Updates with no pictures

So I have been making progress and trying to keep the railroad ready for an Op Session. These two things together are always a tough situation.
Facia has been installed from the New NMJ to the nod under.
Roadbed has been installed all the way to the right side of Brunswick. The middle of what is now Katahdin.
If I didn't mention it before, the mainline track and passing sidings are installed through Bangor.
After the next session there will be a major redo of the track under Searsport. Not looking forward to it, but it will make life easier in the long term.

PSA

I was fixing older turnouts and came across one that had some lower resistance (~4 Meg) across the rails and I couldn't figure out why. I had put a road through this turnout and the stuff below is what I used. i decided to check the resistance of the road without touching the rails and I got the same reading. I cleaned this stuff off the turnout. The problem was solved.

Lighting in Portland

Today I installed lighting for Portland. About the only place needing lights now part of Rigby and area over the turntable. With the little time left, I took the mainline cork past Bangor. Ran the track almost to the same point and added all but one turnout off the main line.

Latest Progress

The NEW Northern Maine junction has 10 of 12 tracks installed up to the end of the benchwork. I will be adding about three more feet so I can get the full trains in. 

All of the new benchwork wiring buses are in. Regulated, DCC and Accessory. 
The wiring that I had to put on the floor has been rerouted and no longer a tripping hazard. 

Mainline roadbed is all the way through Bangor. Some of the industries have been figured out. 

All of the computer boards have been mounted, just nothing yet in the field

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First look at the NEW Northern Maine Junction

After the benchwork went up I finished the brackets and put up three 8 foot section of plywood and enough to connect the corners. Now on to the track.
While the cork was being glued up I laid out the turnouts for NMJ marked where the holes went for tortoises and drilled them. Then I mounted all of the turnouts, rerailers, and some track while setting up the blocks for detection. Due to an oversite I am short two rerailers. I had one piece not one package.

Upper benchwork in

The benchwork is basically 100% complete. There are a few brackets that I have to buy to insure that stability of the upper level. Now only a billion more things to before running trains up there.

A push towards finishing the benchwork

I’m making a push to have all of the benchwork in before Christmas. The following is the area above the engine facility. This is where we start the final track work for the upper level.

The rest of the photos show the last major sections which will go in place this week with some help.

These go along two different walls and the corner piece to connect them will be built after the actual dimensions are known.

 There is already about 40 feet installed, not counting the area over the turntable. All in all about 85 more feet of mainline will be put in. This will include a new 12 track staging yard and 2 new towns. The old staging yard will become another town with a logging branch off of it.

Upcoming Changes

I now have all of the wood a some bodies to finish all of the benchwork. Next week will bring some changes. Pictures afterwards.

I have a section of hidden track that I inadvertently put right under the mainline in Searsport. This cause me much trouble when trying to get the Tortoise Machines in place. That track is also hard to get to with wires all around it. Then during the last op session the linkage got messed up and I still can't get it right. So for Fridays op session I will pin that turnout and see how it goes. If the crew can live with it that way for one more session after that I will pull out that track and move it closer to the front. This will over the short term will be a mess. In the long term it is the right move. I would be able to reset all those Tortoise machines where they should be and all of the wiring will be behind the track. Easier to reach trains if needed and clean track.

Belfast and Wiscasset will have some modifications also because of this.

Crossing the aisle

I have an op session coming and what better way to test a theory of a tall duck under with operators. The bottom of the benchwork at the aisle is 60.25 inches and the benchwork is only 12 inches wide. This shouldn't be too bad.
I had a thought that I could raise or lower the benchwork when not in use and then remembered that was how I was getting my wires across the aisle. Once I get to the choice of wires I will sit down and figure out if I can do some kind of disconnect.
The least amount of connections needed would be for Ethernet, DCC, Regulated Power and Accessory

Car Card Presentation

In an effort to do more with the local club, I volunteered to do a Presentation on Car Cards. There is a lot of support in the area for switch lists. I wanted to show another option.
I had to modify one I did many years ago. Today was the day. It was pretty well received and I got decent reviews from some of the attendees and those that had seen my layout liked that it help them understand better.
I was nervous in the beginning but once I started, it flowed and my years of experience made it hard to stop talking.
Good for all I hope.

More benchwork and a new siding

I added the last bit of upper level bench work and setting up to cross the aisle. The mainline will be towards the back and a logging siding in front of that. I willcross the walkway to the right and come back over Portland to eventually end up in the real Northern Maine Junction. 

This will get me three new towns and one small branch, with NMJ becoming it's proper size

Lights above Brunswick

The last session had a request for lighting above Brunswick. Frankly it should have been done a while ago. Since my strip lights were 4' longer than the upper benchwork I had I added another 8' section. The lights are now in and the yard guys will be very happy

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Scenery Update

Got scenery from the track to the backdrop mostly done between Searsport and Orrington.


