joefryfry's layout - The Waynesburg Southern

[joefryfry]

Here's the final lower plan. All in all the track work was pretty good. I'd give myself about a B-. I still have some cleaning up to do on the inside of the rails and fiddling with the turnouts a little, and maybe add another feeder or two. I spent the better part of yesterday soldering turnout wires until I went to Lowe's and discovered butt splices. I don't know how reliable they are, but they saved me hours. There's 11 turnouts on this little layout. I am too hard on equipment to use ground throws. I thought rail joiners were a pain in HO, man were they no fun to work with in N. I ran across some of my HO track this weekend. It looks like O after working with N. I got my bridge for the upper part this weekend. It of course comes in a kit that I'm not in the mood to start yet and it may not have all I need for it. Stupid kits. I wasn't sure how well the helix would work, but I was pleasantly suprised with this. I've never done one. It is pretty stout considering the design. I will probably regret not painting the wood. The grade on it is 2% max and my little engine can only pull about 4 cars up it, which is the reason for the yard. I don't know much about operations, so I created some. I had two goals: turn trains without lifting them or backing into a wye, and to gain elevation to use a bridge. To create operations, I made a little yard to hold cars while the engine took a few at a time up and around the loop that is elevated after the helix. If I ever get finished with this side of the wall, the other side of the wall gives me 12 feet of space to make a more realistic operation line with space for the town of Waynesburg, and a river load out. It will probably be quite a while until I update this again as I have to build this bridge and paint our unborn child's room, among other things like getting very busy at work and reading baby books. Comments are welcome. Thanks.