The Little Rock Line

[Bendtracker1]

Over the last weekend I got the track gang moved to Fordyce for a simple realignment, or so I thought?

In the last post I mentioned about removing one turnout and connecting two spurs, well that went by the wayside. While adding the Gavilon Fertilizer plant in Haskell I removed one small industry that received flat cars, which left only industry on the layout that used flat cars. Wanting to have a more flats in use I came up with a company that received pipe on flat cars.

It produces Irrigation Piping and I named it Ozark Irrigation. Along with loaded flat cars, some pipe may arrive on Bulkhead flats aswell and also gets some a boxcar for some of the smaller items like fittings needed to produce the pipping.

This new industry replaced Dixie Woodworks and will probably not allow me to have the street running as I had planned. But that's progress.

Before




After




The next project is to reconfigure Flappers on the left. Before I had the Flappers Litter track on the right side of the main in the background. Now I'm gonna have to move it to the left side.

Another side project that needs to be done with all this realignment is to reconfigure the Wheel Report and add a few more Tabs for all the new industries.



Once I get done with the trackwork in Fordyce, I plan to clean up the wiring a bit, then I want to put together an Op Session to test and see how all the work pans out.

[GaryHinshaw]

Looking good Allen!  But now I'm losing track (no pun intended): what fraction of the layout has been re-jiggered with these recent updates?  About half?

[Blazeman]

Being that your concept is in previous years, time wouldn't be changing for you to a large degree. You might have a simple team track and spot flats and gons with pipe for unloading to flat bed trucks.

A summer job I had was with a surveying crew to lay out the path for a raw water line tapping the Susquehanna and moving water 30 miles to the filtering plant to supplement the Octorara Reservoir supply. As we marked the path, Penn Central (at the time) was delivering flats of pipe from US Pipe in Birmingham to a team track on the Port Road. Lifts and a short crane were spotted there to swing the pipe to flatbeds. Lots of cars for 30 miles of pipe.

Shouldn't be a stretch to work that into your ops scheme and structures would not be necessary meaning real estate wouldn't be devoured.  Scenery for the site would be rather simple....cleared area, maybe gravel put down, power pole, a crane or lift and two flatbed rigs. Perhaps a stack or two of pipe on the ground awaiting loading. The open space look would be a nice contrast to the other developed areas.

[Bendtracker1]

Looking good Allen!  But now I'm losing track (no pun intended): what fraction of the layout has been re-jiggered with these recent updates?  About half?

Thanks Gary.
Well looking back now on what I've done, I've actually re-jiggered a lot more than I had originally planned.
Originally I wanted to remove one of the two sidings at Ruston Jct.  Lengthen DuBach siding and Re-work the track between Haskell and Winnfield to get a broader smoother curve between the two.
I guess the rest just came naturally?  I have no regrets doing this either as it should improve the layout functionality.
To answer your question Gary, I'd have to say about 2/3rds of the layout if you break it down by towns.
The only thing I haven't touched this round was the Main yard, El Dorado yard and Malvern.

[Bendtracker1]

Being that your concept is in previous years, time wouldn't be changing for you to a large degree. You might have a simple team track and spot flats and gons with pipe for unloading to flat bed trucks.

This is true.
And after reading this it reminded me that at one point recently I had thought about making an industry that manufactured Irrigation Pipe, the flood type that lays on the ground?  Guess it's not too late to change? 

[Bendtracker1]

Earlier this week I took a break from track work and installed a few more chips. Now when I get ready to have another ops session I will have a few more locos to use.

 

GP38-2 - 4303
GP40 - 363
U33B - 298 (It's a B23-7 for a stand in until Atlas decides to produce them)
GP40 - 367
GP40 - 382
GP40 - 368
GP40r - 3001
GP38-2 - 874 (MoPac)

[Philip H]

Nice. In the unlikely event that the MoPac GP needs a new home consider me reserving it.

[Bendtracker1]

Thanks Philip.
Duly noted on the GP.

[Santa Fe Guy]

Ditto me too on the MOPAC .
Rod.

[Bendtracker1]

Ditto me too on the MOPAC .
Rod.

[Bendtracker1]

Tonight I was able to finish the final section of track work in Fordyce! 
This was the final section of track that needed realignment.  Here's how it turned out.



The rest of the story is on the blog...

[Specter3]

Nice work! But after checking the blog, what is the elevated track in El Dorado for again?

[Bendtracker1]

Nice work! But after checking the blog, what is the elevated track in El Dorado for again?

Thanks.
My plans are to have the town of El Dorado proper be elevated above and behind the yard by about 3"
There will be a track that leaves from the rear of the yard and loops back around to the backdrop and rise up to the town.
I have have at least two industries that will be located up on the town.  These will be worked by the yard crew during the session.  There may only be 0-4 cars that will need to be hauled up to the town.

In the pic below you can see the temporary loop on the inside of the yard that loops to the backdrop, but it's on the same elevation as the yard for now.  From the backdrop to the rearmost yard track, and from the mainlines in the background to the opposite end of the yard (not in the picture) needs to built up with foam.  The loop of track will be on the grade.

[Bendtracker1]

With the main track rework finished, I circled back to a recent problem I found with the new PSX circuit breakers I installed a few months ago.

It's the old problem where the wheels on the locos and some of the cars with metal wheels are touching the tops of the rail heads on the Frog Rails, thus creating a short.  I'm assuming this has been happening all the time, but it didn't become noticeable until the installation of the PSX CB's.  Before I had Digitrax PM42's and they were much slower to respond to these types of shorts. So to correct the problem, I started to do a little work on the frog rails as well as adding the 0.010" shims to the guard rails on the turnouts. So far so good on the first few.

First, I'm adding the thin strip of styrene to the guardrails. You can see on on the right guard rail.





Second, I'm going to file a "V" groove and fill with epoxy on the ones that are still shorting.
railwaybobsmodulebuildingtips.blogspot.com/2011/06/fixing-short-in-peco-insulfrog


If I had to do it over again, I would have probably gone with PECO C55 or actually learned to roll my own turnouts.
But when I started this layout, I had more than enough track and turnouts to build it.

Live and learn.....

More on the blog...

[Bendtracker1]

As of tonight, I got the last turnout shimmed!  That makes 50 I did over the course of the last two weeks.

I ran the same train again tonight that I ran two weeks ago which found several shorts within a few feet of leaving the yard.
This time I was able to make it around the entire layout twice at or near a prototype speed without finding one!

After I got the southside turnouts all shimmed, @davefoxx suggested that I switch and use black styrene for the shims which @Chris333 suggested to him for his roads.  Thanks guys.

More on the blog...