Changes in Brunswick and Bath

With all of the track changes I recently made the paperwork needed to be changed. That is complete now. Here is a listing of the changes.

1. Added wye for engine turning in Brunswick
2. Moved King Coal from Bath to Brunswick
3. Moved Maine Scrap in Brunswick and added one more spot.
4. Moved Engine Facility and added one more tank car spot.
5. Added Baxter Shoes with 2 spots.
6. Added diesel and steam fueling capability
7. Added Capt. Jack's Boat building to place vacated by Coal Co.
8. Added Stanley Stoves with one one new spot in Bath.
9. Added 11 new cars to cover the increase in spots.
10. Changed about 30 waybills.

Car Float Operations

I have always liked the idea of having car float operations, but I just couldn't justify it. Every once in a while I would think about again, but not act. Then today I found out Bath, Maine had car float ops in the 30's. Now the wheels are turning again.

Diesel Engine Facility Layout

The wye and fueling facility installed. The track next to the fueling facility will hold two cars for diesel fuel. The track in front of it will hold hoppers for coal and sand. The steam engine refueling was placed along the wye. It is smaller due to the reduction of steam engines in 1959.

Brunswick Changes

My effort at making changes in Brunswick are slowly coming along. My goals were:

1. Engine turning capability
2. Engine storage
3. More industry switching for the yard crews

Results
1. A wye was installed.
2. Still in the works, but it looks like I may be able to use a special scratch built turnout made for me by Mike Porterfield for the old layout.
3. Moved all existing industry towards the wye, added a two spot coal depot, two track fueling facility for diesels, a spot for steam engines to refuel (on the wye). Cleared up the whole middle of Brunswick for new industry.

It will take awhile to implement everything into a session because new control panels and computer programming and I'll need another auto-reverser ordered

Diesel fueling station

The diesel fuel station that I purchased from the Eno Valley Railroad had a base that looked like it could be put in from the underside of the bench work. However, there were enough things sticking out that said this would be very tough to do, especially by myself, and I really want to get it installed in one piece.

First I cut the hole so the fueling station will slide in from the top.

Then I cut a plywood base large enough to attach from the bottom. I also cut a hole in the middle to allow access to the wires and so I can get a hand in there so I can lower it from the bottom.



I put spacers in so that the fueling station would sink low enough and be flush with the top. This will be screwed in from the bottom. The fueling station fits inside of this from the top.

The fueling station sitting in the frame.

Brunswick Engine Facility

I have been struggling with my engine facility and turntable situation for awhile. I cut a hole and put in a turntable that was too small. Then I got a larger turntable and it didn't leave a lot of room for anything else. At this point I put the engine facility on hold.

I then started getting the idea that I wanted a lot more industry and I started working on ideas that might work. Almost every idea was tossed because of one thing or another and the project was put back on the back burner again.

It was suggested that I put in a wye and although I doubted it would work, it appeared that it will. I started by checking to see if it would come off the mainline, but it turned out I could come of the engine track and keep the mainline clear. This has the added benefit of being able to get industries on both sides of the corner of this part of the layout. So I can add industry and turn engines.

Today I plugged the turntable hole, added track for the wye and now I'm looking for the best place to add the fueling station and all the other things to get the most bang for the Buck.

Finished with the covered bridge project

Covered Bridge over the Moose River

I saw this covered bridge that I had to have., so I got it and put it together. I knew where it needed to go and decided I would have enough time before the next op session to put it in. The work behind where the bridge will go is complete. A little more weathering is needed on the bridge before a permanent install.

The rock work and bridge abutments came from the old layout. The river bends around to the right and disappears.

While I was at it I went ahead and scenicked around to Orrington. Most of the hill was already in place. The rock castings here are from the old layout.

Below the bridge is laying in place just for the picture.

A view of the bridge straight on.

New structure for Searsport

This structure will replace a building flat that was here. 

The building flat will fit in a lot more places and this one fits this tight space perfectly.

Ideas for Bucksport

I made this small building front to cover a hole in the wall.

I then started playing with other building flats to see if something else would work. This one looks OK, but would need some trimming, because it is to close to the track.

