Been almost a week since I posted here. Tuesday I worked on the tracks around the turntable. I managed to muscle my belt sander up onto the platform so I could grind rails and ties to finish the last of the track.
I started spackling the screw holes on the fascia. I still have to do the backdrop. Fingers crossed that Patrick will be back Saturday, snow expected.
Today I spent 12 hours downstairs, 10 of those inside the big helix. About an hour in, the phone rang. Of course I had left the cordless on its stand back at the dispatcher's desk, so I couldn't get it. For some reason I felt that it was someone I wanted to talk to, and not the usual junk. So I crawled out and checked the caller ID. Took me a minute to figure out who it was, but I realized it was Gary, my operations guy, calling from someone else's house. So I called back and caught him just as he was leaving. He wanted to bring me a basket of goodies.
At the bottom of the bin are some aprons with pockets to hold your radio and the car cards. Then there are four fast clocks. I think I can add two more to the system to get better coverage of the entire room.
After Gary left, I went back to my "cage". It's a little hard to see because of the lighting, but I tied all the feeder wires to the support columns.
Not long after Gary left, my wife came home and brought me her lunch leftovers, which I promptly devoured while sitting inside.
I had previously done about half the posts, so today I nearly finished the other half. I also removed all the staples that had been holding the bus wires to the frame at the bottom, and replaced them with proper wire support loops.
I fell short by one post. I'll get it tomorrow.
Because there are so many detection blocks in the helix, especially the inner track which goes all the way to the top and has 11, I've installed this terminal strip as a jumping off point before heading under the aisle to the detection panel.
This is the last of the wiring on the entire layout. Should be done by the end of the year.