Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[MK]

Man, what a nice and shiny floor!

[Bob]

I can't remember if you mentioned this in earlier posts, but are you making your own turnouts or are you using Atlas #10s?

[C855B]

Atlas #10s.

[C855B]

Mike, I notice you don't sand the shoulders of your cork roadbed prior to laying track. ...

If it helps, I like to use one of those foam sanding blocks. ...

OK, guys, is this better?:



And the method:



Very fast, although with more power comes more responsibility. I ruined a couple of strips working on the technique. Doesn't help what's already down; OK results with the Dremel sanding wheel followed by Dave's sanding sponge method. Both approaches are fairly messy, but at least the sanding disk confines the mess.



In other news, the benchwork for Phase 0 is complete. The paper is an AnyRail template for tracing. You might also notice the railcam is back online. [Pausing here watching a northbound CN crude oil train (empties?) pass with five GE's on the point. OK, plus one DPU.] Camera was a couple of hours up and down (and up and down, etc.) an extension ladder.

[Lemosteam]

Very fast, although with more power comes more responsibility. I ruined a couple of strips working on the technique. Doesn't help what's already down; OK results with the Dremel sanding wheel followed by Dave's sanding sponge method. Both approaches are fairly messy, but at least the sanding disk confines the mess.

Mike you could mount a small diameter plastic wire wheel on a sprung bent wire at the infeed end and angle the wire down toward the fence (ruler) so that as you feed the cork in, the wheel will force the cork against the fence and down against the bed at the same time and all you will have to do is pull it through on the outfeed side.  It wouldn't take much pressure.

It might make sense to also move the fence away from the disc at the outfeed end sing all the grinding is taking place on the infeed side, less risk of the cork getting jacked up on the outfeed end rotation of the disc.

[C855B]

Finger pressure on the infeed side is working very well, and compensates for very slight dimensional changes between batches. I managed to start a new box of cork in the middle of this run, and it was ever-so-slightly different. You can see the subtle color variation in the photo.

I was originally thinking of something similar to your idea, but after a dozen strips most of the challenge with the process is in the initial feed, when the sandpaper wants to grab the work if I don't get the start angle just right. When it happens it takes a chunk out, which is easy enough to trim off. If there is going to be any change to the setup, it would be extending the table and fence to the left for less "freehandedness" to starting the feed.

Outfeed is no problem. With light finger pressure on the infeed and pulling to the right and slightly up, there's little to no contact on the outfeed, and if it happens, the rotation pushes it up and away.

[Santa Fe Guy]

I never sanded the shoulders of my cork on my SFRSD. I looked at how the big guys ballast their tracks both main and sidings before attacking the cork.
There is some good cross sub-roadbed / track (diagrams) info someplace that I used as a reference.
If you sand the shoulders the ballast does not sit as it should as it spreads out more (too wide) at the sub-roadbed level as it tries to fill the void.
Might be worth a look.
Rod.

[C855B]

Minor milestone today, roadbed finished for the running loop:



I was shooting for next week to have track down and operable, but we're going to lose a couple of days due to snow. Figuring on 8-10" tonight through tomorrow, an abnormal amount for our area, so roads will be dicey and drivers crazy. I brought a Walthers grain elevator kit home to hopefully stave-off the cabin fever.

[wazzou]

Mike, at the risk of doing what was described in a different thread earlier this week...
I think the track would look and flow more appealingly if the outer section of the loop moved toward the backdrop much sooner.
Possibly, as early as the middle of the bench work's length and the inner part could reconnect further down as well.
I think this would do two things.  It would create a junction scene opportunity and secondly, it would mitigate the awkward S curves that appear to be present.

[C855B]

The loop is temporary to have the ability to run on the partially-completed plan, just like its twin on the west side of the layout. The lobe will be cut at that visible joint, in fact, the framework is designed to be separated there. Final benchwork is to extend another 16' to the left, with a major peninsula extending north. That junction configuration, however, will live in the final version, a compression of the junction at Gibbon, NE. Not seen is provision for another line more or less hugging the backdrop, having already risen from the future peninsula with a bridge over the intentional 'S' curve and then continuing a grade up to a second level ("nolix"). Moving that junction north would defeat both LDEs, yield less uninterrupted mainline on the triple track (another LDE), and squeeze approaches for the one industry on that part of the railroad which happens to be the grain elevator I mentioned.

[wazzou]

Excellent, then carry on. 

