Seaboard Central 2.0

[MichaelWinicki]

Not only nice work but a nice idea with the rolling extension Dave.

[Blazeman]

That's a slick concept to have it on a cart. Wonder how long until you get another cart ready to extend the extension? You know you won't be satisfied for long with that....A&R needs an industry or two.

[Missaberoad]

What is the radius? Looks to be around 10"? Should be nice for the short A&R equipment...

[Philip H]

Well, it was a productive weekend, the first that I was back working in the train room in about three months!  Here's where the rolling shelf project ended- cork roadbed is down:



Have a great week,
DFF

@davefoxx that looks well executed. Might even be the air of thing to keep me occupied if attached to Baton Rouge/ Elkins while I wait for a new space. Were you working off a plan?

[davefoxx]

@davefoxx that looks well executed. Might even be the air of thing to keep me occupied if attached to Baton Rouge/ Elkins while I wait for a new space. Were you working off a plan?

@Philip H,

No plan.  I'm totally freewheeling this project.  I didn't even know whether it would work until I built the cart and cut it down for height with a pipe cutter.  I basically went with the 10" minimum radius on the A&R and used that to try to squeeze in the return loop on a 24" x 48" piece of plywood, saving as much space as possible for the stub tracks inside the loop and avoiding a nasty s-curve in the return loop.  I'm pleasantly surprised at how stable the rolling shelf is, and, with it clamped to the HCD, it's pretty solid.

Thanks,
DFF

[mu26aeh]

When I visited @Ed Kapuscinski last month or when he stopped by my place after Altoona, it was briefly discussed about adding a staging track off of my paper mill spur to have a train come in from York to Spring Grove and Porters.  I said I may have to do that but was thinking of ways to accomplish this.  I think i just found the way to do it !

[davefoxx]

Success!  I installed the track over the past few days and got the reverse loop wired up with an unused Digitrax AR1.  The first A&R train, as seen here, successfully circumnavigated the loop tonight and returned to Aberdeen.  No short circuits, and the AR1 operated flawlessly!  Whew.



I still have to power up the frogs, but I have some spare Hex Frog Juicers for that task.  I also need to install the slide switch ground throws, which I'm not looking forward to because of the plywood (not 2" foam) subroadbed.

DFF

[BOK]

Very nice, quality, work, Dave and it's a neat example of close quarters modeling providing a great out and back operation. At 10" radius, what's the maxium length of equipment do you figure can go around it comfortably? I really like where you positioned the loop switch to make the transition to reverse curves smooth. As information, in the past, I have used a light piece of spring wire, bent and spiked, in a slight arc from the middle of the points toward the frog to handle movement of the loop switch as a spring switch without having to make it a manual one and allowing true automatic operation.

Thanks, for sharing your progress.

Barry

[davefoxx]

Barry,

Thank you.  Usually, on the A&R, it's only freight cars up to 50' in length and four-axle power.  But, this morning, when no one was looking, I ran my four-car Amtrak Amfleet train up the hill and around the loop without a derailment.  I've got to hand it to Kato, they built those 85' passenger cars to handle 10" radius curves, but they still look good.  Nice!

I was thinking about a spring switch earlier this morning.  When I was looking at the turnout, I was concerned about having enough spring to hold the points solidly against the one stock rail but flexible enough to allow a train to traverse from the other direction in the other leg of the turnout.  I might try experimenting.  I also was thinking about making it an automatic powered turnout.  Since I have only 3/4" plywood as subroadbed (as opposed to the 2" foam on a HCD on the main layout), I could easily attach a Tortoise.

DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

If you wanted to be fancy, you could hook up a tortoise and connect it to your auto reverser so that it throws when the power approaches it from the "wrong" direction.

[seusscaboose]

Tortise and hare solution from Tony's would be hottt!

[wazzou]

How long til you start adding foam?   

[seusscaboose]

How long before you tear it down? 

[davefoxx]

How long before you tear it down? 

Tomorrow or Saturday.   

[seusscaboose]