Okay, it's been a few days since my last post, but I have been busy. And I have something to show for it.
I have completed laying and gluing down all of my foam road bed.
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Here is a shot of the Hat River Yard foam road bed. Just by way of explaination, this yard is based on the Norfolk Soutern yard located in South Durham, N.C., from years ago when a regional railroad by that name once connectedNorfolk, Va., with Charlotte, N.C.. I changed it ever so slightly, adding the engine terminal on the top, two spurs, and a bend in the yard as it leaves towards Bear Creek.
The engine terminal is loosely based on a picture I saw of of a short line engine terminal used by the Montpelie & Wells and tht Barre & Chelsea on the banks of the Winooski River in Montpelier, Vermont.
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This shows the Bear Creek Yard with it's double layer of foam roadbed. This yard is based on the El Portal Yard of the Yosemite Valley Railroad. It has a few minor revisions I made to it.
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This is a bit of a poor view, I think, but it is meant to show the grades I have installed. I used the jigsaw cut foam wedges described by Bob in his blog post, "Styrofoam Risers - My Swing At Them" -
http://www.nscale.net/blog-entry/bob/2008/02/14/styrofoam-risers-my-swing-them
The grade from the single layer Hat River Yard to the double layer Bear Creek Yard is 1.5%. There is a grade going the oposite direction behind the first that will be going up to a coal mine. The grade there is about 2.3%. The foam wedges were covered with paper towel soaked in a 50-50 mixture of water and white glue.
Now that all my foam road bed is down, the holes for wiring drilled, the cracks and spaces filled with Polyfiller and the surface sanded, I have begun cutting the cork that will support the track.
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I have a great big piece of cork that I am cutting strips off of 13mm wide. I intend to lay these strips on either side of the centres of where my track will be giving me a road bed 26mm, or 13 scale feet, wide. I choose this number because my pike is supposed to be located in southern Alberta, Canada, which is CPR country. 13 feet width for roadbed was a CPR standard.
Anyway, progress is continuing. I shall post when and where I can.
Cheers,
Jim R
Very neat work so far,
Thanks, Jimmi, I appreciate
Thanks, Jimmi, I appreciate that.
I did alot ot reading, anything I could find on yard layout and function. In the end, I learned that I needed to follow two important things:
1.) Industry service dictates yard function and layout.
I realized that where I was modelling mid to late steam on a (make believe) short line pike that the industries I was going to service would impact my yards layout.
2.) Less is more.
I soon learned that in the prototypical world, the less outlay to build and maintain track, the better. Real railroads tray to get the most bang for their buck. If a number of industries could be serviced by a single spur, that was what they did. If a smaller yard would suffice and still facilitate train movement, that was what was used. This I found to be the most difficult because I wanted more and more for interests sake. I did manage, I think, to fall somewhere in the middle.
Also, I I settled on modelling variations of real yards simply because they had been designed, and worked, in the real world. I haven't worked on the railroad, and for all my studying, I couldn't grasp fully what was required. I think I am now beginning to, but only just.
I will continue to post as I progress.
Cheers,
Jim R