The LIRR Industrial Service, Inc. shelf layout

[Lemosteam]

Looks great as always, nice progress.  You might want to tune that turnout that is causing the derailment in the last photo 

@Scottl Thank you so much!  I assure you that PRR turnout functions flawlessly  !  This ain't Penn Central or Conrail!  That was the giant hand of a god that did that!

[OldEastRR]

How about one of those sharp radius Peco turnots? they have excellent function.

[robert3985]

Robert,  that's fair, but then it fits in with the premise of the IS, i.e. old, useable junk!.  I have no desire at all to hand lay any switches.  These are really old; I picked them up at a show 20 yeas ago and they were old then!  The one I chose cleaned up pretty nicely and was in gauge. I only have a very short amount of straight to fit this in and after trimming it, it is short enough. Not sure how I am going to throw the turnout yet though.  Thinking of using an over-center spring.  I have already isolated the frog, but still thinking of how to power it or if I even need to.

@Lemosteam - I was relating the evolution of my own turnout-making experiences, and the poor quality of these turnouts.  Yup, of course they can be "fixed" and since there aren't any ties, other than a few (a verrry few) PCB ties, modding the turnout to fit your space is probably a pretty quick and easy solution since it's a #4.

I've done sorta the same thing for some friends except I used ME #6's to make "wyes" for their layouts...which wasn't all that difficult for me because at the time, I already had a couple of hundred hand-made turnouts under my belt.

Since the engines you'll be running on it will have short wheelbases, it would probably be a "good idea" to power the frog , and there are a myriad of ways to do it, the simplest way (probably...since I don't have any experience with them) would be to use a Frog Juicer, with the points being held in place by your aforementioned over-center spring...which isn't difficult to make. 

I hope you DCC-friendly-ized the turnout, making the closure rails and point rails the same polarity as the adjacent stock rails...which is just a matter of how you gapped the PCB ties and the throwbar.  DCC-friendly turnouts are also DC friendly.

As always, I really enjoy watching the progress you're making on your layout.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Lemosteam]

Robert, thanks!

As of today, I’ve had to rebuild the whole darn turnout, but used the original ties to keep it in gage while I did that.

Can you share a thread to “friendly-ize” the turnout for DCC? I’m not quite clear on the terminology you shared. The last thing I need is electrical issues.

[robert3985]

Robert, thanks!

As of today, I’ve had to rebuild the whole darn turnout, but used the original ties to keep it in gage while I did that.

Can you share a thread to “friendly-ize” the turnout for DCC? I’m not quite clear on the terminology you shared. The last thing I need is electrical issues.

@Lemosteam - I did a Google search for how to electrically gap an N-scale hand-laid PCB turnout to be DCC/DC Friendly, but was unsuccessful, so I created my own photo diagram with callouts and text that pretty well explains where to put the gaps in the PCB ties and where to not put them.

Photo (1) - My DCC Friendly Turnout Diagram:


Note that I Photoshopped a photo of one of my own hand-laid turnouts and made the rail gaps at the frog much larger (to be more obvious) and regularized the gaps in the copper cladding of the PCB ties to be near the center of each tie for clarity's sake.

In actuality, my gaps in the copper cladding on my turnouts' PCB ties are very irregular and randomly positioned to be much less noticeable when the turnout is painted, but still positioned correctly to achieve DCC/DC Friendliness.

Hope this assists you in getting your turnout circuitry done correctly.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Lemosteam]

Making more aggregate piles for the LIRR IS, and working on some details.

These are the aggregates so far, gravel, pRR ballast, sand, crushed granite, coal (for the railroad and engine house but I will have a large pile too), and some strange brown sand I had. I may airbrush this to be a lesspukey color, lol. All of the piles will be blended at there base onto the surrounding ground cover.



Added a removable sand dump load to Bucyrus #3:



Added a long wood crossing so the machines can traverse the spur to load barges and filled in the hole where the barge office was before.



Decaled and weathered the IS #15 drop center flat with #1 crane car. Going to add cribbing to the deck for a future printed clamshell bucket storage.



Track level shot:

[Ed Kapuscinski]

John, I don't know if I've ever explicitly said this, but I absolutely love the muted color palette you're using on the layout.

[Lemosteam]

John, I don't know if I've ever explicitly said this, but I absolutely love the muted color palette you're using on the layout.

It’s all about filth, simplicity and cheap. The brightest thing on the layout is the brand new teeter totter, lol.

[Lemosteam]

Finalizing the turnout for the new spur. Added wood ties, and a DPDT switch for frog control by soldering the housing directly to a thin piece of PB sheet with a hole for the switch slide handle. Then I soldered that to the slide blocks, and then added a sprung PB wire from the slide handle to the throwbar for point control.







Added a wire to power the frog, and magnet wire to get power to the DPDT leads. These will get power directly from the rails in the turnout, will be soldered to the original track when installed.



The lines below show where the new spur will be cut into the ground.

[Lemosteam]

The Gandy Dancers have been busy installing a new spur at the aggregate yard. Tested, the cars roll well through the turnout gauntlet well. Kinda geeked to be honest. Next I will have to lay in wood crossings for the entire length  or several parts at least to protect the tracks from the heave equipment.

[Lemosteam]

Spur is in, bumper added, and the crane is in bidness!

[Lemosteam]

Adding some details to “finished” areas on the layout.

The kids from the apartments nearby have finally visited the recently opened playground at the beach.



IS Excavator #4 has suffered a catastrophic engine failure and fire. The operator made it out safely, thankfully.



Meanwhile, #2, 5 & 6 are still being built on the plant floor:



Added some pallets with locomotive parts to outside the engine house:



Another child swinging on the dead tree tire:



Painted the new spur, and added a long curved wood crossover; sand ballast next (sorry for the LED/digital camera wavelength effect).



Lastly, an overall view of the nearly completed west side of the channel.



On the east side of the channel, I modified an MT PRR X32a by adding a short screw up through the floor for a magnetic bagged goods pallet attachment inside the car.



Added some bagged goods and workers unloading the X32a to the team track ramp. Ramp will be secured after I have added ground cover to the scrap yard.



A fan shot as the empty is pulled away by the LIRR IS to the interchange siding up on the elevated berm. It will take four moves by the engineer and switchman to get it up there.

[Cory Rothlisberger]

Looking at all your progress pics just makes me wonder, where is the body(ies) buried?

[Lemosteam]

Looking at all your progress pics just makes me wonder, where is the body(ies) buried?

@Cory Rothlisberger,

Not trying to be daft, but I don’t quite follow? Are you referring to the Mafia element?

[Lemosteam]

Added some compacted gravel to protect the wood crossover from heavy equipment and made an anthracite coal pile.





Here is another overhead image of the west side if the channel.