Staging

First up is the staging yard, representing Council Bluffs and points west as well as Des Moines and points east.  As mentioned above, the curved portion of the yard, making up about half the trackage, was salvaged from my old layout.  Trackwork here consisted of simply building new yard ladders in on each end and then connecting those ladder tracks to the curves in the middle.  For that reason, the left end of staging has some gentle S-curves to mate the two, which looks a little weird, but will eventually be hidden behind a tall fascia and short removable backdrop anyway.

All trackage here was salvaged from the 10-track staging yard on the old layout. I originally wanted to reduce the number of tracks even further by storing more equipment off-layout between runs.  However, the makeup of the detours will never change and I didn't want to handle the IAIS locomotives between sessions by moving them to and from storage drawers, so I opted to go with three more tracks than the three originally planned. 

Since there's no prototype to compare to, there's not a lot more to share about this area, but tomorrow my hope is to get busy laying ties on the handful of turnouts between staging and Atlantic yard.  I hope you'll follow along.

Here's the view looking west from the Atlantic Spur switch:

...and here we're looking east from Adair:

From the wall on the right moving inward, the tracks will be used as follows:

1. IAIS road tr​​​​​​ain
2. Westbound UP coal empty detour
3. IAIS locomotives
4. Eastbound UP manifest detour
5. IAIS grain
6. Run-through

Nice to see you getting

Nice to see you getting started again Joe. You previous layout was fantastic. Always nice to see another Iowan posting.

Keep us posted.

Greg

Seems like more storage

Seems like more storage tracks is a good idea.  I maxed out what I could fit too.  What turnouts are you using?

Track lengths and uses?

Front to back would be shortest to longest.  Is that also true for the assignments you listed?  I think i'd prefer the locos at the front, for one thing.  Although it's the longest track, I might put the run through at the back so it has a straight shot.  But that's just an idea.  Whatever you choose, it's great to see progress either way, Joe.

Thank you

Greg - Thanks very much!  Agreed about seeing fellow Iowans here.

Jim - In staging, I'm re-using the Atlas code 83 turnouts and flex track I salvaged from the West End's staging yard.

Blair - I totally agree about your suggestions.  If I had more space, I would have preferred for the run-through to be closest to the wall, then the UP detours (since their makeup will never change), then IAIS locomotives, manifest, and grain in that order to keep the power from being bumped while re-staging the other two.  However, adjacent scenes dictated that the staging entrances on both ends had to be against the wall, and everything else was just determined by what would fit in the available tracks.  The two prototype coal trains were 135 cars each, but the UP manifest I'm modeling only had two SD40-2s, 27 loads, and 20 empties for 4163 tons, so my model version is only 13 cars long, putting it closer to the front.  The IAIS grain would similarly be only 13 cars, representing the 50-car prototype unit trains that were common then.

(Completely unrelated, but kind of interesting to me:  That 47 car UP manifest weighed 4163 tons, but the 135 car empty coal train only weighed 2848 tons with almost 3X the number of cars.)

Joe, I am glad to see track

Joe, I am glad to see track being laid. I lok forward to seeing more progress.

Jeff

Great progress

Glad to see things progressing.

I'm sure that a couple extra staging tracks could be shoehorned in, but at what cost, when do you draw the line?  Tough call.  For example, you could come off the current left hand staging ladder with two more switches and then ran them along the current staging yard and parallel to the right staging lead, tying them into the main just before the first main track switch in the  right staging lead.  But that would curve or move the West Central elevator tail tracks into the aisle another 4-6 inches, making a narrow aisle narrower.  Do you want to run that many more trains in a session?  You like a laid back session, will throwing two more trains into the mix change the character of the operating sessions?  

That's why I tell people don't use "actual" tonnage to figure train size, use car count.  On a model setting things get funky when you try and figure "actual" tonnage and compare it to "actual" tonnage ratings of engines.

Jeff and Dave

Thanks very much Jeff and Dave.  I'm really enjoying getting to this point where things will start to look a bit more like my prototype.

Dave, maybe I misunderstood what Jim was suggesting earlier, but I thought he meant that more storage tracks (than the three I mentioned being my bare minimum) would be a good idea, but maybe he meant more than the six tracks I built?

Regardless, I'm actually very happy with six.  For staging purposes, this layout is identical to my last one, as the traffic from staging is exactly the same.  (Same prototype, but the next mainline segment to the east, so no need to add room for more trains.)  The only difference is that, on the last layout, I had four additional visible tracks to store cars between runs, whereas on this one, I chose to take those cars off-layout and store them in shelf units below to minimize dust.

