Model Railroading

Railroading

Over the week, I got nearly everything, except for some debris, out of the train room. My brother came over today for the first time in years. Our main thing was to get a feel for what we had, what we needed, and what we should do next.

One project between now and next week, is to locate tools we are going to need to do the work at hand. I have to locate the soldering iron and the palm sander first thing. We can lay some track with those on hand.

The soldering iron is to solder the rails of the track sections together, and to solder wires to the tracks. The palm sander is for the cork road bed. We glue down the cork first, then we use the sander to even it out, to make it smooth. Then we glue the tracks down to the cork. Our last act is to use a track gauge and super glue the rails into gauge so they are not going to move out of gauge. It is not uncommon for rails to lean in or out or get loose. That can cause derailments. No one wants that. Super-gluing the rails into gauge solves that problem. This is a PERMANENT railroad layout.

My layout is built with ATLAS SNAP TRACK SWITCHES. These are thought of as really cheap switches. We found that once fixed in gauge, they are excellent switches. We also like the snap motors that go with them. They look nothing like anything in the real world, but they are nearly idiot resistant and very easy to get working.

Years ago, my brother installed slow motion under table switch motors. It took a couple hours to install each one and he never could get them working right.

I found I need to look at the contents of the bins beneath the switch yard and also empty a couple shelves there. I have no idea what all that stuff is.

My brother will aim for coming over every Wednesday, but there will be days it won't happen. He is an independent contractor and many times works real late at night. If that happens, he won't be coming over.

My brother pointed out that I left off a crossing switch in my drawing from the inner loop of the layout and the outer loop.
In the accompanying picture, show how my railroad layout developed.
I saw a model railroad layout in a hobby shop, using MARKLIN products, which is made in Germany. I loved the railroad layout. I drew it up, making a few changes, and purchased the track. My brother built the layout for me. For those not into trains, a Run-a-round is a way for an engine to get to the other end of a car, or string of cars. They run around them.
The second picture is what I came up with for my design with the modifications. I considered this to be the perfect model railroad layout, better than anything I had ever seen in a magazine. We had one track coming off the outer oval to leave the 4x8.
The third picture shows modifications we made to the layout just before we stopped model railroading. We added a switch to the outside of the outer oval to create a run-a-round. WE can now turn our trains around so they can push or pull off the layout as needed. This made the best railroad layout I have ever seen, even better.

That is what happened this week. Will see what happens over the coming week.