Thursday, March 29, 2012

Layout Construction – February 2012

Staging Track Rebuild
While filming videos for a previous post, I discovered that the staging tracks for Lewistown were badly out of alignment. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the them to align properly. Upon inspection of the removable section, I found that the wood had warped. There was only one way to correct this problem. Rebuild! To prevent this from happening in the future, I needed to find another base for the tracks. Plywood is definitely an option, more stable, easy to cut and easy to construct. I want to be able to add ballast to these tracks. Wood would have to be sealed in order to use water based glue. More work and I can not be sure that it still will not warp in the future. Thinking of a different material to use, I remembered a scrap piece of composite 1” x 6” that was taking up space in the garage. Perfect! Won’t warp, the right width, length and thickness. Now how to I strengthen the board? A trip to the big box and I came across the metal angles. Perfect! Stable, easy to cut, holes predrilled to attach to the board. The electrical connection to the track bus is almost the same as before. The photos below show the results. In the left photo you can see the old staging tracks leaning up against the wall

Click on the photo to enlarge.

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Red Coulee Creek
During the constructing the bridge for Red Coulee Creek, I decided it would be easier to finish the bents if I had a better idea of how tall to make them. It’s not really that difficult to build the bridge bents with out the scenery base in. I just really wanted to finalize my ideas for the scenery and stop work on the bridge. The bridge construction is tedious and boring, so I escape to another project. Speaking of avoiding things, with the scenery base in, I of course had to complete the fascia. Now I should run to the big box and get some paint for the fascia or maybe I should start laying the road bed for Falls Yard or maybe I should…

Click on the photo to enlarge.

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