On the 30th of March I went to Sheridan WY to check out the local club and pick up a couple of BLI Blueline Mikados from one of the guys there. He couldn't use them and offered me a great deal on them. I've got one of them running well, but the sound board in the second one appears to be fried. I bought a TCS decoder to install in it. The first one, number 362, is on the layout. The other one will be added after I get the new decoder in it. Both will be relettered for the Burlington.
Here are all ten of the staging turnouts, built and ready to install.
For most of the last 2+ weeks, I've been working on building the East and West Staging yard. I picked up a sheet of 3/4" oak veneer plywood for the framing, and two sheets of 1/2 inch ACX plywood for the subroadbed. On the 4th I cut the oak ply into 3" strips, and the 1/2" ply into 16" strips.
Then I got to work.
Here's the first of four sections under construction.
On the 5th I finished the first section.
By the 8th all four sections were built, and it was time to add cork roadbed. Here's one section with the cork glued down and waiting for the edges to be trimmed.
Then I took the sections out to the driveway to line them up, add splice stringers and mark the track centerlines (which you can barely see in this photo). The driveway was the only place where I could easily line them all up. This thing is about 31 feet long overall.
Then it was back to the basement with the west end section to begin laying track. Here, on the 13th of April, all five turnouts are mounted.
Here's a closer view of the yard throat taken the next day. Since all this trackage is hidden, I don't need to add ties under the turnouts, but the rails still need to be supported. I kept all the frames from the Fast Tracks tie strips I used to use, so I simply cut those frames to fit under the rails. I also started adding the first sections of flextrack.
By the 16th all the flextrack was laid on this section. It doesn't reach the end of the roadbed because there will be Atlas rerailers on each track at each section break. That will make it easy to assemble the sections together as I install them under Casper.
All the yard tracks are Atlas code 100 flextrack, which used to be on my behemoth helix on version 2 of the layout in New Jersey, over 15 years ago. Some of it will finally be reused.
On the 17th I started wiring. First I installed all the barrier strips for the electrical connections. From left to right we have the strip for the Tortoise switch machines, then the small strip for track feeders, then the power strip for the occupancy detectors - old IRDOTs from MicroMark (no longer available), that also came off the version 2 layout, and finally the LED signal output strips from the IRDOTs.
On the 18th I mounted the Tortoises.
Here's the area under Casper where staging will go. It will stretch almost to the far wall.
Then on the 19th I brought the section benchwork section into the basement and attached it to the first. This is the only place in the entire train room with enough aisle space to connect two sections together and still have room to work.
Then I began adding track. You can see how I add the rerailers between sections.
By late on the 19th I was at this point with track on the second section. This moves along pretty well.
Later in the evening I turned my attention to the Milwaukee Mikados for an hour or so. I wanted to try to remove the logo on the tender. It started out looking like this:
And when I was done it looked like this. I'll be able to add the Burlington logo without a problem at this point. The slightly dulled area where I removed the old logo will disappear when the locomotive is weathered. This worked a lot better than I thought it would. I was afraid I would have to repaint the entire tender.
Today it was back to staging, with the completion of tracklaying on the second section. In this shot I've removed the rerailers and am about to remove the splice stringers holding the pieces together.
Once the pieces were loose again I turned the first section up on it's side to wire the Tortoises and IRDOTs (the wire I was waiting for arrived today). Here the IRDOTs are wired. Tortoises will be done probably tomorrow, then I'll add track feeders to the second section. That's the only wiring needed for that section. The third section will also have IRDOTs, at about the mid-point of each yard track.
I've continued building the staging yard since the 20 April update. By the 23rd I had track laying completed on the second and third sections.
After taking a short trip to Tucson, Arizona late in April, I was back at work on the yard on the 29th. Here I have the center occupancy detectors installed.
I wired them up that afternoon.
On the 30th I turned my attention to installing the east staging lead. Dave came down from Basin to visit, and he helped me with the lead. First we extended the lead from the stub end behind Himes Curve (near Greybull and Basin).
Then we added the curves under Holly Sugar to bring the line parallel to the wall between Worland and Thermopolis.
At this point a big problem showed up. When I was planning out the east staging lead elevations, I neglected to take into account the depth of the benchwork under Thermopolis and Wind River Canyon. When I placed my six foot level between the end of the curves under Holly Sugar over to the Thermopolis benchwork, it turned out the line would run smack into the benchwork! The bottom of the level is the height the subroadbed needed to be to provide a decent grade on the line.
While Dave was here we took a half hour or so to install the final piece of Powell subroadbed. Above it is the east end of Worland.
Back to the east staging lead, fortunately a bit of re-planning based on a suggestion from Dave provided the solution to running into the benchwork. Rather than take east staging from Greybull, it would now run down the Cody Branch Helix and take off from the branch at the east entrance to Powell. No ideal, but it was the only option. So May 1st I began cutting in a new turnout at the east end of Powell.
Fortunately, the supports I'd installed when I was reworking the riser for Worland to allow clearance for Powell provided a clear pathway for the new alignment of the east staging lead. Here I'm testing the fit by laying in a piece of subroadbed between the vertical supports.
A bit further down the line I had to trim some risers and change a few supports here and there, but it wasn't overly difficult. Here I've added a new support for the Cody Branch off a Basin riser, and am preparing to remove the old Cody Branch riser. The new east staging subroadbed is sitting cock-eyed on top of the benchwork joists below.
Here we're looking back down that narrow section after the risers have been adjusted. You can see that it's tight but workable.
Here, still May 1st, you can see that the subroadbed for the east staging lead is clamped in place. Risers under it are yet to be installed.
By May 6th I began laying the track on the east staging lead from Powell.
