I've been wanting to post an update for the last couple of weekends, but just haven't found the time.
First off, thanks for the comments, Otto and Bryan. Agreed, nothing like an outside forcing function to help make progress.
I had been hoping that I'd have had made more progress in a little over a month than I have. But my wife contracted Covid over MLK weekend, and it really knocked her out, despite being fully vaccinated and boosted. She has other factors that put her in a higher risk category, so it took a good 2.5 weeks for her to start to feel better, and that was after an antibody treatment. Thankfully the treatments have come a long way in the last two years. Science is a wonderful thing. Somehow my daughter and I managed to stay Covid-free, I think because we all took a hard line stance on isolating my wife to her own part of the house, and we must have acted early enough that she hadn't hit her peak contagious level. But I got quite worn out, caring for her while also keeping our 7 year old happy. We're all recovered from that experience and things are pretty much back to normal now....
Anyway, back to trains.
I've been doing my best to make things easier for myself as I lay a multi-track mainline. I try to think of things in terms of an assembly line, since I know I'll be doing everything more than once. After struggling a little more than I'd like to admit with trying to remember that I was soldering the correct colored wire on the correct rail, it occurred to me to just leave myself a note; green away from me and blue towards me. Why did that take me so long to think of?
One aspect that can't be ignored with a multi-track mainline is proper spacing between the tracks. Since I'm modeling the late 40's, that means pushing towards track centers 13 feet apart. I want to do my best to capture some of the subtle things that make the railroad look "right" for the era, and I think this is one of those things. Since a true 13 scale feet is a little tight for our models, I'm using 13.5 feet. Yes, I know this is only an extra 0.0375 inches, but it gives just that little bit more clearance for the passenger cars. I made a track spacing jig out of some scraps of hardboard. Once I get one track glued down, I put the spacer in place and push the other track out so the inside rail is pressed against the spacer, and then I pin the track in place. I work my way along the track, pinning it as I go. Once I've done that, I outline the ends of the ties along the cork with a pen so I know I'm close to the right locations when I glue the track down.
Finally, after punching some wires through the foam and having them come out right up against a 1x3 cross member under the foam, it occurred to me to just mark where the cross member is on the track roadbed. This way when I go to solder wires on the track, I'll know where not to put them.
I'm sure none of these things are new or original, and might be obvious to most, but it pays off to give yourself some good notes or guides as you work. Especially if you might be in the middle of something and might not be able to get back to it for a couple of weeks.
I'll try to post a couple of more interesting pictures soon, maybe ones that actually include a train. Thanks for reading.
-Brian.
