Pictures 
First up we'll look at a couple pictures of the section as it stood before the cleanup crew unceremoniously cleared everything off.
Yes, it was a rather lovely layout right up until Friday when they started clearing it off! But a couple hours after the conclusion of the business meeting, a final review declared the peninsula ready for removal.
I proceeded to remove the tracks at the places where I wanted to make the cuts, preferring to remove the track with as few cuts as possible. This mean water, putty knives, and lots of patience.
I chose to part up the layout in two nine foot sections with shorter section in the middle. This arrangement allows me to preserve as much of the yard ladders as possible without dismantling the throats.
The flex track came up decently well. It will need a quick dunk in hot water with a little soap, but that will be for another night! The Shinohara switches came up more or less intact, though they separated at natural junctions instead of at the joiners in some cases. The damage will be no issue, wheres reusing them will be akin to setting up switch kits versus RTR switches.
The entire peninsula was held up by a total of four legs and the wall. I built a couple sets of new legs, ensuring that the whole thing wouldn't collapse once I started cutting it up. It's far easier to build legs now versus later, so it was a smart move!
I discovered the circular saw isn't functional anymore [for whatever reason] but at least my jigsaw was on hand. Here's the first cut - two straight cuts and then a jog up the backdrop line. The rest of the cuts through the I bea,s weren't so pretty, but I likely won't reuse the I-beams on account of their thickness. If I replace them with a 1x4 and a 2x3, mounted like a T-grider, I'll gain clearance for valuable storage space in my apartment.
I prepared my wheel sets and set in place where there were no car card boxes. Alas, when they put them on, they not only screwed them in place but they GLUED them too!!! Aye yie yie!!!
Once the wheels were screwed onto the side of the layout, it was a simple anxious matter of tipping it over and seeing just how heavy the side of Mammoth is!
It tipped over rather well, without too much effort. The fascia crackled a bit, but it turned out to be nothing important.
Legs removed...
And there it is, 100-200 lbs of Mammoth, freely wheeling about! I DO regret not making both wheel boards free-wheeling casters, whereas two are rigid allowing only back and forth movement. The good side to this decision is that I did not have the back end fishtailing on me as i move it - it just made cornering LONG.
Now up to this point I hadn't considered that I needed more stiffening to protect the layout, whereas it was freely wheeling about on just 4" of layout thickness. To do this, I took two 2x4 and screwed them in place where they could brace the I-Beams together against the wheel set boards. I did not screw them to the wheel boards, but the weight of the layout was enough to keep things braced.
Sadness! I then wheeled it towards the door and discovered to my horror that while the doorway is tall enough for the layout, it is not tall enough for the layout plus the wheel set on the tall end of the layout. Off comes the rigid wheel set!
At this point then I discovered that there were absolutely NO handles or other grips on the large end of the layout, and this is the portion where I need the most grip to get it out the door and more importantly onto the truck. I had a 2' section of 2x4 on hand, so I made a lifting bar by screwing in place where I'm planning to expand out to add a second curve at 35" or 36" radius - no loss if I screw this on!
And so we had for the door...
...where we discover that we have to pull forward just an unfortunate bit to clear the awning overhead!
Quick Fix...
After a quarter hour of struggling and pushing and using every bt of inclined advantage I could with my two remaining 2x4s, I finally had it loaded.
It's only overhanging the back by about 4.5' and the driver's side by 1.5'... otherwise, the rope was perhaps unnecessary, whereas weight lone had it pretty firmly stuck in the bed!
Still, this means I must have rear protection on my load to help drivers coming up behind me to know where my load ends. Local/state requirements for oversized loads standing, I looked all over the club for anything that was red or high visibility and finally found a Bright Orange SP Safety placard...so I slapped that in the back end! perhaps this is tongue in cheek...for those who are not so brave when it comes to such movements!!!
Under the cover of night, I drove the 6.7 long tenuous miles to my apartment driving much, much slower than I normally do. I was still amazed at how many people drove behind me AS IF I was going to speed up if they waited back there long enough, or tailgated enough...crazy people, because I learned a long, long time ago taht you never drive behind a load any longer than necessary!!
The load pretty much stayed just like I loaded it and the placard stayed in place!
It was unloaded much, much faster than it was loaded...One of the leg sets somehow got in the way and was half crush, and I should have removed the placard before proceeding. Otherwise, all good...
A fair portion of the fascia got smashed, but it's going away, so no loss...
The wheels when as smoothly as you might imagine, and here I got really lucky: the doorway on my apartment is just a bit enough taller than the club's site that the tall end just barely squeezed in without taking off the wheel set - RELIEF!!!
The bigger concern, though, which I learned as I put it up on it's side, is that the club used very, very short screws to affix the I-beams to the girders. In other words, had I not put in my stabilizing 2x4s, I would have likely lost this section or at least had a layout without any infrastructure at all. It all fits into the grand scheme, through, whereas I will likely remove the I-Beams and replace them with T-girder 1x4 an 2x3s, the 2x3 vertical and the 1x4 allowing screws on both sides fo the 2x3 into the girders. I'm also seriously considering a cut through the center along the backdrop line and north of the turntable, such that then I'll eb able to mve only half ot it at a time.
And so it is now home!
Did I ever think, all the way back in 2006 that some day I might have this very layout section as we were building it in my apartment? Nope, the thought never even entered my mind!!! And now while I sit and celebrate my victory, I sigh as I remember the remaining 9 sections, including two that will be more or less just like this!!