May 8th saw the track extended down the line to underneath Holly Sugar. It will be extended the rest of the way to the staging yard after the yard is installed. Then final grading will be finished on the line. Here we're looking back down the line towards Powell.
After the 8th I was back to work on the staging yard itself, working on the final section, which is the east staging yard throat. By the 12th all the track was laid and I finished installing and wiring all the components.
On May 14th Dave came down from Basin again to help with the staging yard. All sections were built, but now it was time to put them all together and get ready to hoist them up into place under Casper and Powder River.
By the time Dave left for home, all sections of the yard were connected together and the entire thing was in place ready for raising into it's final location. We didn't have time to do that before he left, and we were too exhausted to do it anyway. I have a few ideas about how to lift the entire thing into place, and will be working on that over the next few days.
Still working on staging to the exclusion of all else.
On the 16th I began lifting the yard up off the floor. I wound up taking them all apart again and lifting one section at a time, sitting them on plastic bins stacked two high.
By the end of the day I had all the sections up on the bins and fastened back together.
On the 17th I fabricated the parts for the threaded rod suspension system that will support the yard. On the 18th I began installing these.
By late in the day I had several of the supports completed. Just beyond the red bin you can see the automotive creeper I was using to work under the yard.
At the end of the day here's what it looked like looking from under Casper engine terminal towards the west end of the staging yard.
On the 19th I finished installing the last of the threaded rod supports. Here we're looking down the entire length of the yard from the west end.
On the 20th I added the rerailers between each section of the yard.
On the 21st I hooked up my DCC system to the yard temporarily and ran a loco all the way down and back on every track.
On the 22nd I began adding the cabling that will run to the control panel. Here I've just finished adding the 12-conductor cable that will provide the occupancy indications for the west set of IRDOTs.
Adding all the cabling took several hours. By noon on the 23rd I had the entire west section of the yard connected. The only thing missing is the track power buss that will come from the left.
I took this close-up shot of the west end IRDOT indicator connections so I could replicate the same color code on the other two IRDOT clusters. It will also greatly simplify wiring the cable into the control panel. I did the same thing for the Tortoises.
On the 24th I wired the center set of IRDOTs. I stopped there because the east end will be easily accessible even after the yard is raised to final position.
Speaking of raising the yard, I began setting up for that on the 24th. The east end of the yard sticks out a bit beyond the Powder River benchwork, so I can use threaded rods there. I'll have legs at that end. Meanwhile, I'm using automotive jack stands on stools to support the yard as I hoist it up.
After raising the yard about four inches on the 24th and 25th, I stopped to install the splice plate at the west end of the yard. It was a lot easier to do at this point than it would be with the yard in final position.
That same day I removed the west lead under Casper to prepare it for connection to the yard. Most of the straight section to the right needed to be amputated.
On the 26th I connected the now-truncated lead to the west end of the yard. Later that same day I trimmed the track and installed the rerailer.
Still working on staging.
On May 30th I had the entire east lead subroadbed installed except for the final tangent section along the Shobon wall. In this view the yard is just out of view to the left. Right after taking this shot I installed that last piece of subroadbed.
On the 1st of June I added the cork roadbed to the east staging lead. This is the lead under Wind Rover Canyon. Permanent supports will be added after the yard has been raised to final position and grade on the entire lead has been set.
Also on the 1st I started laying track after the glue on the cork was dry. Here the track under Holly Sugar has been laid and the caulk is drying.
By the end of the day on the 2nd the final bit of track on the east staging lead was finished with the installation of the straight section on the wall between Thermopolis and Worland.
Over the next week I did just a couple of small tasks on the staging yard project: installing the last short bit of track on the west staging lead; cleaning all the track; etc.
Mostly I worked on the control panel for the yard. I dug out the old staging panel from Version 2 of the layout and traced some of the power circuitry I'd used back then - about 20 years ago. Then I began working on the new panel graphics. After a couple of false starts I remembered how I'd crated the old panel face, and set about creating the new one. By June 7th I had it pretty much complete:
With the graphics done and back from the printer, On the 9th I began disassembling the old panel. Many of the components - switches, LEDs, power supplies, etc. - will be reused on this layout. Here's a bit of the inside of the panel with almost everything removed:
Here's the front of the panel, now stripped of all the electrical components. After I took this shot I removed the back of the frame and discarded the graphic. I kept the plastic sheets for now, so I can measure the holes for the LEDs and switches for making the new panel face.
Yesterday (the 11th) Dave came down from Basin and we spent the day making final adjustments to the staging yard elevation, and flattening the whole thing out. Here. after getting the entire yard within about a 16th of an inch of final elevation, I've attached the first permanent leg to the east end of the yard.
Once adjustments on the yard were completed and the remaining legs installed on the east end, we set the grade on the east lead all the way back to Holly Sugar. Here Dave is adjusting one of the supports under Wind River Canyon. I still have to glue the subroadbed to the supports and attach the supports to the "risers" (descenders?). Right now all the supports are simply clamped to the risers.
Finally it was time to run a test train! After sending a loco with one car down the east lead from Powell all the way across the yard to the west lead, We grabbed a proper train (one of the reefer express trains waiting on the west staging lead) and ran it all the way from Greybull through the longest staging yard track and out to the end of the east lead at Powell. Here the train has crossed through the entire staging yard and is approaching the east lead.
And here's that train approaching the switch in Powell. No derailments occurred, and the loco and cars seems to run smoothly over all the trackwork. We didn't test all the turnouts in the yard; that won't happen until the Tortoises are all powered. But t straight-through run was successful!
Here's an overall view of the entire staging yard, taken this morning.
Next steps are to add the ground throw to the switch a Powell (I'll do that today), then final install all the supports for east and west staging (both ends are simply clamped in place right now). Then the final big project will commence - building and connecting up the control panel.