The Mill Loop

[OldEastRR]

You're doing a good job. Your layout will wind up looking a lot like the actual trackage. The industrial structures will be a chore to build, they look complex.

[Tad_T]

You're doing a good job. Your layout will wind up looking a lot like the actual trackage. The industrial structures will be a chore to build, they look complex.

Thank you, sir.

I’m still figuring out how I am going to do them. It looks like kitbashing/scratch building is what is needed.

I’m going to have to go up to my other house in Idaho and get the rest of my railroad stuff down here. I have some structures that I built for my previous layouts. That’s also where all of my kitbashing and scratch building stuff is.

Until then I need to get more accurate mockups made for the rest of the buildings.

[Tad_T]

I redesigned my yard & staging module.

It's going to look like this. On an 18" wide x 72" long module.



The top part with the compound ladder will be staging.

The four tracks in the double track concrete section could be four staging locations that are 485 N feet each.

The single track on top is 450 N Ft. This is my parking track. It could function as a fifth staging track. Then I couldn't park stuff on it. Right now it will not be needed as a staging location.

The bottom part off of the straight ladder will be Pond Pass Yard.

There are 2950 useable N feet in the six tracks in the yard.

When checked with our nominal 50' XM, total capacity was 52 cars.

When the module is built and connected to the Mill Loop, it would look like this.

[Tad_T]

I messed up the compound ladder for the staging. I drew it right, but I built it wrong.

I kept it looking at it and knew it didn't look right. Couldn't figure it out. Then someone else pointed out to me that I had on of the 60L's in the wrong place.

I fixed the ladder and got out my tape measure. I think I made it better. I was able to add another staging track/location.





It's still double track equals Staging Locations.


Down the throat.





Attached to the layout.

[Tad_T]

Now that the compound ladder is properly constructed, I was able to rework the Staging Locations and add an additional staging track/location.

Including the complete #6 switch/turnout that is the South switch in the Wye, the complete trackage is 69 1/2" long and 14 1/2" wide. I think that this will fit nicely onto a 18" x 72" module.

Now we have four Staging Locations of 36 1/2" = 520 N ft.

And we have two Staging Locations of 31 1/2" = 420 N ft.

There is now a total Staging Trackage of 2920 N ft and a capacity of 50 cars.

That is a pretty fair balance with Pond Pass Yard.  Pond Pass Yard has 2950 N ft and a capacity of 52 cars.

The Staging Yard loses a couple of cars of capacity if you keep the Staging Locations balanced in length/capacity. Since I am trying to achieve balanced traffic on the layout, I am not trying to squeeze the very last car into staging.

Another thing that I think is cool from the whole operations development view, is that you can view the whole balance right here on the module. You can watch the flow from Staging into the Yard. Then from the Yard to the Mills. Then from the Mills to the Yard and back to Staging. That all has to balance to make traffic flow smoothly.

At a glance you can see the balance of cars in Staging. You can also see the status of the Yard.

I don't know about y'all but I do a fair bit of staring at the layout and then doing other things while I am pondering on it. It will be cool to just be able to look at the end of a session and see what the balance really looks like.

It's going to take a little while to get everything to actually build the module and get it done. Holidays are coming and all.

I am going to keep working on getting operational testing going on the Mill Loop. There is still a lot to be done before we need to start running trains into and out of staging. Getting this part figured out so that it will later mesh into the whole has kind of where I have been hung up. I didn't want to build something that was not going to be worthwhile and that would not support the planned operations.

But that being said, with a proper yard and staging, I think that the Mill Loop, all by itself, could be a fun operations oriented layout for a couple of operators.  That is the intent anyway.

But since I live in a model railroading wasteland, that will probably never happen.

I feel that this configuration should be able to support the Mill Loop now and with the planned Chemical Plant expansion. I am not sure if it could handle more. That's a while off though.

That should get us a lot of modeling and operating between now and then.

