# garage layout progress (Tankist Part 2)



## tankist

it occured to me that "i have layout" was probably wrong thread name. well it was growing long anyways so i'll start fresh. for those who will be looking the part one of my proggress is located HERE. 
all the pictures i take i keep on my Fotki website. if interested take a look


allrighty.
finished gluing roadbed where i'm going o have roadbed. decided to not use roadbed for underpass line to squeeze all the vertical clearance possible. slopes took extra work but i think i got the best i could get out of them. the breaking out for bridges did not make thing easier climb slope is okish the descent one however is ungodly. had to take a hammer to a section of cast "rocks" as it wouldnt clear the cars. glued foam "retaining wall" in place

so, some more of those pictures pictures. and since its been bit time there are more then usual 

the granary area. i do realise the line is deam near the edge and measures to save trains from the floor will be taken










western industry area. (not sure which one it will be)









playing with rail layout for upper portion. r18 sections right after curved peco . not ideal but should be doable with slow moving switcher. allows me to have an industry on each line. suggestions on what to do here are welcome. i tried different arangements but i just keep coming back to that dblslip. 










if there is a picture i'd be doing this entire thing right now it would be that one 













Bridges. notes welcome

roadbed is flush with the plaster and recessed plywood forming level transition. 










climb. the middle support is visible here. drilled holes in the "rocky" wall, inserted a contraption build from hanger wire and "poured" plaster of paris. still need to give it proper shape










climb bridge upper support









descent bridge lower support. the newly blasted rocks are repalced by still pink concrete retaining wall










upper














note. coloring is obviously not final and will be revisited


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## tworail

Wow, great progress! I haven't been keeping up with all the threads but what sort of industry will be present on your layout?


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## tankist

thanks tworail. i guess the forum does good job of administrating itself 

as far as industries i'm not 100% sure yet. when it gets close to buildings that i was thinking to post a thread welcoming to discuss possibilities. for now its to early as i keep changing my mind as i go

so far decided there will be granary (the 6 silos are visible from under the paint). rest is still open question. the industry near the descent line will accept boxcars and perhaps chemical tanks on second track. when and if I go forward with my phase 3 expansion plan (see attachment) both tracks will be for boxcars and the RED section for chemical cars for that same industry.

on the upper section i was thinking something that accepts coal but with short 2 car spurs it will look silly so it either very small intermodal container handling area (plenty of open space for trucks ) or just 2 unnamed buildings accepting boxcars or small chemical terminal or mixture of any of the 2.
purple section if ever built, will be coal loading terminal.

after i drawn this one i thought that the red section can be extended further and made into dockside track. then there will be somewhere for that coal to go.

as you can see i'm all over the place changing my mind often. still to early to discuss





as far as progress.
after neat-picking here and there i finally decided to tackle the conversion of old shinohara turnouts i have to be "DCC friendly". i was quite reluctant on this and started to feel somewhat sorry i got the turnouts in first place. but it turned out quite doable. drilled out the 2 rivets holding the point rail assembly in place, desoldered the points and used rail joiners to put them on. i cut a strip of PCB from old PC modem card i had laying around and filed it till copper showed.isolating was bit of interesting since those PCBs are multilayered, luckly enough the copper powerplane was only on both sides and not in inner layers otherwise isolating the sides would have been impossible.










cut grooves in underside of the ties for the wire, inserted it in and soldered to rail. now that i'm thinking about it i should have paid attention to route power from stock rail to appropriate point rails more then jumping the after the frog rails, (those will get power anyways). still to be done. but i'm very happy that i managed to hide everything and not melt the ties down.










the isolation of the frog was my biggest fear. turned out smplier then soldering jumper wires. used cut-off wheel on dremel to cut the rail, inserted and super-glued plastic tie pieses removed from same turnout earlier. when dried i dremmeled everything flat. i think it turned out quite good.










the first turnout took forever (and now i will need to revisit it and solder to more jumpers) the second one however went much faster. i think it is easier to work when you know what you doing  still need to wire it. and i probably should include a drop for the frog to keep hot frog as an option. i have 6 more to convert and even though now i see this is quite doable from now on i will think twice before buying old shinoharas again, it better be really good deal :laugh:


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## tankist

took a break from the entire thing for couple days but now i'm slowly getting back.
i've been itching to run some trains already so i tacked down the track. before i start soldering track i'd like to se how everything works. was surprising to see how my seemingly endless (i had 15 pieces ) pile of flexi track was thinned. i love the "continuously welded" track in the curves  . the underpassing line is still in sections. was watching watching the train doing loops for over an hour. actually not all time wasted most of it i run the CF7 and that thing needed serious breaking in - was very noisey even for athrean.



















i realy like this engine for some reason












the underpass curve needed careful positioning not to rub against stuff and the clearance is quie tight but it is workable. i am going to install a roadbed there as well, it is significantly noisier and it would be nice o quiet it down. as long as highest car passes it doesn't matter how much more room left.

i guess i'm not going to surprise anybody when i say i am disappointed in atlas switches (i don't have enough shinos to cover everthing). as much as i don't want to spend money now i will start getting better turnouts before i solder everything together. on the bright side the test engine pulled 8 cars up the climb slope no sweat which is huge relief. the second slope is still not ready.


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## rhenry

It looks really good so far keep up the good work!


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## tankist

thank you 



painted several places to hide the pink better. amazing how much such a small detail changes things. but for the most part i'm taking a breather from building. while there are other things to do, i'm holding off untill i find good turnout lot. i can't stand not having all the materials at hand and this time i'm missing 6 right hand turnouts. kinda puts stop to desire to work on things. i might settle for less and use the atlas ones for the less critical places (sidings). i don't really care about the code either. if i'll manage to get some of them in C83 or C75 they will be the representing lighter gauge siding rails. i got myself a sample of C83 and C75 rails and pretty sure i'll manage to do good transition between all of them if need arises. 

but so far it looks like i might need to go to a hobby store and just order new walthers switches.  over 100$ of them. yaikes...


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## chessie14

What road is that CF7?


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## tankist

the CF7 is IANR - Iowa Northern. the real railroad sold all of theirs couple years ago however.


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## hoguy12

Nice job!!!!
I cant wait to see more.


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## tankist

ok so here is the update 










you might be wondering what this has to do with model railroading. well, that' a prerequisite project that has to be complete before i can mess with my layout again. you can't lay rail before you glue the cork and you can't do any MRR stuff before you do the kitchen. 

its been crazy 3 weeks. logistics are not simple, especially with 14 month old running around. after seeing bare walls it is quite satisfying view.
even though all the appliances are installed and working (besides fridge that is still in the store, we can't make our mind) and water is running there is still bunch of small stuff to touch up and finish up here and there. annoying. and then there will be rest of house garage cleanup project. hopefully soon


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## burlington77

That layout is looking great. I'm always impressed by the three-dimensional stuff. All my track is flat. Maybe my next layout will get more "lift."


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## calirider

That is looking good, keep the post up so I can keep getting ideas for my future layout


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## Reckers

Hey, buddy---that's impressive! I think you've really shown a lot of creativity in your setup, particularly in the areas of climbs and descents. You're an artist, at heart. Please keep posting your progress.


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## tankist

thanks for the kind word. hardly an artist though.


been busy finishing up my kitchen project (lot of little pesky items) and preparing our to our Halloween party. in the mean time for the .5 hour or so i got an evening i just procrastinated and kept running some trains in a loop (i don't know what it is, i just can keep watching). so the resent progress was rather modest:

soldered proper power lead and routed under the table. attached DCC comand station underneath the table as well. the power lead is switched between the DCC comand station and MRC1400 DC powerpack. the choice of DC vs DCC is just a flip of the switch . i will make couple more drops but for now the entire layout is powered just fine with no voltage drops with that one lead. 

finished building surface and supporting base for my next add-on module (red). it will be full 7 feet long with posibility of 3 more feet extension (wall limited). will house an industry and a ship loading dock (or 2 industries if i goof the dock). peco small radius made almost perfect geometry for the diverging path mainline.









