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.

June Update

Staging Yard

The staging yard has now been completed, It has four stub end tracks and then a 5th that also serves as a reversing loop.  We have installed ground throws for the staging lead turnouts, the cost of tortoises didn't seem worth it for the staging area, especially since all turnouts are very accessible.  We used a Digitrax AR1 on the reversing loop to control the power of the isolated track.

 

River Crossing & Sedalia Quarry

When the trains enter the layout from the east staging, they enter here on the lower track of the river area representing the track between St. Louis and Jefferson City running along the river and through some rock outcroppings.  Once the train has passed through Jefferson City it begins its climb up to these bridges that cross a river here on the way to Sedalia, where we have decided to make home to a Quarry.  The Quarry will have a siding off of the mainline here before the mainline crosses over the staging to where the helix will be (above St Louis Staging).

These are the two areas that have been much transformed in the past few days.  For the basic landforms we have used a few different methods.  Most of the river area is cut from 2" thick foam board, the rock cliff between the river and lower tracks is made of layered ceiling tiles, and the Sedalia are is masking tape on cardboard strips.  All area have now been covered in plaster and soon will be on to paint.

Milling Facility

While the layout continues to change, the milling facility has been through many different configurations.  This is the latest and hopefully final configuration of the buildings to best fit the space, now I just need to finish the buildings, foundations, loading dock, windows, doors, details.  The roadbed has finally gone down into the facility, a pull through track just behind the elevator, holding track next to it, and then the short track in front of the elevator will the the locomotive holding track for the town that the Milling and Fuel facilities reside in.

St. Louis Staging

Today we got some of the staging track put into place, once the glue has completely set over night we can make the cuts for the lift out section.  The outside staging track is actually a loop to easily turn around trains and hold a large unit train that will run a thru on the layout going from east staging to west without any scheduled stops.  all other staging tracks will hold around 14 - 50' cars and 2 locomotives.  Now we just have to wait to get the rest of the cork roadbed down and then continue on with the track work.

Custom Paint and Staging

Worked on a few small projects today, turning an Undecorated Kato SD40-2 into a GATX Leased Loco, and roadbed on the St. Louis Staging yard.  They seemed to work well together, while waiting for paint to dry I could get some cork road bed down.... until I ran out, time for a trip to the hobby store.

St. Louis Staging --

It was a recent change to the layout to add a lower level staging yard, originally the lower level was planned as a continuous loop so that when my niece was over she could run a train in a large circle without really anyone having to pay close attention. We have changed the layout instead to a point to point by simply removing part of the loop at one end and moving some track around.  By doing so we have added a lift out section in front of a window that will be the start of a staging yard, with the rest being on top of a storage unit on the other side of the window.

The Project was going really well and seemed to be getting a lot accomplished, until I reached for that next section of Midwest Products cork roadbed but instead found and empty box, fail.  A trip to the hobby store clearly in my near future.





GATX Locomotive (SD40-2) --

I have a few undecorated Kato Diesels that have been sitting on the shelf for the better part of a year with no plan ahead of them, until today.  On a recent trip I had seen a few freshly painted GATX locomotives and while thinking about the undecorated locos today I have decided that they could pair nicely.  I found some GATX decal sets from Microscale and have got them order.  While I wait for the decals to arrive I went ahead and got some paint on the shell.  There is still some detail work todo before the decals get placed, and then once I get the decals on there, I can make the loco look as it it hasn't freshly rolled out of the paint shop.

Freshly out of the Paint Booth with out a flash, just fluorescent lighting from the ceiling fixtures, while the picture below was taken with a flash