09-18-2020, 09:20 AM
Taking a break of sorts from boxcars to turn my attention towards some much needed maintenance topside.
It's hard to believe that this layout has existed for almost (if not more then 10 years). Albeit it sat for a few years too, dormant and untouched.
And even though when I finally dusted things off two years ago and fired up the power supply everything came back to life it wasn't without its problems. A few turnouts needed to be fixed and the track desperately needed a thorough cleaning.
There's been one area of contention that's bothered me for a while where the branchline and yard lead make the only real curves on the layout. I've been avoiding this because I knew exactly what I'd have to do to fix it as well. Anyways...something shifted which caused the track work to heave slightly. Enough so to cause the rail to pull away slightly from the ties and cause occasional derailments. I didn't take a before photo, however here it is with the rail removed...
You can also see how the plywood has lifted about an 1/8 of an inch in the foreground. Well it was time to break out the oscillating tool carve up all of the road bed and then sand the area as smooth as I could get it. Why I didn't take pictures of the destruction and mayhem this created escapes me.
Thankfully it all worked out in the end.
I fully admit I cheated here. I was fresh out of homasote for road bed and the tracks are in an area that's incredibly difficult to hand lay without climbing on top of the layout. So I ended up using some corkbed and two three foot pieces of Peco flex track to span the curve. I used cereal box cardstock to shim up the height of the cork in order to ensure the rail head lined up nice and flush with the existing trackwork.
Afterwards the all of the new trackwork received a fresh coat of rattle can espresso brown, followed by a dusting of flat black. I also took the opportunity to finally paint the spur for the lumber mill in the background. Don't worry about the overspray. The mill is only a cardboard mock up and eventually the backdrop will receive a background painting. The entire layout rec'd a thorough cleaning once all the work was done.
Happy to report that everything now runs flawless and I'm happy with how it looks to boot. Sooner or later I'll actually get around to some scenery work and structure building as well. So...until next time.
It's hard to believe that this layout has existed for almost (if not more then 10 years). Albeit it sat for a few years too, dormant and untouched.
And even though when I finally dusted things off two years ago and fired up the power supply everything came back to life it wasn't without its problems. A few turnouts needed to be fixed and the track desperately needed a thorough cleaning.
There's been one area of contention that's bothered me for a while where the branchline and yard lead make the only real curves on the layout. I've been avoiding this because I knew exactly what I'd have to do to fix it as well. Anyways...something shifted which caused the track work to heave slightly. Enough so to cause the rail to pull away slightly from the ties and cause occasional derailments. I didn't take a before photo, however here it is with the rail removed...
You can also see how the plywood has lifted about an 1/8 of an inch in the foreground. Well it was time to break out the oscillating tool carve up all of the road bed and then sand the area as smooth as I could get it. Why I didn't take pictures of the destruction and mayhem this created escapes me.
Thankfully it all worked out in the end.
I fully admit I cheated here. I was fresh out of homasote for road bed and the tracks are in an area that's incredibly difficult to hand lay without climbing on top of the layout. So I ended up using some corkbed and two three foot pieces of Peco flex track to span the curve. I used cereal box cardstock to shim up the height of the cork in order to ensure the rail head lined up nice and flush with the existing trackwork.
Afterwards the all of the new trackwork received a fresh coat of rattle can espresso brown, followed by a dusting of flat black. I also took the opportunity to finally paint the spur for the lumber mill in the background. Don't worry about the overspray. The mill is only a cardboard mock up and eventually the backdrop will receive a background painting. The entire layout rec'd a thorough cleaning once all the work was done.
Happy to report that everything now runs flawless and I'm happy with how it looks to boot. Sooner or later I'll actually get around to some scenery work and structure building as well. So...until next time.