replaced most atlas turnouts with peco's. geometry and length is bit different so had to rearrange my sidings, but things are significantly smoother now and i eliminated an instance of "S" curve i had. i don't like the power routing feature and will wire to eliminate it.

for the slopes this is a must have for me. i wouldn't be able to live with flat layout. it will need more work to smooth out slope transitions - I have matches and toothpics underneath temporarily in sertain spots but it already works out satisfactory. with the fine adjustments, longer dash-8 was able to negotiate the descent slope full speed up and down and the "very low to the ground plow" equipped GP50's no longer scrape the rails with it. last night i was able to run my BNSF train (SD-40 pulling 7 ACF 2bay hoppers.) up and down the steeper slope with no stringling and uncoupling. more then i could hope for. and almost no wheel slip. looks like C-C locos have much better weight distribution and adhesion in model just as they do in prototype. 

won bunch of peco under-track switch machines. seems like embedding them will be quite an effort. now i just need to determine what to convert to remote and what to keep manual. 

i will tidy up and post newer pictures soon but as you can tell the progress is rather not "picturesque" .


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## mr_x_ite_ment

Hey Tank...

You have really done a lot in the space you have! It looks like it is coming together nicely! I agree with everyone else...keep up the good work!


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## tankist

thank you mr X. i'm trying hard.

an update 
worked on track work mostly. finished migration to peco turnouts (all 9 so far, yey!). decided i will have switch machines on all of them. got 4 already, waiting on 5 more + ordered some micro switches. will use these for independent turnout position indication. as soon as the machines are here it will be time to remove rail and "dig" acces holes again. what i really like about peco+peco motor combination is the fact manual override is still perfectly possible. soldered another power lead so right now both mainline and passing siding are on no matter the position of power routing pecos.

worked on electrifying those bridges. i want them to remain removable. attached contactor strips to the wood planks, will attach the spring clips to bridge bases as soon as i have drill long enough to get all the way underneath the base plywood.
oh and cut, nailed/glued, stained and coated with poli the plywood strips on the sides of the table. what a difference this small detail made 

base for new lower add-on section shown with turnout leading to the future branch (no foam for now), temporary shelf for the cabs ("running" both DC and DCC). and the cat again. 
i can't do anything about it, she just loves to hang out there while i'm in the garage. 









crossover with peco medium radius turnouts . and a cement dealer/storage (probably) spur. as much as i don't like the resulting "S" coming from the inner line i don't see a way to avoid it 
it doesn't look pretty when the train goes through but at least it goes through without derailing. 




















view at the new section base and the lazy cat (again).













view of the descent route, switcher stab and an industry spur (undecided yet)


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## Reckers

tankist---it's looking great! I guess it's time for me to ask the question that has to be on everyone's mind, at this point: when it's finished, are you going to invite us all over for a kegger?


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## modeltrainhead

im so happy for u man


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## tankist

with enough (for now) switch machines at hand i started excavating "ground" to install them. before assembling i made a carton cutout plate and inserted in between turnout and the machine so ballast will not fall into the hole. will paint the roadbed grey before i do install the turnout.










yesterday i got the micro-switches i ordered. the idea is to add them to the switch machine so to have independent turnout position read-out. perhaps i could get by with one per machine. but i have a bunch of them and did not make final decision on how i'm going to wire them. so for flexibility i decided to install 2 - now i have a "DPDT" on each turnout  . was thinking to make a custom brackets but superglue seems to hold really well.
i like the fact i don't need to enlarge the hole in the foam to house those










while i'm waiting for the rest of the parts to arrive i had some nice progress on small display stand i'm going to be gifting to the friend of mine who gave me all of his railroading stuff. he seemed bit sentimental about that little docksider so he will get it back on a nice stand while i get to practice ballasting on short piece.

at the moment it has 'red oak' stain drying on it (took the pic beforehand).


