Conrail Windsor St Yard (York PA) Engineering Report

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'd love to see you do a mud season layout like the Alagash over on MRH . . . .

That's actually kinda the look I'm going for, well, without the rain. Mike Confalone's stuff is HIGHLY inspirational.

[wm3798]

Looking good.  Can't wait to see it with all those trees you've been making every night...
Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I spent an hour fighting with this one joiner track:


I hate dealing with short sections of flextrack like that. This one had to be acc'ed all together once I got it in place because there are only 4.5 sets of spike heads still holding it all together. It's a gnarly installation, but seems to work ok, and actually looks right at home.



Here's another view of the north end of the yard with all the green tuned down.



And an overall view of the north end where the roundhouse used to be. I think I've finally figured that space out. I had thought about putting in a transflow terminal, something, but I'm just going to leave it "emtpy". The transflow terminal wouldn't have worked, because Conrail wouldn't have built one that required a new grade crossing to be put in over the mains or over the yard's drill track. I think I'm going to plant the foundation, and just make the whole area look somewhat grown over.


I'm connecting the two tracks at bottom right to the switch at the upper left and am going to use them as the power layover tracks.

It'd make sense from a historical perspective too. They would've been the old ready tracks, but now they just go straight instead of hitting the turntable.

[jpec]

Looking good, Ed...keep it moving...

Jeff

[Ed Kapuscinski]

After a weekend in Philly (including a trip to the best cheesesteak place in the world, John's Roast Pork), I came home and did some work on the layout.

Step 1: Getting the second pit track all installed.


Then I started mocking up a yard office. I have a bunch of Walthers modulars parts.


Out back, behind the office.


And, some local power parked near the future yard office:


Also, if you're looking for a good pumpkin beer, I can't recommend Full Tilt's Patterson Pumpkin enough:
http://www.fulltiltbrewing.com/brews.html

[davefoxx]

I spent an hour fighting with this one joiner track:



I hate dealing with short sections of flextrack like that. This one had to be acc'ed all together once I got it in place because there are only 4.5 sets of spike heads still holding it all together. It's a gnarly installation, but seems to work ok, and actually looks right at home.

Ed,

The next time that I come over, let me take a crack at this small section of track.  I can get those rail gaps closed up.  The trick is to cut the webbing between the ties out.  Then, you can push the ties together to make room for the rail joiners to slide all of the way on the rails before being slid halfway back on to the adjacent rails.  If you were modeling Penn Central, I'd say leave it, but . . .

DFF

[John]

I would make these small sections go away, and replace them with at least 6 inches of new track ..

[davefoxx]

I would make these small sections go away, and replace them with at least 6 inches of new track ..

I would tend to agree, but it looks like the adjacent track is "grouted" in.

DFF

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I would tend to agree, but it looks like the adjacent track is "grouted" in.

DFF

Absolutely.

I did that in one section where it was possible to get the track out, but in others, it'd be more trouble than it's worth. I've tested them all a bit, and things seem to work pretty well, despite how rickety that one section looks.

Also, most of that area is very low use anyway, with nary a freight car rolling over it at all.

[Rich_S]

Absolutely.

I did that in one section where it was possible to get the track out, but in others, it'd be more trouble than it's worth. I've tested them all a bit, and things seem to work pretty well, despite how rickety that one section looks.

Also, most of that area is very low use anyway, with nary a freight car rolling over it at all.

If Lee used White Glue on that ballast, soaking it with 70% Alcohol should help loosen it up. I agree with John, get rid of those short sections now before they become a operational nightmare down the road.

[wm3798]

White glue was indeed the medium of choice.  No reason you can't cut the rails back a bit with the dremel while the ballast is tight, soak the offending area, and pry it up.

Cut a new piece to fit, whittle out a tie off of each end of the old track, and insert the new with the joiners slid back a'la Ntrak.

Bip bop bang.

For those of you checking this out for the first time, here's the reason I had those cuts right there...



I had to make the section a fold-down leaf to access a much-discussed closet.  The engineering was moderately complex, the section included an interlocked Tortoise driven crossover, but it operated flawlessly when the Western Maryland operated it...

Lee

[glakedylan]

nicely done, Lee
can certainly see why the cuts are where they are
a challenging place
but you nailed it

thanks for sharing
Gary

[M.C. Fujiwara]

"Make the section
a fold-down leaf
to access a much-
discussed closet"

Sound like lines lifted straight from a William Carlos Williams poem,
or a book on medieval Japanese Buddhist bordello architecture.

On the HO layout I'm refurbishing & completing, I used a 70% alcohol soak to soften the 15-year-old whiteglue/sand/dirt scenicking compound.
After many hours of attacking the shell with a chisel & scraping my knuckles, using the 70% alcohol took care of everything within 5-10 minutes.

Since you don't need to drop-down like a Lee leaf, I join chorus chanting "cut back, replace with significant track section, smooth soldered joints".
It's really not as time-consuming as you think, and will provide decades of happiness.
Too-scents.

Now back to the SF Giants KC BBQ.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Oh man, I'm seeing the dreaded "Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 30 days..." message, so it's time for a new update.

Details posted to my site here:
http://conrail1285.com/late-january-windsor-st-progress/

I've mocked up a bridge:


Painted some track:


And bored myself modifying Walthers windows:

[Dave V]

Ed, is that I-83?  Need to get you some Rix jersey barriers.