Trains running

With all the spline complete for the first section, I moved back to the flat area where Hardin, MT sets. Hardin has a sugar factory of its own along with several grain elevators. There is still a very nice brick, one story passenger station. There used to be stock yards and a freight depot. I'm not going to model the sugar factory, since there is one in Billings. Instead, I'm adding a long spur that comes off the industry siding that will probably have a beet dump on it. 

I started using the caulk again, but moved back to the tried and tested method of track nails and spikes. I like the ability to move track around as I need.

With the track down, I moved on to wiring. I don't generally like to route the bus wires thru the joists, but I am concerned about wires hanging down into the bottom level, so I went ahead and and put them thru.

I like to separate blocks in case I decide to come back and add detection. I toed all the sub-busses together using this terminal strip.

I got these Tortoise's from John McBee. John had soldered wires and added terminal strips. This isn't my preferred method of connecting to tortoises, but I decided to take advantage of John's hard work.

I've also stayed away from suitcase connectors, but after seeing several large layouts use them with a lot of success, I decided to try them and not to solder all the drops to the sub-busses.

I use resistance soldering tweeters to solder drops to the rails. The drops are 22 gauge solid and the busses are 12 gauge stranded. I used to use nothing but solid bus wires because you can bend them and they stay. Also, if you are stripping them to solder drops to, you're less likely to break wires like you are with stranded.

Here's a full shot of the peninsula right before I ran the locomotive down the spur across the switch to the industrial siding.

Here's a Youtube video of the GP9 running.

Hardin benchwork and roadbed

I have always admired the sweeping curves created with the use of splines for sub-roadbed. When I got Joe Fugate's original set of DVDs, he presented a way to make spline roadbed from Masonite where you didn't have to put cork on top. With the large new space and the new layout, I decided it was time to try it. 

I found some 1/4" Masonite at the local 84 Lumber since neither of the big box stores stock it. I called around and found a place that would rip it into 7/8" strips, saving me a lot of time on the table saw. Here is what 4 sheets look like cut into strips.

I decided to use 3/4 cabinet plywood rather than the 1/2" I had purchased and luckily Home Depot had some at a reasonable price because I discovered the plywood I had been storing in my pole barn had gotten damp and was delaminating.

It took some time to curve the plywood to fit the backdrop - especially since I couldn't find my belt sander. Of course, a couple days after getting it to fit with saws and a disk sander, my wife found it in a box in the garage that hadn't been unpacked yet a over a year after the move. Lance Lassen came over and we put down some cork and the first splines. Hardin is to Lance's left in this photo. Sheetrock screws are being used to put an s-bend in the Masonite.

This is the first time I have tried spline. The first lesson I learned is to connect the Masonite to the plywood at the start. After reading some of the experiences other people have had, I tried making a notch in the plywood with a reciprocating saw on the third piece, but it looks like I'll need some additional stiffening.

The spline seems to be doing a pretty good job holding its shape with the clamps and sheetrock screws removed.

One more set of splines and clamps. I also want to have the roadbed on passing sidings lower than the main. I am doing this using some n-scale cork.

This morning I took the clamps off and this is what it looked like. It wasn't until I put this photo up that I realized that I have 7 instead of 6. Oops, I guess I got a little spline crazy. I plan on playing around with 45 degree profiles anyway, so I may be routing the first ones.

Tonight, I will work on roadbed for the first turnouts, including my first ever spline. I'll try to remember to take more photos as I go. 

Here are some links that I found priceless when researching spline roadbed:

Joe Fugate's Easy Spline video on Train Masters TV (subscription required)

Charlie Comstock's Bear Creek and South Jackson

Lee Nicholas' Utah and Western

Leave a comment if you can think of some others - especially videos.