[C855B]

A Day of Reckoning (long-ish)

One of the side-effects I'm discovering of designing for a large space is the "five-pound bag" effect is amplified. As the temporary running dogbone is nearing the silver spike, I'm starting to seriously examine populating the benchwork with more than just roadbed and track.

"Not enough space" raised its ugly head while working on the aforementioned Walthers grain elevator kit yesterday. The plan was this elevator slated for Cozad, with the likelihood that I would need at least a second kit to better resemble one of the large elevators there:



The giant "COZAD", only on the RR side, sealed the deal on doubling the kit.

Anyway, I went back to the AnyRail plan, dropped-in the elevator footprint from the structures library, and then starting adding service tracks. Oops. I had only allowed a foot or so of depth for representing the elevator, town and a couple of local features, the rest of the benchwork (to be) occupied by geography representing the sand hills to the north which were to carry the nolix grade to the second level, modeling the Yoder branch.

Not enough room for both. If I add a bulge in the benchwork at that location narrowing the aisle from 4' to 3', the benchwork gets too deep to access the grade, and considering that point has the siding on the nolix grade, access for derailments, etc., would be mandatory.

So I'm contemplating eliminating the Yoder branch (and grade, and sand hills) altogether. The concept for this branch was a "time warp", with the main layout circa 1970, the branch would depict 1950, more comfortable for small steam and 1st-gen diesels. Axing the branch changes the bigger plan significantly. The current plan for the approach to Cheyenne:



LDEs related to the nolix are representation of the C&S in Cheyenne including the trademark bridge over the UP yard approach at the west end of town, and the wye at Egbert.

Other considerations for eliminating the second level are, foremost, foregoing a BUNCH of work. The grade, the hardware and benchwork, modifications necessary to make it work with the lower level... all happening many years from now when my physical flexibility has or is about to become an issue. Then there's what I have observed on two similarly large MRRs with a detached operating area like this - nobody wants to operate the branchline. So I already understand I might be creating a red-headed stepchild where its largest contribution to the whole MRR is increased difficult maintenance.

Opportunities in eliminating the branch, nolix and approach are reduction of benchwork by eliminating the left lobe shown above, resulting in a straightforward 'U' into Cheyenne. This reduction would create space for a dispatcher desk in the space below OR in the space formerly occupied by the lobe; electronics connections favor the latter.

This big design change has to be considered now, before I paint myself into a corner. I'd like to keep the excuse for the C&S bridge over the UP main, but the only way I see that happening is if it is a scenic item only, not operable beyond terminating into the east wall.

[jagged ben]

Trying to visualize your problem.  Where was the grain elevator going to go exactly?

[GaryHinshaw]

Two things:

* I'm having trouble visualizing how the branch connects to the main, and which crossing represents the bridge you're referring to.  In your diagram, it connects at Egbert; does it also connect to the yard via the C&S xfer tracks?  Is the referenced bridge the crossing to the upper right of Egbert?  What is/was supposed to happen at the 3 spots where the branch crosses the main on the far right?

Is there any way to kick this decision down the road?

* I'm surprised you find that people don't want to operate an isolated branch.  Mark's C&W has such a branch inside a mushroom-style plan and the job is quite popular (and fun).

[C855B]

OK, here's the entire east side of the layout (usual click to enlarge):



The nolix/branch was less close to the backdrop before moving it to make room for the grain elevator. The nolix and supporting foothill is 7" up at that point. So the landform there would be a 7" rise in about 4". Not exactly subtle, and a 100' cliff makes absolutely no sense in this scene. Second level is 12-14" deep and along the north wall. I haven't decided how far west it will go, most likely to the access opening west of Grant Tower.

The C&S interchange is at the middle left of the spaghetti-bowl peninsula otherwise known as "Cheyenne". It goes south, crosses the UP main where marked, and joins the rails from Egbert just east of the wye. The three separations on the right are of no particular significance, just curving the track randomly to gain a bit of low-cost elevation and add geoforming interest. It could be reduced to a single bridge over that S curve Bryan mentioned. The overpasses are likely to be Micro Engineering deck girder bridges.

No, nothing is cast in concrete, but I would like to have a mostly landformed and scenicked layout done for the convention next year, and am reticent about spending that much time and effort only to undo 6-month's worth for far-off plans that may not happen anyway. The second level is the last to be done, but if it isn't accommodated with landforms at this point there's a boatload of railroad that will have to be torn up.