While I am not hand laying any rail, I am laying down track and one spike at a time seemed appropriate.

If you have been following my blogging you will know that after building my GE 85 ton steeple cabs, I need something for them to do. So I built a mine. Then I needed some place for them to take the rock, and well I didn't have any place.

Above is, ah was, my main yard and the most detailed part of my layout. This part of my layout I was able to keep and I put up in my garage that I built a few years back. This was wired as DC, and I sat in a 60 inch crawl space on a bar stool running it. It served it's purpose, many people got to see it, but I was starting to have too many electrical issues with it. Especially when trying to run sound locomotives. They stalled 80% of the time. SO I ripped it up, replaced a bunch of plywood, recovered all the track. 5 of the switches, which were likely from my 1982 layout, were pooched and have been put off to the side for parts.

Above is the rebuild progress to date. All the electrical is in. All the Blue Points installed. The yard is moved from the front to the back of the layout. It is smaller, but with the change I expanded the yard and move my industries to behind me in the photo. On the front is where the ore from the mine will come in as raw ore and magically go out as a concentrate. I am not trying to focus on the processing of the ore, others modeling mining can do that, but there will be enough buildings to make you think there is a larger plant nearby.

My little town will get bigger as I left more area for it. Then I can display all the items I have collected that are for a town.

The above shot looks back towards where I was previously standing. The white paper in the foreground will be where my ore will be off loaded and then loaded into gondolas on the other end.

Here is the layout as planned. I had to make a small change to the track to get into the CON OUT, otherwise all is progressing as hoped. Tomorrow I will start working on the turntable and new engine facility.

Until next time.

Tim