As I discussed in a previous entry, I had decided that the railroad really needed a much larger yard. The old yard was an afterthought and once I started operating from it, I realized its limitations. Therefore, after some review, I opted to build two new modules, which totaled 10 ft in length.
The Yard consists of a
5-track receiving yard using the Micro-Engineering ladder turnout system, a
main line, plus two ready tracks for either building a train or taking one
apart. So a total of 8 lines. The last spur on the ladder will be storage for my vans. Since the yard was planned to connect to an adjacent
two-line module, an extra turnout was added to connect all tracks and make the
yard accessible from two tracks. I don’t have room to make a
ladder on both ends of the yard, which is a limiting factor, but when you’re out
of real estate, you're out of luck until you can move into a different
house. Maybe the next house will allow for about a 20ft yard or larger.
After several weeks of laying cork and track, it was finally time to wire it. Now I don't mind wiring, however, being under the layout night after night can be touch on the body, especially the eye sight. However, I pressed on and wiring was completed late Saturday evening. Tested each track using several different engines and all was good. The final steps would be weathering the track and adding ballast. Started to weather the track at about 0100 Sunday using the paint pens I had purchased years ago. The plan was to avoid spraying all of the track and just apply some rust or grime to the sides via the pen method. All good and I got two tracks done before realizing that it was late and I was running out of energy to complete. Next morning I started to finish the weathering and actually loaded the yard with every caboose or van in Ontario Northland terms that I own, plus about a dozen freight cars. Success!!! Completed the task by installing some ground throws.
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