Got scenery from the track to the backdrop mostly done between Searsport and Orrington..

Water is in

Still more scenery towards the front and around the waters edge needs to happen, but with Op Sessions restarting I had to finish the water and get the bridges and track back in. 

Finally back to work

Finally got most of the remodeling done so back to the train room. Over the last few months the bridge to Portland got out of alignment and needed to be worked on. It is now working much better.

Today I had a visitor to help get things going and we worked on the top of the helix and the trains seemed to be running okay. We also talked about options just in case this is still a problem.

Then we got on to scenery. I put in a cardboard lath in a few places that I knew that I would be ok with and then used plaster cloth for starters. I had Kenny putting down ballast in Searsport and some in Orrington. While that was going on I got farther along in the backdrop between Searsport and Orrington.

Kitchen Issues - Train Gains

The kitchen remodel is having its issues. We had three bad pieces. They were a 3/4" plywood about 2' by 7'. So I told the contractor if we don't have to pay for it and they don't want it back, I will use it for the layout.
Then the replacement parts came and two of them were bad. Keep this up and I will have to build the layout out through the windows.


Chuck

Matte Medium was not working for me

The matte medium wasn't working for me so I did a little modification and went back to envirotex lite. I'm happier with the result. That being said I need to revisit the matte medium choice on a test piece so I can figure it out.

Water has been started

I decided to use matte medium instead of my normal envirotex light. Mostly because I was not sure how leak proof my set up was. I'm not sure how this will work out, but we shall see. The white is just because it has not dried yet.

Scenery update

The upper level section between Orrington and the loop has ballast now. When all of this section is dry I can plant some trees.

The lower section between Bath and Wiscasset also got some scenery. Still more trees needed. In the foreground I cut some of the benchwork to have a water feature. When this is dry I will pour some water to finish this section off. 

CBNR had its first open house in Flat Rock

The Apple Valley Model RR Club had a tour of Railroads to the South of Hendersonville. 6 layouts were open. The weren't a ton of people compared to the amount of club members in the club. There were more people than had been to other open houses. Then again the visitors live much closer the convention visitors.
I don't mind showing off the layout, I wouldn't mind seeing the other layouts. In this case 4 of the 5 others I have not seen yet.

Trees are Popping up

A little sprucing up of the forest and away we go.

Scenery updates

Some scenery updates. This is at the far end of the back aisle. Between Orrington and northern Maine Junction on the top. Bath and Wiscasset on the bottom. I will be delayed a bit by a short trip and a Train Club layout tour. Hopefully I will get the trees in before the tour.

More Plaster and Hills

Time to see if I can use Hydrocal that was about 20 years old. I had a few break apart because I tried to take them out of the molds early. Then I got the hang of it and they started coming out better. Good thing, I still have about 60 pounds of hydrocal.

I got ahead of myself and started adding trees before the backdrop was finished. I will do better.

More hills and then back to painting the backdrop.

Scenery has started

A lot of paint and plaster has been spread in the last couple of days. There is plenty more to go. The biggest issue was finding the paint, the glue, the sprayers. 

Chuck

The Near Future

Well everyone we will have a major kitchen renovation starting this Monday. So the Op Sessions will temporarily be shutdown after the Saturday Op Session. The good news is that I will go on a massive scenery upgrade and most likely make the wiring fit better as in cutting the lengths to fit better.

Lots of Blue Sky

I took the time to paint about 100-120 feet of backdrop blue.

After the next op session the railroad may be shutdown for awhile because of a kitchen remodel. Also I am on a railroad tour in July so I will do scenery for awhile. That way the tour folks have something to look at instead of benchwork.

Turntable is operable

A short and boring video of the new turntable in operation. Unfortunately I had to put it on you tube because the file was too big for the blog .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n309TUVkcHA

Can you guess what is coming?

Here is a picture of some benchwork mods. Can you guess what my wife just got me?

Strangely enough the original idea when placed down was perfectly done between all of the joists. No benchwork cutting needed. I just had to turn a riser around to the other side of the joist.

Op Sessions

It looks like I will be doing two separate types of Op Sessions. Kind of like I did before.
One is a monthly on the second Tuesday of the month. Mostly for the local retired folks in the area.
The other will be for the more distant folks. Starting this weekend I will do every two months on the last Saturday. This alternates months with another layout on the same last Saturday of the month. In case the monthly session doesn't draw enough, I will pull from the local group, of which there seems to be enough extras.

Getting ready for the next session

For the next session I will be bringing Portland online. This will add three trains during a 24 hour day.
Belfast (with the wye to St. Albans) was reduced to a single track and the old main is now a siding for the creamery. This added a new industry and reduced the signals by three. Of course a lot of re-programming to these changes.
A bunch of rolling stock added along with four more trains and one more track to cover the new train to Northern Maine Junction.
Then there is the paperwork to go with it all. Nothing is ever done until the paperwork is done.
This Saturday I will have a new person over to learn the Dispatcher's station prior to the actual op session. He has been here before but has not done the dispatching before.

