This layout will focus on operations and have lots of industries and car spots where cars can be picked up and delivered. The first industrial/switching district is in front of the lower staging yard. It's approximately 18" deep and 18 feet long. It parallels the mainline coming into and out of staging, but is not directly connected. There will be crossover turnouts on the mainline to let trains into this area.
With some assistance from Dan Hinel, owner of the Rail Xpress Railroad, I came up with what I think will be an interesting design.
Trains coming into this area will be locals delivering cars from the main yard, and thus won't be overly long. There is a runaround track allowing the engine to get to the back of the train, as well as to access the sidings towards the front/aisle of the layout.
In the video, I show a three track section that I had intended to be some sort of grain handling facility, but I may cut that back to two tracks. The "criss cross" industry sidings will likely be warehouse-style buildings with room for 3 cars each. There is room for two additional industries on the front/aisle track, each with room for two tracks.
The turnouts in this area will all be manual turnouts with ground throws, as I'm using up my stock of Atlas turnouts before switching to PECO turnouts, which have the built-in spring to hold the track in place.
Week of October 28, 2018
I was gone the first few weekends of October at operating session events in both Chicago and Lansing, so I haven't had much time to work on the layout. I also spent several weekends working on CIRROPS 2018 planning and logistics. The bulk of that work was done in advance of the event, so I finally found some time to work on the layout.
I started by getting backdrops trimmed and attached to the modules on the lower deck. These had to be in place in order to attach the modules to each other and to the shelving brackets.
Once the modules were secured to each other, I got wire holes drilled into the supports and between the sections. I also got the terminal blocks installed to secure the bus wires.
On the larger modules, I'm doing parallel bus wires to cut down the length of the feeder wires to the tracks. The parallel wires connect at the terminal strip and I'm using part of a "cheap" terminal strip at the distal end to secure those wires.
Week of November 4, 2018
It's far easier to stay motivated to work on the layout when you're actually making progress towards having trains moving. With the bus wires in place, I could start connecting the staging yard to the bus and getting it powered up. I finally found my groove, so to speak, on soldering feeders without completely destroying the track underneath. The trick is the pencil-tip soldering iron and heatsinks, like alligator clips or hemostats, on the track on either side of the solder location. This helps create a nice solder "tent" and minimizes heat damage to the track itself.
I've also secured the roadbed for the staging yard/mainline through the sump room. The DAP Alex Plus caulk is so easy to use as long as you don't have extreme curves. I measured out the 2.5" gaps on the curve, put the caulk down, laid out the cork, and it stuck in place without so much as a clamp on it.
I also had gotten some LED light strips a while back but didn't realize how different the surface mount LEDs were, in terms of light output. After finding an article here about the different LED strip options, I ordered a new 12 volt/30 amp power supply and one of the light strips from Amazon. Here's what the layout looked like before adding the lights:
And here's after, with the lights taped up temporarily:
This greatly improves the look of the section, these strips will work nicely on the rest of the layout. Each strip pulls 60 watts of power. Based on my rough dimensions, I'll need 7 strips to light up the lower deck of the layout. I'm running 14 gauge lighting bus wires around the layout and will end up needing to split that bus to accommodate two power supplies eventually. Each strip is $10.99 and the power supply is $18.96, not counting a cord to plug it in. That's pretty cheap and while the strips get warm, they're producing way less heat than other options would.
Over the weekend, I also got a few more pieces of track cut and test fit for the industrial district in sections L1-L3 by the staging yard. I also finished adding a second set of feeder wires and a parallel set of bus wires for the staging yard.
The good thing about getting the staging yard wired is that I can now start moving the shelving units from the back room where the helix will go. I will have to test fit them, but I should be able to put the bottom two shelf sections under the layout. This will provide some storage for the train items in the back room, which will need to be emptied before I can build the helix.
Week of November 11, 2018
I made lots of progress over the past week. The lower staging yard is completely wired, and the industrial district in front is all glued down. I'm in the process of adding feeder wires, but it was fun being able to switch the district with some of my 6 axle diesels.
This picture shows an overall view of the switching district before everything was glued down.
The first set of industry sidings can accommodate 6 cars (towards the staging yard side) and 12 cars (towards the aisle) respectively.
This shows the run around track for incoming trains, as well as the crossover arrangement supporting two warehouse-type building spurs.
You can see one of my CP Genset switchers pulling an odd string of cars towards the sump pump room/tunnel. Access to the staging yard is unhindered by trains working the switching district.
Another view of the two leads heading towards the sump pump room tunnel.
The two tracks are now secured to the lower deck of benchwork. Because it was significantly lower than the circuit breaker panel, I didn't need to make this have a liftout section, as I did up above.
The rear track is the lead into staging, the front track is the lead into the switching district.
I would have preferred, for space reasons, to use a double crossover here, but they simply aren't available, so I made this one out of Atlas #8 turnouts. This allows trains coming out of staging to get on the right hand main.
Trains heading east (towards the sump room) can crossover to the staging yard lead, or locals can head into the switching district. The turnouts on the main will have both dispatcher control and local panel control to allow dispatcher-less operations.
I'm currently adding feeders and detection blocks on the rear mainline blocks. The lead into the switching district will not be detected, but once trains hit the westbound main, they'll be in detected territory again.
Week of November 18, 2018
I finished the feeders into the L1-L3 industrial district, as well as feeders on the track running through the sump room. The L4 mainline section feeders are routed through a block detector (which still needs to be connected to a board) but the L4 industry lead feeders are connected directly to the power bus.
I ran out of cork roadbed but my order arrived before my few vacation days over Thanksgiving, so I was able to continue laying roadbed through the back of the main yard area.
I also got out the PECO turnouts to see how they would fit the yard plan I had designed/adapted from several yards I'd seen. Based on some measurements, I decided to order some 3" code 83 track sections to save myself some time, since the PECO turnout is just about 3" shorter than the corresponding Atlas code 83 #6 turnout. In the picture above, you can see how the turnouts are spaced to get the track alignment correct. I decided to put the two arrival/departure tracks on cork and to have a ramp down to the Homasote surface where the rest of the yard will be. I also decided to use #8 turnouts for connecting the A/D tracks to the main to make it a smoother transition for trains coming in and out. The rest of the yard will be PECO #6 turnouts.
I've also started playing with designs for the industrial district in section L5, just east of the main yard. Other than putting in a turnout off the main, I don't have a design I'm happy with yet, but that's OK at this point.
I ordered the rest of the turnouts for the "west" end of the yard and the engine facility and the next step will be to lay the yard tracks, engine facility tracks, after placing the curves going from the east wall to the south wall.
