*** UPDATE 10-22-13***

I actually got something done, instead of just talking about it!  Well, when I say done, I mean started...

Below is a redesign of the Gilman VT section of my track plan:

The progress that I have made on my home layout up to this point in the year has been very slow indeed so far. My career has been taking a lot of my time in the evenings during the week, and I have spent most weekends at the beginning of the year building an N Scale bend track layout for the club I am a member of to display at two of the local hobby shows in the area.

I've had that model railroading bug in me again lately so I put that motivation to good use and I'm rather happy with the amount of laboring I was able to get done on my railroad this Labor Day weekend. Let's take a look at what I've accomplished. 

Now we come to one of those great challenges with modelling the turn of the century: colour. In particular, since we've been talking about track, what colour should the ties be? The ties on the Canada Atlantic were almost certainly untreated, as preservatives for ties were something of a research topic, and the CA enjoyed cheap timber. So, we can't just go down to the local tracks and check them out. We can't even look at quite old tracks and think they're going to match (can we?). So, this week, I made up some more test track and experimented with colour.

Having spent several afternoons watching the operations and traffic at the Noyes MN Border crossing & Interchange yard, I have decided on my track arrangement for this area.

It was a hard decision, until I actually saw how this interchange operated. Then to my surprise, I chose the track plan I originally liked least.

Why didn't I like it? The lift out bothered me.

Why did I choose it? Quite simply, I had no choice if I wanted to operate this area of the layout faithfully at all.

Well, I had been putting it off long enough so this long Labor Day weekend I decided to tackle the gate for my benchwork.  I had been trying to decided between a lift (hinged) gate and a swing gate.  After careful consideration I decided on a swing gate as I believe that I (personally) have a better chance of achieving and keeping track alignment with a swing style gate.

Since several members found the animation of HO & N scale work interesting I've reposted the video from the Ring Engineering thread and a second one.

Art,