As the warning states I haven't posted in a long time.
Frustration after frustration followed by more frustration.
When I moved into this house in 1982 I had a wide open nearly empty basment. Negotiations with my bride resulted in an agreement that I could have about 1/2 of the basement for my model railroad empire, ( it was a package deal, me and the railroad.) Measuring, doodling track plans then finally construction begin around 1984. Second child came along in 1985, so the need for a larger house was debated and the house went on the market. After the agent asked if the RR could be made to look finished or it would have to come down and the area made to look open. Well needless to say it all came down and was packed away in empty paper baxes, and was stowed away under the stairs. A year went by with no sale, and no RR, so a 30x80 door was purchased for a learning/test RR. I built a simple RR that entertained me and my son's Cub Scout pack for a number of years. This little layout served as a test bed for the Switch to DCC and some basic scenery ecperiments.
When my nephew turned 12 and showed some interest, I gave him the layout with a few cars and licomotives, and I dug out the plans from years ago.
I had learned a few things over the years.
1- 12" radius had to go to at least 16"
2- code 80 wasn't going to cut it, Atlas had just started their code 55 line.
3- DCC would be able to run train operations the way I wanted.
4- I was never thin, isles were going to have to be wider than originally hoped for.
So with all that and more in mind I started buying track, turnouts, locos and cars, and started construction again. Construction didn't get to far before Y2K,job,family and health issues set in and the RR was on on hold again.
Many things have changed over the years, but I am once again starting the building process.
In starting again I needed to take stock of what I have on hand, lots of locos, rolling stock, track and switches, and about 1/3 of the layout is at least down. A closer look at 50 switches found 7 #7 rights had point rail failures while still in their boxes, Atlas so far has been very good about replacing those.
Today I figured I would start installing tortoise switch machines on the switches that are on the installed track. Whatever it was that killed the 7 switches in the box got at least two of the ones that I installed back in 2006. So I'll be writing another letter to Atlas.
So much hope of getting this project going, only to be frustrated again.
Tomorrow's objective find and replace all damaged switches.
