I had bought the turntable with the oversize pit rail thinking that I could hide it by piling up cinders against it. But after I saw how big the rail and its ties are that idea just would not work. I removed the oversize pit rail that was fastened to the ring rail base with screws. Next, I had to replace the ring rail base with a thicker one that would put the new smaller micro engineering rail at the proper height. I removed the screws that where holding the existing ring rail base to the bottom of the pit. After all the screws where removed I still could not get the ring rail base of the pit bottom. Turns out that it was also glued to the bottom of the pit. I had to use a chisel and hammer to get it loose. The existing ring rail base was made in two half circle pieces. Next, I took 3/4-inch plywood and by using a surface planer cut it down to the new required thickness for the new micro engineering flex track I took the existing ring rail base pieces and traced them onto the plywood. Then I cut the two pieces out with a band saw. Now the new pieces can be installed into the pit using the same exiting screws. Fill in any gaps with wood filler. Cut the micro engineering flex track at the proper distance from the rail head to sit against the pit wall to align with the boogie wheel rollers. You can fasten the micro engineering rail down by using rail spikes. After the new pit rail was installed I noticed that some of the boogie roller wheels would sometimes fall off the pit rail. This was because there was way too much side axial side play in the boogie roller wheels. This was not a problem with the oversize pit rail as the head of the rail was so wide. This was solved by adding brass washers to remove the excessive side play in the boogie wheel rollers. The entire pit was painted with aged concrete and weathered using stencils and a wash of thinned grimy black paint. Sorry I don’t have any photographs to document this work. Replacing the pit rail with a scale rail is worth the effort my opinion.
I decided not to assemble the bridge arch using adhesive as the instructions stated. Because the arch parts are lost wax brass casting I decided to solder it together. The photograph shows a fixture that I had to hold all the arch parts in proper alignment.
I wanted to add some interior detail to the operator cabin so I scratched build a control stand out of brass and added a locomotive reverse lever as a bridge locking lever. This was based on photographs that I found online.
This is a well-made product and its made in USA, not many things are anymore.
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