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## Reckers

Very nice presentation piece, Anton. I'm sure he'll treasure it. The layout seems to being moving right along, too. Incidentally, I talked to the gf about your offer to tweak the E-machine; she said she'd love to take you up on it, once she's returned home. She also said to tell you that, if you do that, the next time we come to Chicago, we're taking you to Omega Pancake house for breakfast. *L* It's one of her 3 most-loved restaurants. She's addicted to the cream-cheese-stuffed pancakes and french toast.


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## tworail

Are you making a control panel of sorts to control the switches? 

Going to awesome with those under the counter machines. Professional


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## tankist

Layout actually not really moving much. besides that one hole nothing changed. was waiting for this than for that. now i'm waiting for pin headers and wire organization solution i ordered to arrive. with 10 turnouts it will be 4 leads for coils and 6 for microswitches per turnout - it will end up a huge mess if i just start soldering. 


yep, some sort of control panel is definitely in my plans. i decided not to go with the toggle switch circuit i posted earlier since it only can have one location to be controlled from and there is an issue of manual override - if i to throw the switch by hand the circuit will not "know" about it. instead i'll go with 'pair of push-buttons' (which i still need to buy) since multiple push buttons can control the same coil , and independent position readout that will not care whether it was thrown by hand or by coil. while those darlingto transistors are not that expencive but at 10 turnouts, 20 coils and as a result one darlington per coil, it adds up... sifting ebay for a sack of these now.

i also thinking about JMRI far down the road. spent about 2 hours last night reading and tinkering with that. not decided yet what hardware i'm going to use to interface with PC but there is several options from 'of the shelf ready to go' to complete DIY. we had sale of old equipment here at work and apparently no one wanted that Dell P4 machine besides me - got it for 1$, so the dedicated PC for JMRI is already here (it will get loaded not with win7 but with XP  ) wife sure looked funny at me when i brought yet another PC in last night.

Reck, PM with more info is on its way to you


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## tankist

recent progress is mostly of non apparent kind.
i was showing of my contraption to family we had over for thanksgiving (felt ambisious and hosted 20 people party. crazy.) and thats meant a lot of cleaning beforehand in the garage .

"dug" 7 access holes for the switch machines. seemed like fast task but somehow got dragged. cutting and fitting the card stock to the holes also seemed fast, but then "fast" X 7 turnouts really took some considerable time.
made wire holders from wire hangers and installed them underneath. pulled pair of CAT3 (phone) wires for each turnout, one for the twin coils, one for the 2 micro-switches. since each wire is 8 leads and coils need only 4 i doubled up, 2 #22 gage wires will be plenty. 
earlier i developed and made a printout of a color code.
soldered the first turnout. 
first "oh sh#t!" moment was when i tried to test the connection, stripped the CL1 wire and got nothing on my multimeter. after scratching my had i realized i actually was working on turnout 2 :laugh:
but that one didn't test out either. pulling it out i noticed that my clumsiness managed to swap colors on one side of the coils  . well made a note of it and will connect it to distribution board accordingly.

and then for several minutes i was sitting there, and like a child clicking that turnout back and forth :laugh:. 6 more to go



wire management









wired turnout









paperwork


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## tankist

wired 2 more turnouts and other then that not much else. planned out the general layot of turnout position concentrator boards and the capacitor discharge turnout drivers. these will be 2 separate pieces of hardware. waiting (yet again) for prepunched proto-PCB's (or how do you call 'em...) to get here. i want to make some sort of disconnect so i can remove the boards and exibit/work on those comfortably



Reckers said:


> tankist,
> 
> I appreciate your series of pics---they're gonna be a real inspiration and information resource when I finally get to do one. On your elevated stretches, where you use plywood beneath the tracks: why do you cut out openings in the plywood arches?
> 
> Great job, and please keep those pics coming!


thank you 
as far as openings, to tell the truth and as strange as it may sound - i'm not 100% sure  i was thinking to build flat beam bridge (or correct me with the exact type) and it seemed a good idea of it being "see through". 










bridges probably not going to be very prototypical but to tell the truth, its worrying me less then reliable power connection.


