July 12th, 2009

I've been in another one of those do-nothing-with-the-layout moods lately. Seems I can only work on the layout for a short amount of time before I jump into something else. Lately I've been in my diesel detailing mood. In a half a month I've added 4 more locos to the details page, and there is one more almost done on my workbench right now. So yeah, the layout is being neglected. It was hot out today, and the ac cools my train room better than my office/workbench room, so I decided to finish up that last turnout on the upper level at Sonora. While I was working on it, I tried to fit in different types of bridges I have in the Walker Canyon area, which is just north of the Sonora siding. Try as I might, I just couldn't get things to line up and work correctly. Either the bridge was too long, or the angle of the track didn't work out. When I first was designing that area, I had in my head a meandering stream that crossed under the track a few times, which would let me have a bunch of bridges. But after cutting out the subroadbed, I started to have my doubts. The more time went on, the more I thought that this wasn't going to work out to how my mind had envisioned it. Today was the final nail in that coffin. So at the end of the 180° curve coming from staging, I cut through the homasote and unscrewed the splice plate in the subroadbed. At the other end, right past the turnout I just finished, I unscrewed that splice plate, and out came that whole double "s" section. Hopefully sometime this next week I'll get the new subroadbed cut out and installed. First though, I need to figure out how I want the track to run in that area, so the whole thing will flow good. Back to the full sized planning stage. =)

103° in the shade today.

Here is the almost finished turnout at the north end of Sonora. Just need the ties cut to length and the guard rails installed.

I had read on a few forums the luck some people were having with keeping the dust under control with an air purifier machine, so I went out and got one. Guess we'll see how much it will cut down on the dust in the room. At least it makes the layout room smell good!

For the air purifier to work properly, I needed to put the door back up. I ended up having to flip it over and mount it upside down. It does make it nice now that I can listen to music while my girlfriend is out in the sun room reading.

Along with the door, I also put down some blue tape to help remind people that they are not just ducking under a thin piece of wood, but that there is almost 12" of benchwork too. Seems everyone that comes over to see the layout lifts their head up too fast and hits the benchwork.

Here is the section of track that in my mind would work great, but in reality... not so much.

This was a MS paint mockup I did of the area when I was constructing the subroadbed. A little too overzealous. If the area I had was longer, then this would work.

So here is the double "s" taken out. The north Sonora turnout is just out of the picture at the bottom.

Looking back the other way. I'm only going to put in one "s" and only have the tracks cross the river one time. So much for my plethora of bridges. =(

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