This one fits better but I would need a large dock area.

The result is I'll probably have to make something else.

Scene break

Trees placed around a location where the backdrop comes close to the mainline. Hard to tell where the backdrop is.

Breaking out the details

I have been collecting vehicles for the day when I would need them. Now is that time. I used to think that I had a lot, but they are being rapidly sucked up by the layout.

Last Building In Rockland

I got the last structure completed. This kit is of the Wolfeboro NH, freight station. I bought this kit about 14 years ago when it was Lakeside Models.
BEST trains now owns this kit and when I thought I was going to run out of shingles they agreed to send me more for free. Now that is great customer service!!!
I still have to remove it one more time to put the window glazing in and Maybe some lights.

North Rockland

Rockland Passenger Station

Chuck

South Rockland

Chuck

Ice Storm cancels Op Session

So instead I keep on with the scenic work in Rockland.
Early and late pictures of the progress.

Smooth move!

Nothing like the feeling you get when you realize one of the walls you were building, on a high dollar kit, was being built upside down.

Luckily the parts came off OK, so there may only be minor blemishes. Then again maybe I can fix them too.

Wiscasset - Rockland Area

I was supposed to be cleaning up for the next session, but I couldn't help adding more scenery. The road has already received more dirt to bring it up to grade.

Power Outage

I lost a whole day of scenicking due to the state wide power outage. I guess I'll need to consider an emergency generator for the train room.

Scenery continues

Scenery work continues. There has been a lot of plaster on the layout that was still white. I went ahead and painted the first coat to get rid of the white.

The first pictures is the area north of Bucksport. I still have to add the waster. Note to self: it is better to paint the backdrop before you install the bridge. The second picture is the church in Acadia.

Scenery time

It was about time to return to scenery, especially since it is pretty icy out today.

The curve between Rockland and Wiscasset. I plan on turning this into a farm.

A row of houses just outside the town of Acadia.

Texaco station near the beach on the Moose River.

100% Detectable Rolling Stock

After quite a few months every piece of rolling stock on the layout has two sets of resistor wheels. That's over 600 wheel sets. All of the wheels have been cleaned and that equates to more than 1200 sets of wheels.

New Engine Tracks

Spent the day adding two engine tracks to the south side of Brunswick. This cleared up the coach yard for its' intended purpose. Luckily the programming of the turnout was minimal, since I had those turnouts already put in the system.

I sometimes dabble in G

I used to have a small garden railroad when I was in Alabama and I always wanted this reefer. I couldn't help myself on EBay.

New Building

I thought I would check out this leftover building from the Eno Valley RR. It only has a 4 1/2 inch depth. It will fit in a couple of places so I'll keep it.

Full Steam Ahead

Mike Pennie stopped by today and right before he got here everything died. It turns out that the board has issues. I changed out the board and it initialized fine. We started plugging things back in one at a time and things started behaving correctly.

I had prepared a board to act as a local control panel with lights and buttons and that went fine, with everything acting as it was supposed to.

It turns out I had the basic understanding of what to do but the equipment was temporarily messing with me.

I'll spend some time do a few more tests and then I'll be on to bigger challenges. ie. "the layout".

The move to JMRI begins

There has been some discussion about how long I'll be able to stay with the DOS system I'm currently using. Currently I'm using four computers and I have a couple of spares and as long as they work I'll be fine. We all know that things last forever, and at some point the older computers won't be readily available.
I took time over the last month to learn the basics of JMRI. Through a tutorial I successfully drew a track and made a CTC panel. The next step is to make a small test track using at least one of every component that is currently on my layout and get them to work so my understanding will get better before I tackle the full layout.
I built a small test track and installed some of the components needed to start this test. I decided to stick to just the turnouts to keep the complexity down while trying to get the computer to talk to the I/O board.
Yesterday I finally attempted to get the turnouts working and it took all day, but it was successful. It was a combination of many things from learning how to wire the USB-RS485 connector, JMRI lingo, how the "CMRI like" board acted like the true CMRI boards.
The important thing is I got them working and have a much higher understanding of the connections.