December Update

As I write this, we have about a foot or so of snow on the ground.

Lots of progress has been made on the layout in the last two months. A work session was held in November and I was assisted (or assisted, depending on your view) by Keith Stillman (Easton and Potomac) with some track laying chores. I'm pleased to say that the track is further along and that benchwork is almost complete all the way to Acca Yard.

Pictures:

A view of the NS Petersburg interchange, which doubles as my DCC programming track.



A good overview of the final couple of feet of benchwork on the main level that connects to Acca yard.



Close up view of the support structure for Acca yard; note the 3 sets of holes: 1 for the DCC bus, a DC bus to power DS54s and a place to put Loconet through.



Colonial Heights/Chester industrial area; you can see the frog of the curved number 8 in the lower right hand corner.

Ugh! Wiring

No pictures for this update, as the camera batteries have died and my son has successfully used every set of AAs that I own, apparently.

I have the wiring for the lower staging yard almost complete. The last task is to finish the wiring from the control panel to the last 3 (of 8) tracks and then all the track will be live.

I mounted the rest of the tortoise switch machines this weekend as well as finished soldering each track joiner to make sure that as time goes on, I don't end up with a dead track or piece of track. I do need to install the two DS54s to control the 8 tortoise machines, but that is on hold until I can get a programming track setup to give me an easier way to program them. The first two I installed were programmed by the 'redneck engineering' method and that caused additional work to be done to get trains operating again to test. I've also discovered a couple of decoder equipped locomotives that don't respond on their previously programmed address.

Getting me to the point of installing the programming track means getting roadbed ready, since the programming track is actually going to be used as an interchange track for operations.

I sur-formed a piece of cork to be a ramp; just need to make each strip even. I've already put a piece of the track-bed down, so I'm planning on finishing the roadbed this week so that by the next (first) work session, it should be a matter for finalizing a couple of industry spots and then laying track as far as the roadbed goes.

Progress is starting to really be made and I'm pretty confident of meeting my goal of having by first operation session by late January.

More Benchwork

Got benchwork 90% done for the part of the layout that is between staging and the James River crossing scene. All that needs to be done now is to add the benchwork for the interchange track and for the industrial sidings, which can pretty much be done any time since I've already primed and painted the wood that I am going to use.

Here's a shot down the long side of the peninsula.


Here you can see where the benchwork ends currently; this is going to be where the railroad crosses the James River southbound.



And here is the roadbed after primer and paint. I choose a flat light brown to simulate good old dirt and make it easier to apply scenery and ballast when the time comes. (Plywood isn't really a natural ground color.. ;) )



That's all for now. I'm planning on another work session in October; details coming soon.

Benchwork, Part Deux

This is post two for benchwork of probably 20. You don't realize how much benchwork goes into a model railroad until you build one again. This is layout number 4 for me and I just plumb forgot how much work it is.

Anyway, the pictures illustrate the main line as it leaves staging (look through the 'wall' and spot the large level in the background and enters the visible section of the layout. In the foreground of this picture is a 180 degree turnback curve to get the track to head back the way we came, just on the other side of the wall.



This photo gives you an idea on what is between the turnback curve and the exit from staging:



Since these pictures were taken, the wall and the benchwork have been painted with a primer in preparation to be painted the ground color (subroadbed) or a flat black for anything that should become a 'you don't see this' piece.

I have the lower level track plan completed, with the exception of the industrial track; I have a couple of placeholders right now just to remind me what I plan to do where.

I'm going to need a couple of curved turnouts; I'm playing with the idea of buying a fasttracks kit of straight #6's or #8's and then using their templates to build some curved switches. Anybody around used them?

The first work session on the RTRR is going to be Saturday the 26th; I'm working on making sure I have all the appropriate supplies on hand to accomplish the tasks I have asked of people. I hope the next session after this will give us a chance to run trains from the main yard south to staging. Maybe this session we will see something under its own power. Hmm...

Staging Yard - Bare wall to track

The first picture is from the extreme left (south) side of the staging yard. Track will be 33" from the floor. I built a framework from 3" pieces riped from 3/4" plywood.



This next picture looks railroad north as switches are test fit to make sure what fit in XTrkCAD fit on wood.




This picture shows how the framework was constructed; there doesn't seem to be much deflection. :)



Everything put together and ready for paint.



Some trackwork and mounting tortoise switch motors.




At this point, the closing ladder is mostly in place, and I only need some addition track and tortoises to complete the pre-wiring phase for the staging yard.

Beginnings

This blog is going to detail the construction, operation and musings related to my model railroad, the Richmond Terminal Railroad.

I am building a HO Scale layout in my basement inspired by railroading in and around Richmond, VA. I'm not following any prototypes; this will be more in the vein of proto-freelancing.

My basement is 33' by 24' gross, but some of the floor area is taken up by stairs, storage, etc, so the layout is about 33' on one side by about 20', at the absolute maximums. I'm planning on multiple decks; 1 for staging and 2 for actual train running.

My goal is to have operations started as soon as I reach the helix build, which is situated roughly halfway between the termination points of the railroad. The layout is a loop to loop type of design, but will operate like a point to point. The loops are placed so trains don't have to be handled at the end of a operation session.