The Little Rock Line

[Bendtracker1]

OK, while letting the weathering coats dry on the next round of cars I decided to start in with the basics of the new building project:
    The Olin-Chlor expansion.

I haven't quite finished with the Crushmoore building yet, but I'm trying to get the main structures done in Malvern so I can get some basic scenery started and cover up the brown paint.

I got the main building box made several weeks ago and Friday night after playing with the location of the building I found I needed to cut it back a tad so it wasn't crowding the loading tracks.




After getting it re-sized, I got the building sides cutout from a "For Sale" sign that I got all Menards for $1.69. I also needed another tube of the Loctite Stick N Seal, while looking for this I stumbled across a can of spray adhesive made by Loctite. This stuff turned out to be a great find! It's flashes out within a few seconds after spraying it on, then it's Re-positionable for about 5-10 min, then it's permanent.



As always, there's more on the blog.
Explanation of Olin-Chlor project (about halfway down)
First actual post of the project, part 1

[GaryHinshaw]

Lots of goodness here Allen.  That adhesive looks awfully useful, possibly just the ticket for mounting a long photo backdrop too, no?

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks.  I'm sure it would work fantastic for a back drop.

[Bendtracker1]

Saturday night we had the 8th ops session.
Though we were kind of short handed, things went very smoothly.

We tried several new things on this session:
1] We started at 5pm instead of the normal 7pm start time. We were done and cleared out by 9:30pm

2] Since I've been having some troubles with the locos running at a reduced speed after programming them due to some DCC difficulties, we kept the speeds down to around 15-20 mph. This helped to stretch out the session to 4 hrs rather than the 3 hrs in the past and also gave the added bonus so the El Dorado yard crew had a bit more time to get their chores done without feeling rushed. We also felt it made the runs last longer than they were. We've always tried to run at a prototypical speed, this time we just ran a little slower.

3] I've been playing with a timetable of sort, not so much for scheduling, but more so to space the trains out so we didn't get any traffic jambs in El Dorado on the only siding long enough for the through trains to meet or pass.

4] A change was also made at the junction in Ruston, LA. I designed it with two siding so the ICG could do a round around maneuver, but after seeing a video on simple interchanges that DJ posted on Youtube, I thought I would try to do something similar to add a little interest and challenge to the run.  I placed blue flags on one of the sidings.

Here's the blog post

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[Philip H]

Allen,
Interesting saw-by!  My only critique is that the tank car you picked up off the RI freight that's behind the locomotive better be empty, or your FRA man will have fun writing up an engineer!

Well done.

[GaryHinshaw]

That's a slick move at the interchange.  I guess it requires having the trains properly blocked, but then you're off to the races.

[Bendtracker1]

Allen,
Interesting saw-by!  My only critique is that the tank car you picked up off the RI freight that's behind the locomotive better be empty, or your FRA man will have fun writing up an engineer!

Well done.

Thanks Philip.  Yeah, I've been called on the carpet on this one already by one of the guys who was running that night. 

It's not flammable, but it full of Hydrochloric Acid.  In time, I may have to make sure there is a buffer car or something tagging along.  I guess I could bracket any of the tankers with some pulpwood flats, not sure if that would pass FRA requirements or not?

[Bendtracker1]

That's a slick move at the interchange.  I guess it requires having the trains properly blocked, but then you're off to the races.

Yep!
I wondered about that too.   At first I thought I would have to change the blocking order of the local, then I did a couple 0-5-0 tests and found out the location of the block is immaterial and I was able to leave it as it was which saved me some paperwork redesign.
One nice bonus about this move is that now I don't have to drag the tanks and flats all the way down to Winnfield with me, the ICG can drag them back onto the junction and I can pick them up on the return trip.  The siding at Winnfield is very short [on purpose] and several sessions before I've had to tie up the main by shoving the tanks and flats further down the main just past the siding while doing a run around.
The length of the local in the video [3 gons] is the max amount of gons for union scrap.  Two Geeps, three gons and the caboose will juuuuust  fit in the siding.

[Bendtracker1]

I finally added a few Rock Island Red & Black units and a few units in the Maroon with stripes scheme to my roster. They are chipped and ready for service.

http://thelittlerockline.blogspot.co...ld-part-2.html

Now that these are done and my supply of chips are exhausted for now, I can get back to my buildings in Malvern.

[Bendtracker1]

Just had another ops session last weekend, all went well with the older Red and Black power!
While the layout was clean, I decided to shoot a quick video of the layout.
You can see it on the blog;

http://thelittlerockline.blogspot.com/2014/08/video-layout-tour-aug-2014.html

[wazzou]

Nice Allen.

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks Bryan.

[mu26aeh]

Very nice layout build you have going there.  Actually gives me some different ideas on how I can redo things in my basement.  I have a similar area, around 11'x22'

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks!

Here's an older track plan, the only thing that's really changed is the yard in El Dorado.

[GaryHinshaw]

Nice Allen - that gives a really good sense of the overall layout.  Questions: how many turnouts do you have on your pike?  What are your plans for scenery?