Image above captured on the upper deck of the layout where scenery has progressed to some extent...
Shot with Olympus C-750

Welcome to the SP Oregon Division!

An N Scale RR depicting the good old days along "The Friendly".

Monday, October 17, 2011

XtrakCad is Pretty Cool

This program that Ray used to configure things into the existing layout has worked pretty well throughout the design phase.  Appreciate the help here Ray!  ...as we would still be in the design phase if it was just me doing it!
So he brought over printouts of the yard ladders and transitions, and I transferred the track diagram onto the plywood in those areas with old fashioned carbon paper.... remember that stuff?  lol
Looking good so far.


  Meanwhile got all the turnouts, and the first order of flex track is here.  This batch of ME turnouts are junk.. unlike previous acquisitions.... as all the switch pivot points are falling apart.  I have had to replace a couple throwbars on some of the earlier turnouts, but never seen this issue.  These are getting new switch point / closure rails, and adding my own PC throwbars.  This looked cumbersome at first, but is making them more DCC friendly, and actually isn't as bad as it first looked.  Just demo out the old, slide new rail sections into the molded ties, add one PC tie, and the throwbar.  Here's a shot from the feasability study:
Looks like prefab and a mini production run should blow through all nine of them.  Atlas turnouts at the other yard throat is all new to me, so any input on how these perform is welcome, as now is the time to make any mods to make them reliable also...
Not sure of the order of operations yet, but still have to add the shelving under the basic staging framework, as it is part of the overall support in keeping things squared up and solid.  Probably come before all the track in staging goes down....  More on that later.