The Transcontinental PRR

[davefoxx]

Very hawt, Eric.

[Cajonpassfan]

Very hawt, Eric.

No, downright naughty
Nice going...
Otto

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Hawt and nawty.

You know, if this were the 1960s, that'd be what Eric named his layout.

[VonRyan]

Hawt and nawty.

You know, if this were the 1960s, that'd be what Eric named his layout.

The Hawt & Nawty

"Our fires are always lit"

[eric220]

Hawt and nawty.

You know, if this were the 1960s, that'd be what Eric named his layout.

That's it, I'm changing the name!

[davefoxx]

That's it, I'm changing the name!

Cool!  You can now add H&N No.2 to the roster!



DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That's it, I'm changing the name!

Ahahahahahahahahahaha. Awesome.

[wazzou]

I had a Hawt & Nawty #2 recently.   

[mu26aeh]

I had a Hawt & Nawty #2 recently.   

That's why you shouldn't eat at Taco Bell, Chile's or Chipotle 

[eric220]

I put in some work on the railroad This afternoon. The helix had developed a problem. Namely, the joints between sections had started to buckle. The worst of the joints was causing locomotives to walk themselves right off the tracks. When the Gandy Dancers had a guest operating session at a local layout in Alameda a few weeks ago, @mighalpern noticed a helix whose levels were lined with metal straps. That gave me an idea on how to fix my helix. I went to OSH and found some 1" aluminum strips that had holes pre-drilled every 8 inches. The first couple of straps went in and were very encouraging. This afternoon I installed the rest of the straps that I bought. (I need to buy a couple more to finish the job.) With the worst of the buckled joints corrected, I ran a train hauled by a pair of M1s that were coupled with @Lemosteam 's replacement couplers.



The train performed flawlessly. I even got an unexpected chance to test the helix in a car freefall situation. The train came uncoupled about three cars back right at the top of the helix and survived intact all the way to the bottom. Not a bad day's work.

[nkalanaga]

Davefoxx:  I'll bite.  Where was that picture taken?

[eric220]

By the way, that aluminum strapping fixed this:

Spent a few too many hours in the basement last night. The end result was the completion of the helix.

Good news and bad news. As I mentioned before, the grade actually does change at the transition to pick up an extra 1/8". Evidently that was set up as a 3% grade over two feet (the steep part on the uphill side of the transition). I dropped one of the anchor points 1/16", changing it to 2.5% over four feet. The change is visible, but I still think at least its severity is mostly an optical illusion.

The third level down, however, is badly warped, dipping significantly between anchors. Trains have traversed it with no problem, but that's an issue that needs addressing, and I'm not really sure what to do about it.

[John]

nice fix .......

[eric220]

Thanks! For the record, I am planning on laminating a strip of facia board over top of the aluminum to dress it up a bit.

[John]

go about 1/4 to no more than 1/2 inch above .. and you won't have to worry about long drops