Free-moNebraska

[Mark W]

And so the magic of track laying begins...






Wait, I was planning to drink that Pepsi... 

Damn, now I have to weight.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

You can still drink the Gorilla Glue 

[Chris333]

Nice. I would have tried to build the crossings first, but is because I've never built one before.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Nice. I would have tried to build the crossings first, but is because I've never built one before.

Have built one, and it never works out as you plan it (at least mine didn't )
I, too would have built the trackwork first and then laid in the roadbed.
But thank goodness you didn't trim the cork down, so there's a virtual 4-lane-freeway-worth of space for "slop".
(Not that your trackwork is  )

Or will it be a dummy crossing?
(especially as there's no standard endplate--yet?--on the other side)

[Mark W]

Yeah, I've been debating the crossings the past few days.  Dummy they will be.  The plan was never to make this interchange into an active line, so all the work for making them working crossings just won't be worth it. 

[Mark W]

Glue dried, drank the soda, got a little more trackwork done.

[Mark W]

Aaaaannnd DONE!! (ish)







All track is laid (minus dummy diamonds).  Wiring is figured out, reverse blocks are isolated.  Trains are fully operational!

Just a bit of cosmetic clean up and some final touches on the power feeders and this sucker is ready for paint and ballast!

[Chris333]

Sweet work. Are those ties styrene?

[Mark W]

Thanks.  Yep, I think it's .04 x .06 strip.  Matches the PC Board ties almost exactly and being cheap/easy to cut, it makes adding ties quick and painless. 

I use double sided tape to align/stick the PC Board ties to the paper template.  Once the turnout is built and removed from the template, the tape has just enough stick that I can still align and cut the styrene ties.  With all the ties aligned and cut, I fix another strip of tape to the top side and remove the template/tape from the bottom, leaving the ties perfectly aligned and ready to be glued in place using all purpose calking. 

So effectively the ties are glued to the layout instead of the turnout, but once everything's painted and ballasted it all looks perfect. 

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Even in the pink snowdrifts of Hoth, the Rebel generators doesn't stand a chance!

Styrene makes sense, when all painted!

Glad you're getting trains running.

[Mark W]

Struck gold yesterday at the GTE in Des Moines.

All of this, plus two of those heavy plastic soda bottle crates to carry in:  55 bucks! 



Oh the fun we're going to have!

Also scooped up a LocoBuffer for JMRI/WiThrottle and some other small goodies. 
Aside from that, this was probably the smallest show, with the smallest attendance I've ever been to.   They only had 4 small layouts, all N Scale, two of them t-track.  Can't wait to take Free-moNebraska to the public. 

[Mark W]

Began planning for the next set.  Who says you can't angle off the mainline with a stub module? 

The aptly named "Holland Drive" stub.  Located here in Grand Island, Nebraska



Or if necessary, that can be the main line also!

[Mark W]

No time was wasted.

[Chris333]

I gotta get me a table saw 

[Mark W]

I gotta get me a table saw 

I was just thinking, I don't know how I survived out in San Francisco for about 7 years without a workshop I could freely use whenever I get ambitious.