Helix Approach

Started working on the sub-roadbed from the river crossing to the helix today.  The area will also including the siding tracks for Sedalia Quarry, and part of it will need to be removable to access the window.  I decided to put in spline roadbed, and had completed that when we decided that we could put in a small 8" deep lift out section and just scenic the whole area.

Since the bridges are still part of the incline grade to the helix, I notched out part of the supports for the spline to sit down at the correct level.  I used a 12" piece of plywood to clamp to the spline as it went in so that area stayed straight for the turnout to be placed there.

Here are a few pictures after a few of the spline have gone into place.  I seems we use a clamp spaced about every 4-6 inches to make sure it is held together nicely while the glue dries.  The area below the spline is covered with shop towels to catch any of the glue that drips out.  While I am very particular about no glue squeezing out on the top of the spline, I dont really care about the bottom.

This is the part where we decided to change it all up and add an 8" deep section of plywood that will be the lift out so that we can put some rural scenery around that tracks as it crosses over to the island of the helix.  Had we know we were going to do this at the beginning of the day I wouldn't have put in the spline roadbed, but now that both are in, it will look nice having the elevated track and have the scenery slope down from the track in front.

A couple pictures of a few of our locomotives lined up in the staging yard.

Staging Area Lighting

Got a fair amount accomplished today on the layout.

Started by finally getting the hardboard in above the staging yard for the helix base.  Once the hard board was in the lighting for the staging area became a need.  We were concerned with the type or even color of lighting that we put in on the staging area as it is mostly there just to check on thing and a little bit of work light should cars derail.

We are using LED lighting on our layout and from working on another project I had a section of blue LEDs that were pretty close to the right size, and I had already soldered on the leads!  Mounted the LEDs on the inside of the front piece of 1x4 and it is illuminating across the tracks.  The LEDs run on 12v, and though I will eventually add a larger 12v power supply to the area when lights are added for the helix area and other lighting in the nearby area, today I just found an old 12v power supply from something that disappeared awhile ago yet the power supply went into a box.