Tehachapi, BC

[JSL]

What guage wire are you using for your buss and feeders. Fantastic looking as always.

[GaryHinshaw]

Good to know about your helix specs, Mike.  I think this will work out fine. 

JSL, the bus wires are 12 gauge stranded.  I could probably have used 14 gauge, but the price difference was small and the 12 gauge wasn't really any more challenging to work with, so I went with it.  The feeder wires are either 18 or 20 gauge solid (I need to check the gauge - I'm just using what I had on hand).  I've been following the guidelines on this page, which seem pretty sound.  In a related tidbit, I hooked my ammeter into the circuit and found that 4 locos pulling 30 cars upgrade was drawing about 0.6 amps.  I can't imagine having more than 4-5 trains running in one power block at a time, so a 12 gauge bus is more than 'ample' for my needs.

I noticed that the Kato locos seemed to increase their pulling power over the course of the weekend.  The units were all brand new (in terms of road miles), so I wonder if this is just wheel blackening wearing off, or some such(?).  By last night, 3 locos could handle the 30 car train with no problem.  I'm very happy with that.

-gfh

[DKS]

When building curved turnouts and trying to get the curve through the frog, I've found that I had to bend the rail and then cut back 1/2" or more from the end: it's pretty hard (nay, impossible!) to get the last few mm of rail to curve without kink.
(darn physics).

So perhaps you could pre-bend the rails on the flex, and then trim back 1/4" -1/2" to maintain the smooth curve.

This is exactly what I did also: pre-bend the track so the rails would relax into a natural curve. I also staggered the rail joints by about 12-15 ties on curves, fewer on straights. It did tend to waste a bit of track, but I felt the nearly perfect geometry was worth the couple of bucks spent collectively on discarded rail.

[GaryHinshaw]

Check.  The straight joints are staggered about 2-3 ties and they seem fine.   I'm playing with the curved joints a bit more (the super-elevation too) before committing the glue.  Your ideas are being heard - thanks!

I'm all for bullet-proof here because I want the mountain ops to be challenging - and a bit nerve wracking - but not unreliable.

-gfh

[GaryHinshaw]

Work related travel and taxes have hindered progress lately, but the long weekend here in Canada made up for some of the lost time.  I decided to make a push to get some dust-generating benchwork work out of the way before continuing with more track laying, so I focused on the east shelf, which holds the Tunnel 14-17 stretch.  Here's a shot from the doorway looking downgrade towards the Loop showing progress to date (it's about 18' from the foreground to the rear wall in this shot):



and from the Loop shelf looking upgrade towards summit (at the doorway):



All the benchwork and roadbed are permanently in place here now.  This is one of the longest stretches of single track on the layout, and should make for some interesting operations bottlenecks.  The track on this shelf is between 65 and 67" above the floor (the grade here is a gentle 0.6%), so I'm looking forward to watching trains snake towards summit at or above eye level.  Here's a shot from across the room taken from my eye level, with approximate tunnel locations sketched in (Tunnel 17 is not shown in this shot):



Of course in my head I see this:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=221638&nseq=7
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=221639&nseq=6
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=221191&nseq=8

I can't wait to get some landforms in place there.  This is shaping up to be one of my favorite scenes on the pike.

Next up is to finalize the cross-door support at summit.  It has been very easy to nod under the roadbed at the door, so I'm planning to make the upper level crossing semi-permanent: screwed in place, but removable if necessary.

-gfh

[James Costello]

Of course in my head I see this:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=221638&nseq=7
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=221639&nseq=6
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=221191&nseq=8

I can't wait to get some landforms in place there.  This is shaping up to be one of my favorite scenes on the pike.

Yes! That's certainly what I am expecting to see 

[GaryHinshaw]

A quick follow-up on the Tunnel 14-17 shelf.  I took out some of the fantastic tunnel portal samples that Ed Nadolski sent me and set them in place with some locos & cars to get a better sense of scale.  The first shot shows some auto racks in the exposed stretch between Tunnel 14 (right) and 15 (left):



(compare to the first proto photo in the above posts).  The next shot shows the shorter stretch between 15 and 16, while the loco is 'exiting' 16. 



The gap between 16 and 17 is about the same as 15 and 16.  So lot's of cat & mouse along this stretch.

-gfh

[wm3798]

Isn't it fun to squish a big prototype scene into your garage? (or attic!)...  Looking really good.

Remind us of your staging scheme...  I want to see where all these trains will be coming from...

Lee

[GaryHinshaw]

Thanks Lee - it is fun indeed!  The advantages of N scale really shine when you can spread out a bit too.  I only hope I can live up to James' expectations going forward.   

This is a good time to review the staging concept.  Recall that the prototype line runs from Bakersfield in the north to Mojave in the south, and that UP and BNSF come together at each end to share track over the Pass.  With that in mind, south staging (Mojave) is configured as 'linear' staging in a helix under the Loop shelf, as shown in gold here:



(Most of the upper deck roadbed is now done, BTW.)  The idea here is that I can stage one train per helix loop, so 4 trains can be ready to head north at the beginning of a session.  The north staging (Bakersfield) is more conventional: a simple stub end yard along the lower wall at the lowest level, which connects to Edison along the left wall:



and from there heads over the Pass.  (The green loop is part of the track the connects Allard to the Loop shelf - nothing to do with the staging track.) In Bakersfield, there is room to stage 6-7 trains, most of which would be southbound, but some could be used to replenish the northbound supply, if desirable.  The helix will connect with the lower level main on the left wall, but that has not been drawn carefully yet.  The wye that's sketched in the helix is showing the connection schematically.  This will allow both continuous running and a way to connect the two staging areas.

The visible main line run is about 4.3 scale miles, and with speeds of 15-20 mph, a straight run over the pass will take ~15-20 min.  With meets and congestion, I expect more like 30 min per trip (or more).  If I have a crew of 4 plus dispatcher, I'm guessing each operator could handle 3 trains per session for a total of 12 trains (nominally 6 each way).  If this turns out to be the case, then I probably need a full time hostler to manage inbound trains at both ends and to replenish the northbound supply in the helix.

There will also be at least 2 locals per session added to the mix: an Edison turn to manage the winery and produce traffic, and a Monolith turn to manage the cement plant.  There is also a coal spur at Monolith which is served separately, I believe; and outbound cement can head either north or south, so a fairly rich set of options for locals, amid all the congestion.

I can't wait to see how the scheme collapses under its own weight...

-Gary

[C855B]

...runs from Bakersfield in the north to Mojave in the south...

Technically, I guess, but the locals, CalTrans and RR think it's more of a west-east thing.

[3DTrains]

RR-West and RR-East, yes, but geo-technically it's West by Northwest and East by Southeast. 

 

Cheers!
Marc - Riverside

[GaryHinshaw]

Technically true, yes.  But the UP line here is fundamentally north-south, and on the radio the dispatcher and crews always refer to northbound and southbound.  Go figure.

"Here we go.  54 out"

[wm3798]

We experienced the same fun here in the east...  The PRR out of Baltimore was Eastbound between Baltimore and Philadelphia, and Westbound Baltimore to York.

Lee

[C855B]

...on the radio the dispatcher and crews always refer to northbound and southbound.

Wow. THAT is a change! Damn UP. SP was absolutely an east-west railroad - towards San Francisco, west, away from SF, east. Period. Going from Portland to SF? Westbound, although you're traveling south. Palmdale to Mojave through the Antelope Valley? Also westbound, despite traveling north and slightly east.

[DKS]

Of all the Tehachapi-inspired layouts out there, my gut says this is destined to become the Tehachapi layout by which all others will be measured.