Trackwork

Trackwork is almost done:

As you can see it's a modular layout; the first module is shown above and consists of two segments (upper half left segment, lower half right segment). I used Peco Code 83, turnouts are #6 and #8.

hmmmm.....

That sign looks familiar.....like 12 miles away from me familiar

Arizona

That's between Casa Grande and Eloy.

More pics from Arizona here to come in the next days: http://somewhere-southwest.de/index.php?id=prototype-pics

oh I know

Same location, just facing east instead of north

Exactly

Yes, indeed! You caught a really different train from what I saw there - mainly double stack container trains.

And just a little bit more to the right there is a wonderful structure for a model railroad:

Can't wait to see what you do

Can't wait to see what you do with it

Trackwork

I'm working on the last few tracks - the three tracks between segment #1 and segment #2. This needs to be rather sturdy to avoid hassle at this point in the future.

Each single rail is soldered to two cut brass screws mounted at the end of the segments. The track is laid continously over both segments. The segments are mounted momentarily with some distance to give room for a small saw to cut the rails when all three tracks are mounted.

While I'm working on the last

While I'm working on the last track laying details I'll show you another prototype picture:

Trackwork finished

Trackwork is finished; the interesting part is shown here - the joint between the two segments:

The rails can now cut apart.

A small detail of how I

A small detail of how I attach feeders to the rails:

I always solder the feeder wires to the bottom of the rails before installing the track. After ballasting they won't be visible at all.

nice

Do you do that in N as well? I usually solder the wire to the rail joiner

Yes, also in N-scale

Yes, indeed - I always solder the feeders from the bottom between two ties. (I haven't tried it in Z-scale yet 

Soldering to joiners?

Seems to me soldering to joiners is counter productive. The reason you solder droppers on is to get rid of the problems created by rail joiners dropping voltage to track. Just solder to the rails and this doesn't occur. I have soldered to rail on side and bottom in all sizes from code 40 up to 225 and never melted ties yet. The trick is to use a large iron with lots of heat and get in and get out.

Soldering

When soldering feeders to rails I have tinned feeder and rail beforehand and I'm at least at 400°C.

Feeder location

I almost always solder a feeder to a joiner, or right next to one.  I already have that part of the rail cleaned to take solder since I solder nearly all joiners, and the plastic ties are already removed.  It just makes things easy for me.

Near Winona (AZ)

Feed me!

After laying all the track the next step was wired:

A lot of feeders had to be connected - and the first test runs were successfull, no dead spots.

Golden spike

Forgotten to post - the Golden Spike moment at my switching layout:

Due to sprue

A loco showed a strange behavior, especially on the turnouts, sometimes leading to a derailment. Loosely laid track? A turnout problem?

Watching this problem closely showed one truck of the loco not to be oriented straight, but always sloped to the rails - why? Further investigation showed that this truck could not swivel freely from one side to the other.

So I decided to strip down this (brand new) locomotive until I would have found and solved the problem. Finally it was a small sprue left over at the truck:

After removing this small part (less than one millimeter in height) everything was fine and ran smoothly!

Switching at Winslow (AZ)

Tracks

Interesting Picture for the Modern RR Modeler

New or recently painted masts and signals - Concrete ties with pre-cast concrete road crossing pavers bolted down to ties – Dragging equipment detectors – Wheel detectors – RR radio antennas with UHF link: All in front of what would be a very nice backdrop photo.  

Weathering track

I tried a lot of different techniques to weather my ties and rails - finally I ended up with dry brushing the ties and then painting the rails with a brush:

Trackplan

Instead of a manually drawn trackplan a version combined of two photos is shown here:

I already added a small extension board to the right as a "one-track-fiddle-yard" and in order to be able to use the siding as a run around. An extension with a third segment in the middle is already in my mind - this would lengthen all and add a reasonable team track.