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## tankist

the progress is rather not picturesque. it looks pretty much the same but with one difference - all my turnouts are wired now . soldering 14 leads each (or 10 if you will as i doubled up on some) sure took some time. now there are however bunches of cables hanging from below the table. i will be folding the table to work on connection to boasrds
replaced the section track of the underpass line with flex, soldered power leads to all blocks, soldered some rail joints and glued in lots of missing sleepers.

well, at least i don't have wires sticking out of solenoid wells and can run trains again...


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## Reckers

Hey, Anton....at what point do you call the train magazine company to come over and do the photos for the article?


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## tankist

Reckers said:


> Hey, Anton....at what point do you call the train magazine company to come over and do the photos for the article?


i'd think at the point when one has a layout to show off. i'm way before that point. actually i don't intend to call a magazine at any point 
but thanks


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## Big Ed

Your layouts coming along nice Tank.

Where did you pickup the gray wire?
Does it come in 3 or 4 leads too?


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## tankist

big ed said:


> Your layouts coming along nice Tank.
> 
> Where did you pickup the gray wire?
> Does it come in 3 or 4 leads too?


thank you 

i think i got the phone cable from craigs for free. 1000ft box almost full. got bunch of stuff couple years ago when i was installing structured home wiring at my house. i eneded up not redoing my phone cables since the cat6 i pulled could be used for voice as well if needed. 

check your local free listings in craig list guys, you never know whats there


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## Big Ed

tankist said:


> thank you
> 
> i think i got the phone cable from craigs for free. 1000ft box almost full. got bunch of stuff couple years ago when i was installing structured home wiring at my house. i eneded up not redoing my phone cables since the cat6 i pulled could be used for voice as well if needed.
> 
> check your local free listings in craig list guys, you never know whats there



I thought that was phone cable.
Years ago I got a bunch myself but it was not gray.


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## tankist

with bottom track laid i'm extending upward. laid the climb section including the removable bridge span. bought long drill bit, drilled all the way through and inserted thin drinking straws as "ducts" for the lead wires. soldered power leads to top and bottom "ground" tracks, bridge is yet to be electrified. 

i'm pretty happy with clearances, perhaps i could make the gaps smaller but it is still much better then some that i've seen on other layouts (and those were perfectly functional as well). so not to fight the straight last inch of flex i cut a R22 section and made that for this "flying joint". now it will kep its shape no matter what. clearance on the upper end of the bridge span is even tighter grade change is even better then on other places, almost made it into continuous grade 










perhaps a better angle - there is actually no kink 









"bridge span can be removed if needed". i will use this feature extencivley while working on bridge details.pink "access hole" that will house some sort of quick disconnect of power lead wire is visible as well.









and thats how my climb line looks complete











sheesh, i need to get some sleep, up to work in 3 hours


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## tankist

with the small distraction of those displays (really wanted to try balasting and scenery work) behind, i'm continuing with main layout.

laid out and wired the descending line. for the electrification of bridges, instead of fancy quick disconnect plugs i decided to just use the usual rail joiners. for removal of the span the not connected end lifts and the entire piece slides out. simple.


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## tankist

the cold weather kept me from the garage mostly, but i really wanted to make some progress at last.

built a power distribution terminal block and reversing terminal block. desided to not do breakout contacts for current detectors since in near future i'm not going to implement block detection. i will add them in new version of the board.

the wire terminals i ordered have different leg pitch then proto-board so i super glued them to the boards and to a common plank (popsicle stick). i also started on capacitor discharge units (not pictured), 3 boards driving 3 turnouts each. 



crude, but working


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## tankist

no progress, but just wanted to share another picture from the underside . 16 grey cables: 8 for coil switch machines, 8 for independent turnout position detection. the twisted small cables hanging everywhere are power leads to the isolated blocks.


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## Reckers

Beautiful work, Anton. Thanks for all the pics! When I do mine this summer, I'm going to have your stuff there as a reference to guide me.


