UP SD40-2's NEW Layout

[UP SD40-2]

Well, my Friday post ended up being my Sunday morning update post  , had a lot going on but here I am none the less  .

I was determined to get my lift outs done so I could run trains this week, did not get the wiring done yet, but did get the track work pretty much done. I originally had one board going across the dunk under, as I have posted a few times in the past, well that board had warped so I ended up cutting it into three pieces and fitting them in separately. I decided to take thick styrene and hot glue to make each piece fit snugly in place so the track doesn't move when the trains go over them. 

After I made each pocket for the wood to fit in, I started putting the track in. This was a bit of a challenge as one side of my "U" shape layout ended up being 3/8''s higher then the other side, so if I just nailed the track to the wood, the spots where the rails would be cut for the lift out would have made the tracks not fit right. How I fixed this problem was to hot glue the track down, by doing this it gave me the space I needed so the tracks were able to "float" at the right spots to make the track work have a better fit. 


I have done this to all three pieces, have rolled boxcars across them and they all seem to be fine. Was this the best way to do this?, probably not  , but we'll see how it ends up working. I didnt use a tape to mark out the wood on my cuts, so it looks friggin horrendous, but that doesnt really matter to me at this time, the lift out at this point is a test really, just to see if it will work, and how long it will work, function is all I care about at this time, if it runs great, thats what counts. 
 



I have off this week, have a bunch of house projects to do, but am really looking forward to spending time working on the layout this week  . First I will wire the lift outs up and make sure I get it running good, after that, who knows, I really have so much to do, we'll see what happens. 

Till next time...