Weekend Update 11/16/25

[Missaberoad]

@Dayliner something is backwards (upside down?) in your photo! 

Besides that they look amazing

[BCR 570]

Tim,
Your crossing looks very good.  But having been through this process myself, I have some suggestions.

1. In addition to free-rolling a truck through it, hold the truck down with your fingers, and deliberately pull it to one side, up against
one rail, as you guide it through the crossing.  Then do the same, pulling it against the other rail.  Do this for all four routes through
the crossing.  If the guide rails, gauge, and clearances are good, it should be able to do this without riding up or picking
anything.
2. Hook it to some straight track sections with rail joiners, just on a board as a temporary setup, and run an engine and cars through it forwards and backwards.

A single truck free-rolling through it will not expose problems as much as a real train with multiple trucks rolling through there.

My suggestions come from 1st-hand experience making a crossing with a Fast-Tracks jig and getting it up to snuff to pass
the NMRA evaluation.  And you probably already did this, but make sure you check all the clearances through that crossing
with the NMRA gauge, because they likely will check that.  They did for my crossing and scratch-built turnouts.

Good luck with your evaluation!

Hi Max

Thank you for the input.  I will try #1.  I like the free rolling test because the truck is very light and any irregularity in the trackwork will cause it to stumble.

Connecting it to other track and running trains through it prior to final assembly is a challenge because the fixture is very small and it is difficult to keep the components in place when loose.

I used the NMRA track gauge during assembly of the turnout, crossover and crossing but will check everything again; I had forgotten that one of the three pass/fail criteria is a standards check.

In fact I might ask our evaluator exactly what they will check so I can do that beforehand.


Tim

[Dayliner]

@Dayliner something is backwards (upside down?) in your photo! 

LOL!  I told you I was learning   Back to the drawing board, or at least the workbench!!

[bman]

Spent the weekend making a couple of adjustments to the track plan as I transfer it from the digital plan to the layout and fitting the tracks together. This being due to temporarily taping the structures together that I acquired at one of our LHS's. They acquired a large collection and I was able to get a Red Wing Milling, ADM Grain Elevator along with the add on silos all from Walthers. I plan on using the RDM and all the silos as a compressed Southwest Portland Cement. The ADM Elevator will be the basis for the Amstrong Elevator across from SWPC. I just needed to adjust some tracks for clearance here and there. I'll update the layout thread once I get the cork and track down. Which I hope is finished at the end of next weekend.

[LARGEdrop]

Layout looks amazing! Nice work!

Apologies in advance for the long post, but this was a productive week for me.  It began with a start on painting the yard tracks in Chetwynd.  I applied a primer coat of Tamiya Medium Grey:






While working in Chetwynd Yard, I also began work on creating an isolating track for storing motive power.  This is to fulfill one of the requirements for the NMRA's Electrical Certificate.  I designated a portion of the shop track in Chetwynd which was long enough to store two locomotives, and cut gaps at either end:






I will next cut the feeders to one of the rails within this section and run them out to a toggle switch on the fascia.


With my scratchbuilt turnout and crossover now complete, I require several lengths of adjoining straight track so that I can run a locomotive completely through all routes.  Like the turnout and crossover, these were assembled on paper templates:






I also returned to work on my scratchbuilt 30 degree crossing, completing the outer guard rail assemblies.  These are made up of three short sections of rail with different angles at either end, and they go inside the approach tracks:




With all of the rail components for the crossing now complete, I placed them into the fixture and rolled a truck through each route to test for smooth operation:

I can now proceed with permanent installation of the rail components onto the PC ties knowing that the crossing should work well in either direction.


Finally, the past few weeks saw some new additions to the rolling stock and motive power fleets.  I purchased four UNPX rotary gondolas in the Procor wordmark scheme to complement the eight I already have in the Flying P scheme.  The wordmark scheme was introduced on these cars by Procor in 1975.  These will need a touch of weathering before entering sulphur service on my layout:




And I have taken delivery of my Rapido Budd RDC-1.  I am very pleased to finally have a Phase II Budd car in N Scale.  This model will be detailed and completed in the British Columbia Railway's two tone green paint scheme:




The model runs smoothly over Atlas Code 55 and ME Code 40 flex track and sounds good.  The lighting is at an appropriate level and is flicker-free thanks to the onboard capacitance.  I performed a short test run:

Thanks for looking,

Tim

[Jesse6669]

Cisco was located in the middle of nowhere, along the Denver & Rio Grande Western railroad mainline between Grand Junction, CO, and Green River, UT.

I thought this place looked familiar..  I stopped in Cisco earlier this year.  It's rather decrepit but there's still a little store operating called the "Buzzard's Belly General Store" run by a really nice woman.  Here's the westbound Rocky Mountaineer passing "Cisco Clifton's Filling Station" which is in front of the General Store about a block east of Duke's. 

Of note: The lead unit is ex-B&O GP40 3739 (rebuilt to GP40-3)