The New Northern Central

[davefoxx]

Poor @mu26aeh , he's gotta deal with this ***** again....

Hey Adam!  That train is the least of your worries.  I'd like to see you get that truck over those Code 55 rails without any crossing installed.  Good luck!  You can do it! 

DFF

[bbussey]

The Pennsy 60' Greenville car needs a new set of 1015 couplers mounted in extended draft gear and the correct height.

[mu26aeh]

Hey Adam!  That train is the least of your worries.  I'd like to see you get that truck over those Code 55 rails without any crossing installed.  Good luck!  You can do it! 

DFF

Eh, right now that's just a parking lot and I'm on my 30 minute break for lunch

[Ed Kapuscinski]

The Pennsy 60' Greenville car needs a new set of 1015 couplers mounted in extended draft gear and the correct height.

It's funny, I was just looking at that thinking "yeah, this should be easy to lower appropriately".
Who was it who makes the extended draft gear castings to do that?
And would your ESM trucks do the job of lowering, or is more surgery involved?

[bbussey]

It's funny, I was just looking at that thinking "yeah, this should be easy to lower appropriately".
Who was it who makes the extended draft gear castings to do that?
And would your ESM trucks do the job of lowering, or is more surgery involved?

The car sits at the correct height so you just have to upgrade the wheels.
From what I remember, I ground off the thick mounting pad and added X58 extended draft gear I think.  I'll have to check later and advise.

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[Ed Kapuscinski]

The car sits at the correct height so you just have to upgrade the wheels.

Huh. No kidding. It looked high to me, but the mind's eye can be tricky.

[bbussey]

Huh. No kidding. It looked high to me, but the mind's eye can be tricky.

That looks like an MDC car in front of the Greenville in your pic.  Those models were real low-riders.  The floor needs some styrene on top to prevent them from riding too low.  Same situation as with the original Con-Cor/Suzuki(Kato) boxcars and reefers.

The Greenville might be a smidge too high, but not enough to worry about.  As you can see in my pic, it matches up well with the X65.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That looks like an MDC car in front of the Greenville in your pic.  Those models were real low-riders.  The floor needs some styrene on top to prevent them from riding too low.  Same situation as with the original Con-Cor/Suzuki(Kato) boxcars and reefers.

The Greenville might be a smidge too high, but not enough to worry about.  As you can see in my pic, it matches up well with the X65.

Yeah, those MDC cars actually come with chain steering wheels and tassels hanging from the headliner too.

[C855B]

And a bottle of Spañada in the glove compartment.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I have a few yard tracks still to glue down. I wanted to rebuild the I-83 bridge before I finished things up in case anything needed to move.

You can see why I needed new piers in addition to cutting down the depth.



So last weekend I got some new plastic and cut up a bunch of new pier pieces using my mini table saw.



Don't worry, I didn't leave the fence in place while I was cutting them. I setup a stop block instead.

I used the saw to cut the deck down to the right depth for the new layout size too. It really IS handy.

I also cut up some spacers to help with assembly. Here's everything being glued up.



Then just tip everything on its back, get out the square, and glue in place.



All done and ready for paint:

[C855B]

I have a few yard tracks still to glue down. I wanted to rebuild the I-83 bridge before I finished things up in case anything needed to move.

You can see why I needed new piers in addition to cutting down the depth.

Oh, I'm certain there's a prototype for this somewhere.

[mu26aeh]

Now when you do a series of photos showing some switching in the yard, make sure you change the direction of my truck with each one.  This will show be passing over the yard multiple times driving between my poorly routed stops.   

[OldEastRR]

Reminds me of the real-life odd scenes along railroads picture series "It ain;t Prototypic" that ran in MR way back.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've been debating on whether to start building the rest of the actual layout or to toss up some temporary loops and JFRTM for a bit.

Guess which approach won...




In the spirit of Earth Day (and being lazy), I realized this was a great opportunity to reuse some of the benchwork I had prepped for the old Coal Country layout. In this case, the door I had cut down was perfectly sized for what I wanted.

I added a cleat to the wall to support the door on one end and have two 1x4s on the other. If this were going to be up for longer I'd probably build in some more support but future sagging might be the impetus to "get on with it" if I get too comfy just running around in circles.



Here you can see my process for laying out the track plan. I have a set of 15" radius snap track that I use to ensure I'm at the right size (or larger). I laid it down and traced it out.





Then I spread out some Liquid Nails for Projects and put down a single piece of cork. This was then pinned down with "professional" push pins.





Glue should be try today, but before track laying begins I think I need to adjust the height of the whole thing by a smidge.

[apudelek]

Out of curiosity Ed, how long do you think you'll keep the loop around until you start prepping for Hanover Jct and the transition to the lower level?  Thoroughly approve of your concession to JFRTM; you can't let that CR Blue collect dust when it should be collecting soot and grime!