Seaboard Central 2.0

[Chris333]

You know I have a feeling the only way I would ever get a layout going is to just build a "door" and get on with it already.

[elnscale]

Dave, your 4 turnouts that you need are packed in a box ready to priority mail Thursday. Your layout is looking good!

[davefoxx]

You know I have a feeling the only way I would ever get a layout going is to just build a "door" and get on with it already.

Chris,

I have already freely admitted that I could never complete a room-sized layout like Lee and seusscaboose have, for example.  Their layouts are so much fun to operate and look great.  I don't know how they do it.

Between money and time, a large layout is probably not in the cards for me.   A HCD layout is much more my speed.  But, you wait to see how even it will come to a crawl when I get to scenery.  I'm not very good at scenery, so I don't really enjoy it.  Therefore, I tend to procrastinate.  I cannot imagine, say, ballasting a room-sized layout.  Ugh.

I sure would like to see what you could do with a HCD.  The Railwire needs more Erie.

DFF

[Chris333]

I just spent the last 2 hours tearing out part of my old bench work. Seriously. 

[johnhale]

...But, you wait to see how even it will come to a crawl when I get to scenery.  I'm not very good at scenery, so I don't really enjoy it.  Therefore, I tend to procrastinate.  I cannot imagine, say, ballasting a room-sized layout.  Ugh.

Dave,
   When you get to that stage, have a work session, have a few of us east coast asshats up. We can knock out the ballast, and the basic ground cover in a afternoon/evening.

That's what friends are for.

John

[davefoxx]

That sounds great!  I'll bring the Vitamin Y and the scenery materials.   

DFF

[davefoxx]

Major accomplishment tonight!  I got the track around the loop finished and have been running trains all night.

Unfortunately, I had a bad Code 55 #5 turnout.  The points were not allowing enough flangeways, and wheels were picking the points.  No amount of filing seemed to fix it.  Yeah, the only turnout on the layout that had the rail joints soldered (to avoid kinks) is obviously the one that needed replacement.  So, I hacked it to pieces with rail nippers to get the bulk of the turnout out and then used the soldering iron and pliers to break the rail joints.  I dropped in another turnout and resoldered the rail joints, and the Seaboard Central has trains running reliably.

Still need to install the track in the yard and on the A&R line, but I'll do that as time permits.  Cutting up the bad turnout makes me short one turnout.    At least I'm running trains again!

DFF

[wazzou]

That's great Dave.   

[Chris333]

Probably too late for all of them. But make sure to put a small dab of silicone on the clips that holds the points. On the bottom.

[Specter3]

Chris

I am about to relay some modules in c55. Could you give a bit more of a description of pre fixing the switches?

Thanks

Ryan

[sizemore]

Major accomplishment tonight!  I got the track around the loop finished and have been running trains all night.

DFF

What no Golden Spike photos?

The S.

[davefoxx]

What no Golden Spike photos?

The S.

Heh, I thought about it, but was too busy running trains.  I'll post pictures as soon as I locate my tripod.  I want to show off the superelevation I made, too.  I really like that effect.

DFF

[Dave V]

http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?143917-The-Carolina-Central

[Chris333]

Chris

I am about to relay some modules in c55. Could you give a bit more of a description of pre fixing the switches?

Thanks

Ryan

On the bottom of the turnouts there is 2 small clips that hold the points in place and let them pivot. Every once in a while the clips pop off, but once your track is laid down there is nothing you can do. So if you smear a dab of silicone on them before hand they won't be able to fall off.

[davefoxx]

Here's those pics that I promised.  You can see that I've got most of the track installed.  I still have to finish the yard in Aberdeen, but I am short one turnout that will hold that up slightly.  If you look close you will see that I haven't built any of the bridges yet: I stopped the A&R short of its planned trestle, and the flextrack on the SBD main was temporarily laid right across the gap where the track will bridge the lake:


Superelevation!  It's so cool to see a train lean into a curve when running at speed; a still shot doesn't do it justice.  You might be able to discern the superelevation in this shot of a SBD (ex-SCL) caboose:


The A&R is operational.  This is the future site of a furniture manufacturing warehouse:


A demonstration of the length of the passing siding and mainline at Southern Pines.  One locomotive, seven 40' cars, and a caboose.  Capacity is one less car if the average car length is fifty footers.  That's really only a concern when I need two trains to meet at Southern Pines.