[Tad_T]

The Yards Module is packed away.





I started working on a new footprint template for the Old Mill.


And I drug out some old stuff and started working on it.

[Tad_T]

The new mockup work started another round of staring, pondering, and a couple of minor redesigns.

While I am pondering, I am working on something else.

I would like to be able to test the operations on the Mill Loop while I am doing operational testing of all of the track work.  Tweak and adjust as necessary.

To do that I need reliable power. I dug out my old fleet. I modeled these about 20 years ago.




I would like to get these running while I work on modeling other AD&N engines. I intend to loop back around and upgrade these five later.

The road units are old Atlas GP35’s with TCS CN-GP decoders. They are masquerading as GP28’s. Only one ran well.

The two SW’s are Life-Like’s with TCS Z2’s. One ran but the other was dead.

A while back I purchased three Atlas # 40 000 759 Railink Canada #2210’s on final clearance. These came with factory installed NCE N12A2 decoders. I got these to repower my old GP28/35’s.

If anyone needs a shell, hit me up.

These have been sitting up for a couple or three years. I figured that they needed a good cleaning, lubing, burnishing contact areas, and making sure that the motor contact strips make good connections with the pads on the decoder. And that the four decoder pads all make good contact with the frame. You can see that they came with plenty of factory grease.




I’m working through that and speed matching them right now.

[NorthWestGN]

Nice yard and a Nice Locomotive Fleet Tad! I'm envious of your speedometer as well, very cool, should make speed matching much easier.

Right now I'm at work, less than a mile from the headquarters of SRY Railink, is that the scheme your extra shells are painted in? Similar to the Montana Railink scheme? If so there may be some local modelers interested in your factory painted shells, send me a picture, or a message and I'll reply with my email and I can try to sell them locally for you...



Brent

[Tad_T]

These are the shells.



I was just wondering if anyone here might need one.

[NorthWestGN]

Hey Tad,

It looks like you need to sell these in Southern Ontario not Southern BC. For a few years, after BN gave up on my line, Rail America was running trains north of the border to the limber mill in Fruitvale...

Good luck on the shells,
Brent

[Tad_T]

Hey Tad,

It looks like you need to sell these in Southern Ontario not Southern BC. For a few years, after BN gave up on my line, Rail America was running trains north of the border to the limber mill in Fruitvale...

Good luck on the shells,
Brent

Thanks, Brent @NorthWestGN

I guess that I wasn’t clear.

If anyone on the RailWire needs one of these shells, PM me.

I’ll send it to you.

I’m not really interested in selling them.

I know that there are Canadian members on the RailWire.  Or members that model Canadian railways. If anyone wants one, I would send them one. I don’t need to make any money off of them. I got them for $87 each with factory installed decoders. They were on Super Secret Clearance.

I cannot use the shells even if I stripped them. Dynamic brake GP35’s just don’t fit on my layout. None of my prototypes ran them in my area.

I also have a couple of undecorated dynamic brake GP35 shells if anyone needs them. I don’t.

All that I am saying is that if someone needs/wants one, contact me. It will cost you postage.

I hope that is clear.

[Tad_T]

I haven’t done much worthy of posting lately, even though I have done stuff.

I’ve been working on track and turnouts/switches and power feeds. I’ve decided that I need to upgrade my wiring sooner rather than later. I need to finalize a couple of other things prior to doing that.

I had my grandson this last week. I spent a lot of time with him. He’s nine. I started teaching him how to use a throttle and how to blow the horn for crossings. He had a lot of fun. So did I.

And my bulldozer is broken down. I need to pull the injector pump, get it rebuilt, and reinstall the pump.




That’s going to get in the way of railroading for a little while.

[OldEastRR]

What's going on with this layout?

[OldEastRR]

long silence from the Mill Loop.

[Dave V]

long silence from the Mill Loop.

Probably because the OP was last active on 15 December 2025: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=2466