Layout space

Joe,

What the space for this new layout?

Space

Hi Wayne - New room is 18’3” x 20’.  Just right for what I want to do going forward. 

That is a decent sized room.

That is a decent sized room.

Staging

Thanks Jim.  I've been happy with it.  Big enough to fit what I want to do and allow a fair amount of mainline running, but not so big as to be overwhelming or a maintenance burden.  Keeping the shelves relatively narrow (most around 16") helps as well. 

So far, the aisles have felt pretty spacious, which is a welcome change from my last layout.  I know that'll change a bit when I build the Atlantic Spur peninsula but the aisles will still be far better than before - probably 36" minimum except for the one pinch point behind ADM Harlan Elevator that'll be closer to 28".  However, the whole layout will only be used by one two-man crew at a time, and the conductor is the only one who'll be back there, and only while working West Central Elevator along the right wall in Adair.

Blair, I've been giving more thought to your suggestion, but for a different reason.  If I were to move the IAIS manifest - the train that needs the most work in moving cars on and off the layout - to the very front for its initial blocking, it'd be far easier to build.  It'd likely block most of the turnouts to other tracks, but that wouldn't matter since it'd be the first one out for each session.  After making its run around the layout as westbound BICB, I'd likely have to run it into the back track in order to let the UP detours out and back in, but then I could again build its eastbound counterpart, CBBI, on the front track. 

Still not an ideal situation, but at least the only staging work I'd be doing on the back track would be removing cars, while the more difficult task of building the outbound train would take place right up front.

Looking good so far Joe! 

Looking good so far Joe!  Glad to see that you are making progress. The West End was one of my favorite layouts to virtual railfan and the 4th Sub looks like it will be much the same.  Even your staging yard is very photogenic!  Keep up the great work.

Brant

Thank you Brant!  I appreciate the encouraging words.

Following along. Have always

Following along.

Have always enjoyed your posts regarding your fantastic modelling. Will be looking forward to when you start working on the Anita elevator.

Phil 

Phil

Thank you very much Phil.  Yes, I'm really looking forward to the Anita Elevator as well.  Such an interesting mix of structures.

Laying ties

I've been busy laying ties over the past week and thought I'd post a few pics.  This is the "jig-less" process I learned from Jeff Otto of Missabe Northern fame and it served me well on the West End, so I didn't hesitate to use it again.

Step 1 involves using a section of flex track to lay out the track's position and draw a line along the front edge of the ties.  I then go back and lay what Jeff called "spotter ties" about every 6" against that line.  These first pics are from Atlantic's west siding switch.  Aside from a bag of Mt. Albert turnout ties I bought from a friend, all ties are from Kappler, http://kapplerusa.com/ .  I've been VERY pleased with their products.  Excellent quality and consistency, and outstanding customer service.

Once the spotter ties are dry, I spread white glue between a pair of them and start putting down ties.  I intentionally drop them in so the front edge of each tie extends forward beyond the line drawn previously.

I then take a long flexible steel rule like that shown in the first pic above, stand it on edge so it touches the adjacent spotter ties, then bend it so it matches the curvature of the line drawn previously.  In doing so, the ruler pushes the new ties into alignment.  I then lay the ruler over the ties and apply pressure to seat them in the glue.

For tangent track, I simply lay the ruler flat and use the edge to push the ties into alignment with the spotter ties.

As shown in this pic from Wiota, I only do about every third section with each pass, preventing ties that aren't yet dry from being disturbed as I work areas adjacent to them.

Here are a few pics showing the completed sections on both ends of Atlantic yard, along with some prototype shots for comparison.

West end looking west:

Looking east:

East end looking west:

Looking east:

Using the plan at the top of the page for reference, ties are now laid all the way from staging counter-clockwise around the room to the west end of Anita. I hope to put down the last of them today so I can sand and stain them and then get busy with ballast.

Update on ties

I've been working on weathering ties for the last couple weeks and thought I'd post a quick update.

First, a couple prototype pics from Atlantic, Iowa to show what I'm shooting for.

And here's my attempt to recreate that look on the layout using PanPastels:

Amazing

Joe, 

Just an amazing level of dedication to replicating the prototype. 

Thanks for sharing. 

Bob

Thanks very much Bob.  One of the things I like about going smaller with this layout is that it allows me more time to do things like this.  Although, after two weeks, I think I'm just past the halfway point and starting to kick myself for not just staining the ties in varying shades of light gray and brown to begin with.

Making only new mistakes, I guess.   And I do like that the PanPastels let me vary the shades in more subtle tones, so I guess there's that.  Hopefully it captures the look of the prototype.