed. Again, I have learned a lot from previous layouts and from others in the hobby... two words, suitcase connectors. Wow, do these save time and headaches. I have successfully used them to connect the drop from the rail to the power bus. What used to take several minutes to strip wire, twist and solder... is now done in a matter of seconds! Not to mention that fact that I don't have to contort like a circus gymnast to solder the connections! Wonderful!

I will post pictures of all the items described above in my next post.
Thanks for stopping!
That's it!
Scott

Lift Out Section Rehab

From the very beginning I was not totally convinced I could live with a lift out section as part of my railroad. My concerns grew more as I made the decision to make the lift out section semi-permanent (See Previous Post). My thought a month ago was to "live with it" as a fixed lift out section and just duck under it to move around the layout. This past weekend, I decided I had had enough and completely dismantled the lift out section and re-built it as a true lift out.

The idea of using magnets to secure the ends of the section didn't work out like I had hoped. The magnets are gone and have been replaced with two 1x3's that have been notched to form bridge seats. I have further stabilized the section with two small dead bolts at each end. The section will not move and should be capable of holding the proper alignment, but will be easy to remove and store away when I am working on the railroad. This much is done!

I then laid the track back on the lift out section and thoroughly tested it. I have secured the rails on the tangent end of the lift out section using CA and spikes. The end that falls in the middle of the curve will take a bit more work. I did some research and found a link to a website. The website gives an idea to use a printed circuit board cut into "railroad ties" and mounted to the roadbed. The rail is then soldered to the circuit board. Click HERE to view the page. I am in the process of completing this process and hope to finish in the next couple of days. Once things are complete, I will post some pictures of the project.

That's it!
Scott

Final Track Plan

This is the final track plan (at least for now) of the Dragonfly Subdivision (Tenth Subdivision of the CB&Q RR).

All the track is complete. Wiring and Scenery are next!

Thanks,
Scott

Progress Update

Now that all of the trackwork is complete, I have been in the process of cleaning and reorganizing the train room. Shifting gears from laying track to now getting into the wiring and scenery aspect of the hobby. I am also going to be starting the process of filling out the Car Cards and Waybills for the car forwarding system I will be using to operate the Dragonfly Sub.

Part of the cleaning process involved opening up boxes of railroad cars that have not seen light for a couple of years! I have concluded that I have a lot of rail cars, considerably more than can be keep on the layout. I will need to build or develop a way to store the cars off the railroad. I call it beyond staging storage.

When a car completes the waybill cycle and ends up at the staging yard, my plan is to pull that car and store it for a couple of sessions. This will add variety to the car movements and prevent the same car from making the same moves each time the railroad is operated. The question is then, what do I use to store the cars, while they are beyond staging? The storage has to be easy to use, allow the cars to be visible, and protect them all at the same time. I have thought about buying some small clear plastic drawer sets and mounting those under the staging yard, but that seems to be a costly option.

I would be interested in hearing what others have done to solve this problem?

Comments/Suggestions?

Thanks!
Scott