My dream/nightmare layout... July Update 7/31/19 Big Boy month!

Elliot,

That is a tremendous amount of progress, especially considering how big the layout is.  Congratulations to you, Patrick, Jon, Matt, and anyone else I missed.

Thanks Mark. No, you didn't miss anyone. It's just the four of us. Patrick about once per week, Matt and Jon about once every other week. Then I work all of their sessions, plus another 2 or 3 times per week.

 

Still trying to get all the track down and powered by the end of the year. I now have it broken down, one section per month. It makes the large task seem less daunting.

Lots of progress since Saturday. Where did all the you know what go?

 

A magician never divulges his secrets. Just don't look in the other room.

I get tired every time I just look at your photos.  I have only 335 feet of track and maintaining and taking care of takes me away from fun project work (scratch built locos, etc.) more than I would like.  

Lee - Personally, I find it more difficult and challenging to build the layout in the first place. Maintaining it doesn't take nearly the energy or time. In all honesty though, I haven't done that much running of trains lately. Once we get this new section powered up, I should be doing more running. Then we'll find out about the maintenance. 

Sure got alot done last month; keep going, how the time flies, or should I say tracks along!

I think your nuts, but I would never discourage another man's ambitions.  We are all nuts in one way or the other.  You my friend, are a rock star.  Keep pushing.  I hope you finally achieve your quest.

Elliot,

 

This is looking awesome, what a tremendous amount of work. I take my hat off to all of you guy's.  Simply amazing.

 

Alex

Thanks guys. My parents both thought I was nuts that I didn't give up trains when I technically became an adult. They have both passed on, so I guess I need the occasional reminder.

 

So far, I've taken the day off today. That is to say I haven't been downstairs, but I have been thinking about the layout. I even bought some more used Ross switches on eBay.

 

Because the upper deck track plan isn't totally on paper, I don't have a hard number on the switch count, so I just buy on spec. I'll probably be using something like a dozen on the next segment of track. I would think that by September or so I should have the count finally nailed down.

Another month gone, and a ton of progress to show for it!

 

A bit of a slow start, pulling six tracks down to two.


This is Park Junction. The diamond was a last minute addition. The track is just rough fit at this point.


Here's the finished junction. I love it, and it allows both mains to use the reverse loop.


Another angle.


East Minneapolis yard.








The outer two tracks are the mains, the inner is the yard lead.





Yard complete on 5/18.





Cleared away junk to make way for the next phase.


A little more work on the curve.


Switched gears to work on wiring the new hidden yard.


Another little project, carving roadbed profile into fiberboard. This is the transition from Homasote to fiberboard.


A close up of the roofing granules I'll be using for ballast. They come from the same quarry where some of the local railroads get the real thing from.


Matt keeps working on installing Tortoises. My stockpile is going down fast.





Patrick and I started putting in the supports for uppermost deck, which will have 4 or 5 industries on it.


Patrick installed more backdrop and filled in that strip of deck and fiberboard.


This will be the triple track crossover with a double slip.


Here's where the the reverse loop ties back into Park Junction.


Got a lot of track down this month. Patrick will finish the backdrop on Tuesday, and I'll be off to the races again. I think I'm right on schedule to finish the track by the end of the year.

It was inspiring today to see how much has been done this last month. The long hours are paying off.

Looking at all this staggers my mind!!!  Amazing progress!!! 

 

David

Tremendous!

 

Peter

Excellent progress!  I neglected to ask before, about the fiber board.  What type or manufacturer's name of board is it?  Why are you using both Homosote and fiber board?  What so you see as the pros and cons of each?

 

Thank you for sharing all the photos and reports!

 

Thanks guys, I do so enjoy sharing the progress with you.

 

Mark, to answer your question, I don't know. It's whatever Menards is selling at the moment I go to buy some.

 

I've gotten at least 4 different versions from them over the years. It started out as a product called Built-rite which had no asphalt coating. There was a batch which was coated on both sides. Some was coated on one side. Of course I don't need or even like the coating. It is hard to draw on and see your mark, and it gums up my knife blades.

 

The Homasote was leftover from my HO layout back in the mid 70's. I had a number of sheets which I cut into strips with square corners, then cut a 45 degree bevel down middle. I did about 100' of double track main with it.

 

I haven't really noticed much difference in sound deadening between the two, but the cost difference is substantial.

Holy smokes Elliot!  

 

You're laying track faster than anyone can!

Hello Elliot

 

    May is my birthday month. Thanks for the gift of motivation on getting my layout one. Thank you for sharing.

 

Best

 

Ray Marion

Glad I could help Ray, It was my birthday too in May. Back on the 18th, I got that yard done for mine.

 

86TA355SR, I went through a little more than a case of Gargraves last month. I have put myself on a schedule to get this done. It also helps that most of it is straight, so slap some feeders on it drill a few holes and screw it down. That goes fast. Putting together Park Junction was a little more time consuming. Even that wasn't too bad.

 

This next section should go fast too. Another small yard, but nothing too complicated, then a lot more straight track.

Elliot,

I understand about the roadbed material.  I too sometimes use what I have on hand, sometimes I can't find the same material and use something different, and sometimes the price gets too high, and I go with something else.

That's pretty amazing!   Very impressive!

 

So.....   Anybody in the Boston area want to come over to my place and help me finish my benchwork!   I have finished the benchwork and track for the yard, roundhouse, turntable and started the Mainline.   "All" I have left is the around the room 2 track mainline.   Doing it by myself I estimate another year to year and 1/2.   With a crew of 4 and 2 available weekends I bet it could be done in 2 weekends!  Real trick is convincing my wife of 2 available weekends.   :-)    But I bet if I had scheduled help coming she would go for it.   It is very slow going when I'm doing all the cutting of 4x8 sheets of plywood.   I cut 3 sheets this weekend and it is back breaking doing it by myself.  I do get a little help from my 7 year old.  But, obviously he can't really lift a 4x8 sheet of plywood and with safety in mind he is always at a safe distance from my table saw.

