Cisco Bridges: a new layout concept

[Baronjutter]

I'm very interested to see the bridge in place to understand how it all integrates into the layout and the room.  It will be open/viewable both sides as it's a sort of peninsula right?

[Scottl]

Yes, the bridge will be essentially in the middle of this new peninsula.  The river will occupy the length of the peninsula, so the view down the length will be almost 8'.    I'm starting to have second thoughts about the CP bridge, primarily because it will make moving in the room difficult and I think it will be more prone to damage.

[Baronjutter]

Sorry if I'm reading the plan wrong, but it looks like the CP bridge will be just for show and end in a false tunnel?  Or does that symbol mean it's going off to another layer?

[Scottl]

Yes, the CP line is definitely just cosmetic.  I could not figure out a way to make it functional.

As it is, I am pushing the space limits of my room.  The CP bridge may be something I skip as it sticks out into the area where people move through the room, and there is a headroom issue associated with a cold air return duct in the vicinity. 

Mind you, it would probably take me another two years to build the bridge, so I'll put that decision in abeyance! 

[Scottl]

Something a little more visual to see how this comes together.

I placed the bridge scene on the peninsula.  During construction I scaled the peninsula back from my original plan, mostly to try and reduce congestion in the room for people.  It is quite a small space that the layout is in (7' X 10' with the door that opens into the space).



Here is the Cisco scene fit together crudely and looking up river.   The loop at the back is quite easy to fit into the prototype scenery and will provide a means to hide the river exit gracefully.  The steepness of the slopes in the canyon all lend themselves to a compact scene.



Going the other direction, the intention was to have a duckunder closing the loop, left more or less permanently.  Here is what it looks like now:



This is a sketch of my working concept.




So, the rubber has hit the road, so to speak, and I find myself with less space to work with.  I'm pretty sure at this stage that the CP bridge is no longer in the mix, but I'll have some CP track under the CN bridge for staging photos.  Remember too that the railroads run directionally in this stretch, so it is prototypical to have westbound CP and CN trains on the high Cisco bridge. 

Thanks for following.

[Scottl]

Reworked the west end of the yard so I now have six long staging tracks that will hold a full train.    The east end will get a proto87 #8 when I figure out how to secure the points properly. 



The Cisco scene soaked up a lot of foam sheet but the topography is starting to emerge, as well as the rest of the Fraser River bed.  I like to set up these crude foam layer cakes and then whittle down to the final landscape.  I'll need another two sheets of 2" foam for certain.



Rain tomorrow, so this may progress quite a bit this weekend.

[davefoxx]

Yeah, baby, yeah!  Looks great!

[GaryHinshaw]

Awesome to see all these elements coming together Scott!  It's a real showpiece.  Re the proto87 points, here is a shot of my latest approach to making throw bars:



The actuated piece is just a strip of black styrene with the point clips glued in.   The point rails are not physically attached to this piece, rather, the PC tie about 3 ties up has two pieces of 0.15 PB wire inserted and these feed through the holes in the proto87 rail base to pin it mechanically.  I solder this whole bit together and when the solder wicks through the hole, the entire assembly becomes very strong.  It is pretty easy to fabricate, and very robust.

-gfh

P.S. About that kink in the track at the north end of the bridge... 

[Scottl]

Perfect Gary!  I was recently digging through your TBC thread to find the part where you discussed your Proto87 trials (starting around https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=24108.300 ).  It left me wondering what your latest thinking was and this solution looks very good to me.  When I get some more parts I'll give it a try.

Fear not, that kink is part of the artistic moment.  I'll attach the track to the foam at some point. 

[Scottl]

A few sheets of foam, several tubes of caulking, three podcasts and a lot of styrofoam beads later, the topography is roughed in.  I sure wish I had a few more feet to work with, this is tight.  I've roughed in the cutoff to the CP line and extended all the tracks to their rough locations.  The cutoff is not quite right, so I'll do some cleaning up there and build up the hillside behind it more for a cut.



Rocks are next, and I need to contemplate the backdrop as well.  Not sure how to approach the mountains yet.

[Baronjutter]

I think that duck under will work fine, looks like there's only room for 1 person to comfortably stand in the middle anyways.  How high is the layout anyways?  As long as you are comfortable ducking under it's all good.  So cool to finally see this scene installed, I think the rest of the layout and scenery will quickly grow around it now.  It's really not a huge layout, generally I always think massive bridges like that only fit in those warehouse sized layouts, but it's inspiring to see what you've fit in a medium space.

[Scottl]

Thanks, it is starting to feel like this might actually happen and I will be able to run trains! 

I just finished mocking up the duck under and I think a semi-permanent solution is fine.  The track level is at 54" off the ground, so going under to get into the pit in the middle is not too bad.  I do agree, there is not much room for others in the room, just one operator and perhaps a few others on the outside.   While it would be great to have visitors, I don't imagine that will happen much and I will be a lone operator.  The layout is basically an oval with a visible staging yard, with Cisco as the signature scene.  It is nice because you can look at the bridge from almost any direction located as it is on a peninsula.

Tearing apart the old mill location to mock the new track alignment offered my first real chance to think about this section of the layout.  I just want to get trains running at this point, but the prospect of some kind of canyon scene in this section is tempting.  There are lots of interesting prototypes to go after or to emulate, so this will keep me busy for a while yet.

