Start of the Peninsula

Waiting for miscellaneous stuff to do more electrical wiring, layout wiring, track laying, etc. I decided to start on the wall for the peninsula. You'll also see the Hammerhead 360* rotary laser level I bought to help aid in maintaining deck height throughout the layout. The basement floor is not level enough to measure up from and the floor joists were too imperfect to measure down from to keep measurements consistent and verify level. It's interesting to note though, that my first method of using a 4ft level along the wall only yielded a 1/2" difference in height from one side of the basement to the other. Having the laser put a line over the complete basement all at once makes measuring so much easier however. At lower left you see the base for the staging yard. On the peninsula wall you see two strips of masking tape. That represents the main deck and the upper deck levels. The layout here will only be 1ft deep, allowing for a 3ft aisle.

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

Here I am measuring and doing some crude mock up to visualise the deck separations. This is at true eye level (I'm 6' tall).

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

Looking back the other direction.

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

I needed some light. Laying the first tracks by flood or flashlight was unbearable to say the least. This is about half the lighting hung.

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

Laying out the staging yard track center lines. The "rails" used to hold all the metal studs together is a perfect 2.5" and make a great long straight edge.

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

Mocking up the staging yard ladder

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

I was able to completely lay the Staging-Malta Yard-Staging loop. Unfortunately because I'm relying on just rail joiners for the electrical circuit I can't actually complete the loop.  The siding switches in Malta Yard have dead frogs rendering the track between them dead.  But I was able to run from one end of Malta through staging then to the other end of Malta.

The video is 6+ minutes and slow, but so was the real thing!




I also tested the severity of the grades coming out of staging; the grade averages about 2.8%.  

One Athearn Tunnel Motor was able to pull 7 Walthers Autoracks and a caboose up the grade. Theoretically 3 engines can therefore pull 21 racks with a caboose then.  We'll see how this pans out.

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

The first track in staging is completely laid. I was able to finally test pulling the first train out of staging into Malta Yard.

Not much of an update.  The weather got warm and therefore I spent all of my time outside.  I did find a few moments and inspiration to go down and gap some of my Fast Tracks switches and have a little fun.


An abbreviated Auto Rack trundles through Malta Yard


Testing the sounds on a BLI SD7 and SD9

Rail work and a surprise

The rail crew managed to lay both the main and siding through Malta Yard today.  Their day ended shortly after lunch though when they ran out of switches.


Not to long after the rail crew packed up and left, this rail fan was surprised by the first Westbound on the line.  With more than ample power (SD40T-2 5405, SP SD40T-2 8521, SD50 5504) for this abbreviated auto-rack train I barely had enough time to snap these pictures before the train was out of site and in run 8 to the summit at Tennessee Pass.

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

Slathering some paint

March 20, 2015

The homasote for Malta Yard is all painted. This is as far as the plywood and homasote will go. From here sub road bed will be spline. 

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass

From D&RGW's Tennessee Pass