And here all along I thought the two most important conductors on the railroad were them two fellers with the tickee punches! well oll be ... whodda thunk it?!! :mrgreen:

Gary, I have a suggestion for gap insulators from a friend in the modular club. In stead of trying to remove regular rail joiners, and install the ugly plastic one, cut a gap in the rail, and slide a plastic "bread clip" in the gap. You know those plastic clips that the bread manufacturers use to close the plastic bags that they package loaves of bread in. Dribble some gap filling acc on each side of the bread clip and let it set up. Trim the top and sides of the clip and use a riffler file or #11 Exacto blade to remove the plastic sticking out from the web of the rail to imitate the profile of the rails. You may want to clean up the top of the clip with a bit of 400 wet or dry sand paper to blend and smooth the gap into the rail. You rail gap will virtually disappear, but the plastic filler will keep it from closing up and causing a short.

Thanks for the idea Russ. I was going to cut the gaps with a dremel tool after the ballast was done and the glue was helping to hold everything in place. Glueing the plastic into the gap is a great idea.

Russ Bellinis Wrote:... cut a gap in the rail, and slide a plastic "bread clip" in the gap. You know, those plastic clips that the bread manufacturers use to close the plastic bags that they package loaves of bread in. Dribble some gap filling acc on each side of the bread clip and let it set up. Trim the top and sides of the clip and use a riffler file or #11 Exacto blade to remove the plastic sticking out from the web of the rail to imitate the profile of the rails. You may want to clean up the top of the clip with a bit of 400 wet or dry sand paper to blend and smooth the gap into the rail. You rail gap will virtually disappear, but the plastic filler will keep it from closing up and causing a short.

Whoa! Russ! Awesome thought there! I had been wasting money, using leftover scraps of 0.010" or 0.020" styrene and essentially doing what you describe, initially because I couldn't deal with the aesthetic of the commercial plastic insulator rail joiners ... but the bread bag clips ... brilliant! and just one more thing to drive my daughter's mother crazy about the things I collect when my daughter stops by with my grandson for a quick visit and has her mother with her. I think the reason I can't find any of my two dozen 3/4 oz. airbrush jars is because when I went ahead to a new job and she stayed behind to pack, I think she considered them "more of Bil's pack rat collecting obsession" and threw them out, along with the small 1 pound coffee tins with the Woodland Scenics ground foam in them.

But I do like the bread bag clip dealie as an insulator! It's brilliant!

Been almost a week since I posted anything. I'm trying to remember what I worked on last week. Oh... got the controls for the electromagnets installed and connected. Saturday I built some more e-magnets and controllers. Today I spent most of my time laying roadbed and track. Made good progress, got alot installed - I'll be wiring the new stuff tomorrow sometime.

First, I redid the area where the "offsets" in the track were, if anyone remembers. Changed the track to just angle over to the long straight at the industrial siding and spurs. (the wood sections are temporary bridges)

[attachment=19833]

Got the roadbed and track down at the peninsula:

[attachment=19832]

[attachment=19831]

And started the other end of middle yard. E-mags cut in, and most of the track is done as of now. Still have a bit to work on.

[attachment=19830]

And a telephoto shot with most of the track done. The camera sure makes the turn-outs look sharp!

[attachment=19829]

I really like the way the track around the peninsula came out - looks like a nice smooth curve.

Nice job Gary, You have a great looking layout, and it looks like it will be lots of fun to run it.
Charlie

Very nice! That telephoto really does add ten pounds, er degrees. :oops:

Galen

What the

Gary, I didnt know you started your layout progress in this thread! I havnt visited this thread in a long while, thought you were just taking your sweet time with the new building, but holy smokes man, you in full force layout build mode!

i just went back a few pages and checked out the progress! Great work so far Im absolutely in love with both your GERN plants (yours and Waynes that is).

The trackwork is looking very nice Gary, nice and smooth!

Great work, and now that I know that you have been working on the layout, ill be following closely eagerly awaiting the next updates

Kevin: I actually broke the curve into two sections, there is a straight piece on the peninsula, just didn't get it in the photo.I'll put a grade crossing there in the road going through the neighborhood.

Charlie, thank you. I'm thinking it will be a fun layout for a person who likes to run local freights and do alot of switching. Of course, I think that person is me...

Galen: The telephoto is a great tool, I like the shots of the layout with it. But it definitely distorts the distance from foreground to background.

Josh: Thanks for stopping by. Yeah, since I already had a thread for the building, it just kind of led to the whole layout being here.

I finished wiring all the track I put down this weekend. Was able to run a train the entire length of all the shelves, about 170 feet! Still have to do the SP yard tracks, some spurs, and add on to the end of the SF yard.

Gary,

It took me awhile but I was able to get through all the posts and get caught up on your progress. I really like what you are doing and look forward to more progress shots!!
At the rate you are going you should be having operation sessions soon!!!

Gary S Wrote:Was able to run a train the entire length of all the shelves, about 170 feet!

WOW Congratulations! I'll bet that was a fun and satisfying feeling.

Tom

Greg, thanks for your interest and for taking the time to go back through the thread. Houston has a layout tour in October. The powers that be actually encourage less-than-complete layouts to be on the tour, so people can see examples of how layouts are constructed. I just might have enough ready to be on the tour.

Tom: After having worked all weekend to get to the point of running a train the complete layout length, it was around 11 pm when I wired up the last of the track. I hastily threw some cars and a loco on the track and made the run, then turned off the lights and called it quits. I don't think I gave the event the reverence it deserved. Busy on other things tonight and tomorrow too, so looks like Thursday night before I can go back and do it some justice.

Haven't posted anything on the progress lately because it has been mainly doing track and wiring as in the previous photos. I have completed the "main" run and the removable bridge, so I did get three trains going today and just let them circle about for awhile. It was pretty cool. I also speed-matched a few locos so I can run them together. It was good to take some time off from the wiring and just play with trains a bit. I also did a mini-ops session just to see how things went. Did some run-arounds and some set-outs and pick-ups. Magnets worked well, but did find a couple cars with couplers that need work. I'm also cleaning the wheels of a couple locos as we speak.

Gary S Wrote:I also did a mini-ops session just to see how things went.

Extremely valuable to do before you get scenery in. I've done similar - switch some cars around and see if the track lengths are okay and that tracks do not need to be relocated. It is much easy to change things before the scenery and ballast is in place. No matter how much planning you do, there will always be that one siding that is hard to access, the run around track that is just a few inches to short, or that switching maneuver that is near impossible. Sometimes playing around a bit helps (made me realize I needed one more track).