[central.vermont]

Gary, Nice work on that switch there!! But I am wondering if it is possible to hollow out that NZT switch machine so as to be able to set it over the switch link?

Jon

Awesome to see all these elements coming together Scott!  It's a real showpiece.  Re the proto87 points, here is a shot of my latest approach to making throw bars:



The actuated piece is just a strip of black styrene with the point clips glued in.   The point rails are not physically attached to this piece, rather, the PC tie about 3 ties up has two pieces of 0.15 PB wire inserted and these feed through the holes in the proto87 rail base to pin it mechanically.  I solder this whole bit together and when the solder wicks through the hole, the entire assembly becomes very strong.  It is pretty easy to fabricate, and very robust.

-gfh

P.S. About that kink in the track at the north end of the bridge... 

[robert3985]

Reworked the west end of the yard so I now have six long staging tracks that will hold a full train.    The east end will get a proto87 #8 when I figure out how to secure the points properly.   

Here's my solution to securing Proto87 Stores Tri-planed points (which I really really like).  I also really like their point hinges, but I'm not crazy about their throw bar protocol:  I use Tortoises underneath on all my turnouts with thicker throw-wires, so there's more pressure on the throwbars/points than with a purely mechanical device.

Here's the top view:


Here's underneath:


The hardest part is drilling the .015" holes in top of the rail foot on the points because it's tapered.  I have a tungsten rod I've sharpened to a point to use as a center punch, then I start the hole (using a new, sharp bit and a bit of cutting lube) by drilling perpendicular to the top railfoot surface until I can see a curl coming off the bit point, then I straighten the bit and drill straight down...using a really slow speed setting on my Foredom Tool so I don't burn up the bit.  A Dremel won't work as their lowest speed setting is much too high.

After I've got all four of the holes drilled, I drill one hole in each of two PCB throwbars and place them between the proper ties.  I then insert a piece of .015" brass wire into both the PCB throwbars' holes and the corresponding holes on ONE closure point ONLY.  I move the other closure point over so that my point gap is where i want it, then I use the holes I've previously drilled in the rail foot as guides and drill ONE hole ONLY...then I insert another .015" brass wire so that it goes through both the holes I've just drilled in one of the throwbars and the corresponding closure point.  Then, I do the same thing with the second throwbar on that side.

Since I've found it virtually impossible to drill the holes in the closure points' railfeet the same every time, the above procedure compensates for the closure rail holes not being uniform.

After I've got all the holes properly drilled, I bend a short length of .015" brass wire 90 deg. and insert it from the top through both holes in one of the four throwbar hole locations I've just drilled.  I cut the visible length so that the end that's resting on top of the PCB throwbar (which should have a gap in the copper cladding near the middle top and bottom) so that it's really close to the end of the copper cladding on the gap on its corresponding side.  I mash it down with my flat-nose pliers so that the piece of wire that's off the rail foot lies parallel to the top of the PCB throwbar.  I CAREFULLY solder it to the top of the PCB throwbar using my tweezer tool on my resistance soldering station. 

You don't want to solder any part of the closure rails to the PCB throwbars, so I use an HB pencil to mark the PCB tie under the closure point foot to form a barrier that solder won't cross.  You want the closure points to swivel slightly around these bits of wire.

I then bend the wire underneath the PCB throwbar so that it holds the closure point fairly tightly against the PCB throwbar.  Then, I snip off any excess wire on the bottom.

I do this three more times and I'm done with making my very sturdy and secure throwbars, which happen to look pretty prototypical.

I run a file over the tops of the soldered-to-the-throwbar .015" wire to square it off a bit.  I don't remove much, but I think it improves the appearance.

When installing the turnout, I have to provide clearance in my cork roadbed for the .015" wire-ends on the underside of the throwbars.

After the turnout is installed, I'll glue a small piece of paper over the wire ends in the middle of the throwbar, fitting it so that it looks like a slightly larger piece that the wire ends are screwed into.  This will also hide the protruding Tortoise actuating wire that is sticking up through a pre-drilled hole in the throwbar closest to the closure point toes.

When you cut your gaps in the PCB throwbars, try to just take off the cladding as you want these pieces to be as strong as possible.

I also lube the closure rail heel hinges with Neolube before I paint my turnout as well as under the closure rails and their corresponding PCB throwbars.  I do this because Neolube is both a lubricant and electrically conductive.

Explaining how to do this sounds involved, but in actual operation, it goes quickly.

So far, on the seven turnouts on my Emory Center Siding LDE I installed two years ago, are working very good.  Now, if I could find a way to retrofit all my other hand-laid turnouts without pulling them up!

[GaryHinshaw]

Gary, Nice work on that switch there!! But I am wondering if it is possible to hollow out that NZT switch machine so as to be able to set it over the switch link?

Jon

I don't think there is enough volume in the machine to accommodate the lever's full range.  FWIW, this is one of only two turnouts on the layout that I've actuated this way, the rest have the wire coming straight up into the throw bar from the Tortoise, much less conspicuous.  This one is at Summit, on the back side of an eye-level turnout, so it's barely seen in normal circumstances.  (But it does stand out in a close-up like this.)