Expansion of the passenger terminal from 9 tracks to 12 tracks.
Multiple reasons:
1) Have 3 passenger trains in the Seattle's freight yard which completely fills up the freight yard so no 'shuffling of cars' is possible.
2) Will now be able to have trains enter the St. Paul yard and vise versa.
3) good time to remove escape turnouts that I thought would be needed but are useless.
Escape turnouts that were removed. I can used two of the turnouts for the new track leads and I have a spare left hand for the third track lead.
Ripped all the plywood and homosote in the shop. I figured I needed 6.5" of new table for the 3 new tracks.
Last year, when I built the 9 track table, I left a 2" overhang on the front in case I needed to narrow the table. In this case it came in handy as a support for the new extension. In this case, I made a secondary sub by screwing it to the underside of the old table. This secondary ply is 8.5" wide (6.5" for 3 tracks plus 2" for the overhang).
There was no overhang along the curved section so I just screwed supports (1"X 2") along the old table plus an angled piece to support the new extension.
A second layer of 1/2" ply was laid on the secondary support to align with the original table. The 1/2" homosote will then be secured to this layer of ply.
A jig saw was used for the curved piece of ply.
Tomorrow, the homosote will be cut.
I used a lot of screws to secure the secondary (bottom sheet) ply to the original ply table. It's sturdy enough for the trains but, thinking about it, I better put a couple angle braces at each end in case some 'giant' leans on it!
The first turnout was inserted into the original track lead. The 2nd and 3rd turnout will be done after the extension is completed. It didn't take long to get this far. Flew my RC planes today and started on this project around 3 and stopped around 9 PM.
There are 3 long passenger trains tying up the Seattle's freight yard.
100 cars were removed from the St. Paul freight yard so 'traffic' can resume between the two cities.
The upper interchange/staging tracks has 3 tracks so 2 trains could, also, be stored there and still allow through freight on one track.
SOP on both yards: a long drill track so the switcher doesn't 'tie up' the mainline or incoming/departing trains. Three incoming/outgoing tracks with escape turnouts at the end so mainline engines can 'cut off' the train and head for the roundhouse. The switcher accesses the cars from the opposite end.
