Back in December, I posted several photos showing construction of new modules for the portable mainline layout of the DFW O-Scale club. These are just a few posts before this one, so they are easy to review if interested. I am a bit surprised I haven't provided an update, but there were a lot of distractions in the intervening months, and progress has not been as rapid as hoped. Here is a shot from January showing a test fit of the new modules:
The foam was not yet glued when this photo was taken. We have learned from experience to pay A LOT more attention to getting the foam decks level and aligned with their adjacent decks. Slight misalignments were acceptable for B-truck diesels, but completely unacceptable for rigid-frame steam (of which I have a lot). We did our best to control deck alignment when gluing in the foam, but the foam itself proved to be less than perfectly flat. Getting this straightened out consumed a lot of time (and is still ongoing). After some experimentation, we found that dry wall mud worked well. This can be seen in this photo, which shows the outside mainline in place on the new modules:
Two details to note in the photo above. First, the module in the foreground is not new but a legacy module that has been reworked to install a curved turnout. The outside track is the outside main, the diverging track from the turnout is for a shared passing siding/interchange track between the outer and inner main. Second, the outside main is eased here. The easement is required to move the alignment from six inches from the edge of the layout on the curve to three inches on the tangent section. The easement is supposed to be a spline curve, but this one is a bit out of alignment. We may go back and work on it once the layout is operational and we see how it runs.
A few photos from today, showing the work on the inner mainline and shared siding. This first one shows the cork roadbed glued in place:
The tangent track sections in the distance not installed. They feature hand-laid track and were salvaged from the Lou Cross layout (thank you, Jay Criswell, Dennis Mashburn, others? Maybe Ed Jakl?) . It's a bit of a surprise that the track did not get the full Right-o-Way super-detailing, but it's nearly identical to the way we lay track, so acquiring Lou's salvaged track is an incredible bit of good fortune for us. In parts of the layout, like on curves or around turnouts, we have found it better to lay new track ourselves instead of trying to fit old track. We go through a lot of ties doing this. Here is today's supply, fresh from the dipping vat:
Here is the other end of the layout, showing similar track work with ties in place:
We use a product called a Gapmaster to establish and hold rail alignment across the modules. The gap in the cork and ties in the middle of the photo above is where the Gapmasters are used. Here is a photo showing three Gapmasters (two installed, one loose) and one "homemade" equivalent:
We all wish we had discovered Gapmasters years ago. They are head-and-shoulders better than the homemade devices, which themselves are tedious to fabricate and install. Over the years we have installed well over 100 of the homemade devices, and we have plans to replace all of them.
Jim