The Great Searsport Flood

For the first time in days I was not working on the railroad. I was woodworking a project for a donation to a fund raiser. In the process I needed to go down and find the dust pan from the train room. Lo and behold there was water on the floor. At first it appeared to be coming from the floor and closer inspection of wet boxes said otherwise. The regulator shown in the first picture was weeping out of the bell cap.
Searsport got a little wet. Some dripped to the floor. Once dry I will turn everything on and find out what, if anything, needs to be done.
I know that no electronics was impacted. I believe only one Tortoise possibly got wet. Some buildings got wet and boxes below the benchwork got a little wet on the bottom.
Stay tuned.

Portland is ready for ops

Portland has been wired up and tested. When you open the swing gate the tracks on either side are protected by a tortoise wire between the rails. Now it is on to the supporting paperwork.

Portland updates

From the last session I did the necessary fixes. Now it is on to Portland. I needed to run wires from the current layout across the bridge. That would require seven wires, two for DCC, two for Accessory power, two for the CMRI power and a CAT-5 for the CMRI. I checked that I could fit those wires in a protective case for the floor and they would fit so I went ahead and started.
The DCC on this section will be powered from the booster, so I had to run wires from it. The CMRI is only needed for a few items. Mostly for protection when the swing gate is open. Unfortunately I spent a lot of time with this yesterday and something was not right. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, so I will get back to that shortly.
Today I wanted to make positive progress, so I ran the DCC wires for Portland. I made and connected all the drops for the current track. I also connected the swing bridge up. Tomorrow I will have to connect all of that to the power bus. At least that way I can run trains across the bridge.
The other day I also printed out a lot of new waybills and changes to existing waybills for the new track in Northern Maine Junction, Belfast and Portland. So I will be able to get that going also.

Follow up on yesterdays test session

Today I already removed the troublesome turnout and two signals in Belfast. It is now a single track main line connecting to the wye. The old main is now one long siding. For now I will put in the dairy, but if I believe I can handle another siding on this section of single track, I will split it into two sidings.

I also added another temp track in Northern Maine Jct., so I can add another train there to alleviate the stuck traffic in the yards. I already have spare tracks in the other locations, so I only need to add the trains. So I will add one train out of both Rigby and NMJ and two trains out of St. Albans. One going to each yard.

This and Portland coming online will clear out some of the yards. Portland it self will add 2 to 3 trains once we get it up to full potential.

One more thing that will help is more industrial spots for Wood Job traffic. That will take some time.

Another Test Run

Today we're not as bad as I expected. I had a lot of track tweeting issues over the winter and I found them late in preparation for the next session. I got most of them corrected but did not have enough time for testing. We did decide that in Belfast at the wye I will remove a passing track that would eliminate at least one troublesome turnout. We never used it for a meet anyway.
I should be able to add a siding in its place. I need a couple more dairies for the milk train anyway. We shall see on that.
Due to a miscalculation by me I had way too many cars for Northern Maine Junction and St. Albans. They showed up badly in the yards today. It is time to add one more train in NMJ and Rigby, with two more out of SAN. Changing some waybills for what is all ready on the layout and getting Portland finished will help with that. AND getting enough engines for those trains.
It is either sit in an easy chair or have the Joys of Model Railroading.

Chuck

The Woes of Inactivity

Looking toward another op session and I find kind of late that the winter was not kind to the railroad. I had been adding new areas to the railroad, but not looking at what I had. Now working toward another op session and the track was found in spots to have expanded. Some of these issues were hidden in the back of the yard behind the cars in the yard. In one case the fix happened to destroy a turnout so add that to the mix.
The helix area needed some mods to the turnout throws and some leveling. Hopefully this will work in the short term, but a change will have to happen to make it right. I just need to figure out what that is. Belfast might end up not having a passing siding. This could eliminate two turnouts. OR it could be a shorter siding that could work for a runaround but not much else. The only change for the only industry would be to make sure deliveries come from the same direction.

Chuck

Portland So Far

A little overview of Portland, ME. The first pic is the Swing gate while closed

Now you can see the Open Swing gate .

The first industry you come to is Dragon Cement. It will hold 4 cement hoppers on on track and 2 boxcars on the other track.

In the back you can Ice Plant #1. This can hold 5 reefers. It was recently in Brunswick but I could only fit in the racks and not the building. The two front tracks are Terminal #2 and #3. One is for bulk loading and the other will hold boxcars. Each is expected to hold 3 cars.

Next we have JB Browns Barrels in the back. It will have 2-3 spots. In the front there is a warehouse. It will hold two cars per track.

Finally we have the Maine Port Authority and another shipper. This will be 2-3 cars. The track in the front going nowhere is the connection to the barge and yard. The barge holds 12-15. The yard will be slightly bigger.