Benchwork - Wiring - adding elevations

@RubinG posted:

I share your desire to incorporate personal memories into your layout. I’m wrestling with the same issues for my layout. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, but my only real train experienced were at Grand Central Station and Penn Station. ,where I had a lot of close up experience with GG-1s, New Haven  FLs, and New York Central electrics and the like.  But I’ve spent my adult life in the Cleveland area, where NYC ‘s Collinwood Yard and former Pennsylvania tracks, not to mention Terminal Tower and the mothballed B& O station were a part of my daily work life. How to incorporate these behemoths into a fun to run hi-rail layout is tough indeed. So I just let my favorite railroads predominate on the rails and will try too create urban scenery to evoke what I’ve seen and where I’ve lived. And all the while incorporating some Lionel accessories to please and amuse my grandchildren.

Sounds like a good plan, I grew up taking the elevated subways though out the 5 boroughs. Took about an hour to get to my grammer school when we moved from brooklyn to queens. Lots of time riding the subways. Also my dad worked in sunnyside yards in queens, and I would tag along as a little tyke. Summers I stayed at my aunt and uncles in eastern pa. Remembering the column banks of shale from the mines my uncle worked inside. Huge mountainous banks of black sooty mess, what a great playgound. LOL

@Mark Boyce posted:

Rubin, you have an excellent point about the wonderful behemoth big city stations of old.  The Downtown Pittsburgh B&O station was gone by my time.  Both Mum and Dad rode the B&O into that station from out in the country numerous times.  I was exposed to the Western Maryland in West Virginia just into Chessie System days and grew up next to the B&O tracks, so I just run those trains and think of the bigger terminuses in my mind.

Yeah, nothing can replace those memories for sure.

@Aegis21 posted:

Sounds like a good plan, I grew up taking the elevated subways though out the 5 boroughs. Took about an hour to get to my grammer school when we moved from brooklyn to queens. Lots of time riding the subways. Also my dad worked in sunnyside yards in queens, and I would tag along as a little tyke. Summers I stayed at my aunt and uncles in eastern pa. Remembering the column banks of shale from the mines my uncle worked inside. Huge mountainous banks of black sooty mess, what a great playgound. LOL

I too grew up in Brooklyn and rode the  subways when I went “ into the city”, sometimes to visit Madison Hardware, the Lionel showroom or Model Railroad Equipment Corp. I also took the elevated lines to go to Coney Island or the World Fair. But my exposure to “ real railroads” was very limited until I came to Cleveland to go to law school.

You guys are so lucky to have road train growing up! All I have done is gone on one of those silly Dinner Trains my wife wanted to do one night when we first started dating!

@mike g. posted:

You guys are so lucky to have road train growing up! All I have done is gone on one of those silly Dinner Trains my wife wanted to do one night when we first started dating!

Those Dinner trains are a must to get approval from the wife for anything.!

Thanks to everyone's help and support, the lift bridge redesign works perfectly! I'll take a video in the morning, as a bathroom remodel is calling me. Again thanks all!

@Aegis21 posted:

Thanks to everyone's help and support, the lift bridge redesign works perfectly! I'll take a video in the morning, as a bathroom remodel is calling me. Again thanks all!

John that is great news! I bet it is slicker than mine! I Can't wait to see it in action!

Hi Mike, First it is because of you that I would have even attempted to do a motorized bridge. And your documentation and instruction was great. Had I only followed it to a tee I would not has wasted so much time and materials. Thanks for all your help!

That works pretty slick. The video shows a good view of the hand painted backdrop that came out well. I can see Chris Lyons stamp on it.

Wow John that sure is slick! It's a lot better then mine and so much cleaner! Great job and just wonderful!

John, that is much more neatly done than mine.  The pins and base where they seat are very nice.  I too like the backdrop!!!

@Dave_C posted:

That works pretty slick. The video shows a good view of the hand painted backdrop that came out well. I can see Chris Lyons stamp on it.

Definitely ALL Chris Lyons, if it weren't for his excellant tutorials I would have blue sky, I am absolutely NOT an artist. Chris is correct, anyone can do this background.

@mike g. posted:

Wow John that sure is slick! It's a lot better then mine and so much cleaner! Great job and just wonderful!

Not sure about the better part, I did have MANY failures before this finished successfully. I need to pay more attention to instructions (like keeping the hinge point above the tracks! Thanks for your tremendous help and support.

@Mark Boyce posted:

John, that is much more neatly done than mine.  The pins and base where they seat are very nice.  I too like the backdrop!!!

Thanks a ton Mark for your kind words. You have done such beautiful work, I would be extremely happy to do half the craftsmanship that you have shown on your railroad. Now I hope I can get trains across the bridge. LOL

Ok so now to work on the trestle section and bridge approaches. I have been getting the trestle section built and painted with a 2.9% rise. I hope the supports are stable enough and can handle the lateral forces that it will be subjected too with trains on them being 7 inches high at their peak. I plan on having foam under the trestle as a catch bed in case of failure during test runs.

John are you also 3D printing the tressupports? Also are you putting your programs on the 3d forum page?