At my June 23rd Operating Session A lot of cars started derailing at the west switch in Greybull. It didn't look too bad, but it sure didn't work well.
I tried to fix it from the aisleway. I improved it - only about one car in ten derailed, but that wasn't good enough. I would have to fix it from the back, near the bottom of the stairs. That meant cutting away a section of the backdrop for access.
On June 28th I took my oscillating saw and began cutting through the backdrop frame and backdrop.
I didn't know if I'd wind up destroying the backdrop or not. When I was most of the way through on the first cut I looked at the layout side of the backdrop. Didn't look terribly bad so far...
Here I've finished both cuts through the backdrop. The pieces are being held together by the short sections of 1X2 and the clamps on the bottom part of the frame.
Once I lifted out the cut section I had great access through the back.
With better access I took a straight-down photo of the end of the turnout and the joint that was causing the problem.
It still didn't look all that bad to me, but there was some room for improvement.
With a clear view from the back, I ran a cut of cars through the area and recorded a video of them passing. In this still taken out of the video, you can see where the left wheel of the stock car (far left of the shot) is riding on the railhead prior to falling off.
The only way to fix this problem seemed to be to replace the curve leading out of Greybull. I pulled up the track and began cleaning off the caulk near the turnout.
Cleaning the caulk turned out to be pretty easy - I used a semi-circular blade in my oscillating saw and moved it around as it lightly touched the caulk. The teeth caught small chunks of caulk and pulled them loose without damaging the underlying cork.
After about half an hours' work the area near the turnout looked like this.
On the 29th of June I laid the new curve.
On July 1st I reinstalled the backdrop. All I've got are a couple thin vertical grooves where I cut the backdrop away. I'm going to leave it like this for a few months before filling the grooves, just to make sure the trackwork fix is really reliable.
This is what the back of the backdrop looks like now. I used mending plates - the same type I used on the helix upgrade - to splice the backdrop frame together.
On July 6th I decided (almost on the spur of the moment) to fill in the north end of Wind River Canyon where it comes out at the south (east) end of Thermopolis. I put down some scraps of plywood to support the foam chunks I'd be using for basic landforms.
On the 7th I got the Thermopolis backdrop, which I'd created about 18 months earlier, printed out. I took it home and began cutting it out.
I taped it up to the skyboard to see how it would look. I experimented with it a bit, trying a couple different heights. Here it's at its maximum hight:
Armed with their feedback I decided to mount the backdrop full-height. Here's the first section in place after cutting away the sky. It's now the 12th.
By the end of the day I had all three sections mounted. Here's the far right end:
And here we are looking down the entire length of Thermopolis towards the Canyon.
On July 19th I began adding decals to a couple of Proto 2000 insulated tank cars a friend picked up for me from the Rocky Mountain Train Show in April of this year. I had ordered a full set of Tichy UTLX tank car decals - six road numbers in all.
What a pain those turned out to be! The Tichy decals are very hard to work with, and as it turned out the quality of the printing is very marginal.
After several hours of work I had one side of the first car done. By this point I was extremely frustrated with these decals.
The next day I was able to finish the car. Then I started the next one. I was learning to work with these difficult decals, but I couldn't do anything about their quality. Here's the smaller printing on the right side of the car after I applied the first Dullcote layer. It's pretty bad - most of the text is just unreadable dots.
I persevered, and by July 29th I had both cars complete and weathered. The Dullcote and weathering helped a lot, but these decals still look like crap. The cars are usable for operating sessions though - you can at least read the car numbers.
In between fighting with the Tichy decals I began building the rest of the Cody subroadbed. Here the first of two section is complete, risers are attached and clamped to the higher level of benchwork to the right. Risers for the lower benchwork to the left will be added later, as will another sheet of plywood to the far left.
While I was adding that first sheet of Cody subroadbed I realized there just wasn't room to fit the Cody wye into the area. It was just too cramped under there! So I very reluctantly decided to go with another turntable - the layout's fourth (so far). At least it would be nearer the front edge of the layout.
This is a first arrangement with the turntable. It's final location is still subject to change.
After finishing the Cody subroadbed, and while I was still working on the tank cars and other rolling stock, I got back to the mountain south of Thermopolis on July 26th. I dug out some foam to get started.
After a couple hours' work I had a good start. The bit of pink foam to the right of center is there as a partial view block for some far-too-recent houses and vehicles on the backdrop.
By the 28th I'd reached this point.
Stacking cutting foam is both fun, and fast! But it sure makes a mess on the floor!
On July 30th I finished the basic landforms. Next will come plaster cloth sometime in the future.
I wound up finishing eight new cars for the layout in July - four boxcars and four asphalt tank cars (including the two Tichy cars). Here's two of the other six cars.
This one is an Accurail model.
And this one is another Proto 2000 insulated tank car (already decorated - I didn't have to decal it).