 

 

 

well how about that we share the same Birth date small world.

 

going good on your layout. any thoughts on using stair pictures I sent you going up from what used to be the burlington/sooline/northwestern freight yard going up to mounds park in your scenery? 

 

just asking no biggie if you don't.  I enjoy seeing the progress from when we were there. reminds me of my childhood days.

 

Tammie&Ray

June is done, and with just hours to spare, I reached a major milestone!

The first train ran, under its own power, down the new helix, through the new hidden yard, and back up the helix. There's still a little wiring to do, and I have to make a spring for one switch, and connect the six powered switches to the new panel.

Time for the monthly recap:

This is where the month started, with some chalk lines and a few loose switches.


Patrick sanded, primed and painted the backdrop in a single afternoon.


Then it was time for me to get serious about track.





This was perhaps the most difficult section on the whole layout because of the reach and low head space.


Patrick and I did a little remodeling of the benchwork to make more room for the Northtown hump yard.





Patrick rehung the backdrop behind Red Wing.


The mains are done, starting the yard.


I lost count of how many Tortoises Matt installed this month. As of last Saturday, he's all caught up. I need to lay more track!


This section is nearly complete.


I installed the conduit and junction boxes for the lower level lighting, added the chicken wire for the TMCC shield, then covered it all with plywood.





Jon helped me with the hidden yard rewire. Each of those on/off switches is a stopping zone in the yard. The first 3 zones on all 5 tracks are now in service.


Trains neatly parked in the first stopping zone.


The second stopping zone.


The third. Yes, I know that Lionmaster looks silly next to that MTH premier double stack. It would look much better pulling the undersized Lionel spine and stack train. I also see that I have a derailed car. Reminds me of some old Lionel catalogs when they still did photos.


Here's the panel for the new hidden yard. As I was doing my test run, the engine suddenly stopped. I had expected to run right through, but I forgot to flip the switch. DUH!!! Stopping zone worked.


There it is the first train through, pushing the track cleaning car.


Now that the yard is open, I can remove the crossover that forms the cutoff. The switch against the wall stays, the other two will be recycled.


The active layout has now gone from 500' loop to an almost 1000' loop. I need a little debugging time to make sure things are running smoothly, then I'll shoot a new video.

 

Time to start getting power on the upper level, and I still want to have the track done by the end of the year.
.

Congratulations, Elliot. You have been busy since Saturday. Nice to see that done.

Thanks Jon, and I have. I put in 4 hours yesterday and 8 today. Wiring is a lot of work, but the payoff is amazing.

 

I was very surprised how well the engine ran in the helix. No TMCC issues, and I only have one feeder connected. The foil ground plane seems to be working.

Wow! Impressive!

 

Peter

As always, impressive.  As always, I get tired just thinking about it.  Its a monster, and really cool, but wow!

I thought that the Foil Ground Plane usage was determined to have a possibility of causing other problems and not to be used?

Very nice work by you and your team!

Man that's a lot of track and wire Elliot  

WOW!!! That's just amazing.

When you first started this thread I thought you were being too ambitious and optimistic.  Since then I have been continuously amazed and impressed with your progress and the scope of your undertaking.  Marvelous job.  What a thrill to be starting to run trains after all this work.

 

Art

Dont let it fool you, its way more wire than it looks

Amazing! Love the updates of the most productive assembly process in the U.S.

Thanks for the inspiration Elliot.

Elliot,

 

Great work!!  One of your captions mentions the upper level is hard to work on because it is so close to the ceiling.  I know what you mean.  My Ceiling Central RR is as low as I could get it and stay above the doors.  There isn't that much room in a lower level family room.  I am only trying to build 2 loops on 9 and 12 inch shelves, only 8 inches from the ceiling.  I can't imagine your work.  It is fantastic!! 

Too bad you're so far away, it would be cool to see this thing in person!  That is going to be one impressive RR!

 

You sure have accomplished a great deal since starting this very ambitious project. Congratulations on this milestone.

Thank you all!!! In case you haven't noticed I'm a real night owl. It's always exciting to get up on the first of the month and find all of your wonderful comments. For me it's way better than Christmas.

 

Dennis - I hadn't heard that about the foil ground plane. This was just a test with a single engine, but it felt like I had uninterrupted control. On the way back up I had to turn the throttle up a couple times to pull the 15 car train up the 3% grade.

 

Doug - I haven't had to buy any wire for this layout, and still have two trash cans full, all thanks to enterTRAINment 20 years ago. Matt and Jon think I am a hoarder (Patrick, not so much). I see it more as a case of "waste not, want not". You could say I'm a roach motel for trains. Trains check in, but they don't check out.

 

Art - When I went back to the original post to change the topic title, I looked at the old pictures, especially that one with the bookshelves. Even I can't believe the progress we've made.

 

Mark - It was the combination of the boxed in duct work and reach that made it so difficult. I'm actually looking forward to the next section with a simple 3' reach and normal ceiling height.

 

John - Have you considered Minnesota as a destination? Fall is usually very nice, but the weather here has been a little weird this year, so no promises.

Elliot, I dont think you are a hoarder, I know you are a hoarder. John and I have enrolled you for an intervetnion. Its for your own good

I enjoy recycling materials, especially in this case. The more that gets worked into the layout, the less crap there is to move around and trip over. Yes, there are two trash cans (that we know of) full of wire. However, there was no mention of the many boxes and piles of wire. Lets not talk about the rest of it. A better analogy would be roach HOTEL for trains.