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## tankist

thanks Reck 


i guess the most important work so far was the lighting upgrde. hung a florescent lighting fixture above the layout and what a difference! this is not a good light to take pictures under but it will do.



started working on my temporary control panel. printed out layout diagram, glued it to piece of plywood and screwed sheet of plexiglas. drilled through holes for tactile micro buttons. i got the ones with longer shank so about millimeter is protruding. the holes for indication diodes are through plywood only. since drilling i did ended up being somewhat messy i lined them with beverage stirrer straws (same i used as conduit when pulling power leads to the rails through foam.). these straws hold the 3mm LED exactly.

here is the results (the DPDT switches one of the stabs to be programming track "on demand") 





















somewhat sloppy but i will dress it up a bit later.


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## Reckers

It's very professional-looking, Anton. You should be proud of yourself.


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## mr_x_ite_ment

I agree...looks very nice so far, Anton! Good job!


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## subwayaz

Yes indeed Anton, your modeling is quite nice. This hobby is amazing to me you must be a jack of all trades to accomplish a good layout. ANd obviously you sure are. I'm working on that but some areas I'm better at than others so far.
Pictures like the ones you've posted in this thread sure do help me through those rough spots.
Thanks for sharing your vast knowledge. :thumbsup:

Glen


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## tankist

thanks guys. but i do see how things could have been better.

lesson learned from this is to next time use plexiglass instead of plywood for underside backing as well. drilling was messy and not precise due to the chipping of thin plywood. even though i used pointed bits, they still drifted, you can see the irregularity of holes. i also should have glued the paper better, as visible in pictures some places got ripped up a bit with the drill bit. although that is not hard to fix, i'll print another one


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## tankist

updated, or rather rebuilt panel:
http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=2852


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## tankist

with layout powered after several loops around the oval i started testing and regulating tracks on both inclines. 

at this point that the shape of layout is pretty much finalized, fixing the abrupt grade change on the start of the "long climb" section took some effort to fix. after lots of shimming and gluing under pressing weight i'm quite happy that the lowest plow no longer scrapes. single GP50 took 7 cars (bulk car with weight edded at the end to simulate more) up the grade on 25-30% power setting without stumbles or wheel slips. more then that is not possible length wise since it is a reversing section. what seemed as very light grade changes at the bridge ends is actually near critical - the couplers were on the verge of disconnecting. will be solved raising the lower bridge end (as a part of Culvert underpass installation)

the "crescent plunge" descent section besides being extremely steep has curve as tight as R18 (eased in, but still 18). but careful grade change from the beginning provided no scrape operation. while mostly ok several locos tended to throw the outside wheels over the rail in some situations (ie only climbing short hood forward). re-soldering a less then perfect rail joint and raising he outside rail removed those. raising the rail revealed that the bridge plank deformed and sagged in the middle. made a new plank. this time i will not superglue the rail directly but rather mount it on a bead of caulk (it is suspended on risers for now). the plank is also shaped to accommodate the bridge sides i received from a forum member. and I was pleasant surprised to find out that GP50 will pull the same 7 cars up the grade. and without running start - i stopped the train in the middle of climb and managed to start it going up again with minimal slip.


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## Reckers

Just think what you could do with a bottle of Bullfrog Snot, Anton.

When do we get to see this puppy running?


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## tankist

Reckers said:


> Just think what you could do with a bottle of Bullfrog Snot, Anton.
> 
> When do we get to see this puppy running?


normally it is not slipping without so the impact of traction tires would be exactly 0.

i am gearing up to do a video. lighting already installed, got mini tripod in addition to my full size one, macro and wide-view lenses for my camcorder are here. i still need to choose on camera light. 
i already did couple test clips to experiment with various possible shooting points and angles. i'm reluctant however to post them since its just test footage and tools and other junk laying around doesn't look very good


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## Reckers

I'm looking forward to seeing it. Will your layout have the live plants we discussed?


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## Reckers

Hey, Tankist....do you realize this thread has over 3,000 views? You've got more followers than Megan Fox.


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## tankist

no, no plants due to insufficient lighting - garage lacks any windows. 
as for followers, it is probably me watching myself.


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## SFC Diesel

I can't wait to see this thing rollin.


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