The first day involved a general clean-up of the workbench and layout. Reference measurements were made of the cork roadbed. Also, very important measurements were made of the track placement on the layout. It took a long time to mark all of the track centers onto the foam insulation board. The track was unpinned and removed from the layout table in large sections that included the switches.  A bit of cork roadbed was also laid on that long day. Because of the previously noted ripple problem of the chosen foam insulation board, a lot of leveling was required using balsa shims of 1/32", 1/16" and 3/32" were used.  On the third day, more leveling was done and more roadbed was pinned down. The pins ran out, but it could be seen that there was enough cork roadbed to complete the layout. The following day, there was a trip to Menards for lite spackle and Joann Fabrics & Crafts for more of the Dritz 1-1/4" Dressmaker straight pins. Different grits of sandpaper were tried to both sand the top of the cork roadbed and to sand the edge, or "lip", of the roadbed. 60 grit worked well on the top and 80 grit on the sides. Spackle was tried to use for leveling. Day 5 proved that the Spackling idea didn't work well. The rest of the roadbed was pinned down. Edge sanding was started on some of the roadbed and some vacuuming of the layout table was done.  More balsa shimming was done using a 4' level placed on the roadbed to determine where to raise the roadbed. This was a long and tedious process. A bit of roadbed edge sanding was also done. The following day, the rest of the lip was sanded on the roadbed. The layout was vacuumed. The track was laid out on the roadbed, but not joined. On Day 7, all 23 switches were brought upstairs, one at a time, to the kitchen counter to check their flatness and to adjust as necessary. They were each returned to their original positions.  When the track was connected, and temporarily pinned in place, it was apparent that there was a big problem. Three 3/4" sections needed to be added to the three parallel tracks on the north side of the layout and a special section had to be cut to fit the east end reverse loop to the inner loop track. These changes also changed where the west end cork needed to be!  The west end corkroad bed was taken up, new track centers marked on the foam insulation board, and the cork roadbed relaid.  With the track in place, it was apparent that more shimming was necessary. This time painted shims were added on top of the cork and under the track. Day 8 was a lot of testing by pushing rolling stock and locomotives through all of the track, after the final pinning had taken place. Both of the Walthers GP15-1s were run with trains. More problem areas were discovered, including the need for more shimming and switches where the small Atlas manual switch machine arms would not hold the turnout in the fully straight or divergent position. Another ground throw was prepared and installed to fix one of the not throwing enough problems. I have video showing what was happening. While testing all of the track-work on the following day, the Conrail seemed to be having some problems. It didn't appear to be traveling at the same scale 40mph, as noted on the speedometer, as the CSX version. It was also derailing a lot. More points were found that were not being fully thrown and causing derailments. The following day, the remaining three ground throws were prepared and installed. The Conrail was having serious issues going through several of the crossovers while the CSX and all of the rolling stock had no issues. Places for more shimming were found as well as other "weak" Atlas throw bars. Besides being weak, and not fully throwing the points in each direction, the Atlas Code 83 18" radius Snap Switches had the annoying habit of having the throw bar pin, at the end of the throw bar, drop out of the hole in the slide mechanism for moving the points in the slide mechanism. This is exacerbated by having the pin on the end of the throw bar being attached on the bottom of the slide mechanism instead of the top. Day 10 involved more shimming and identifying more problem areas. The two locomotives were time tested, and found to be close, but there was just something wrong with the Conrail. The Conrail was taken apart, inspected, tested both on and off the track, reassembled and tested, and it still just wasn't quite right! Both locomotives were taken to the bench, set on their tops and then the problem with the Conrail was discovered. The rear power truck would not move freely side to side or front to back. More ground throws and some bumper stops were ordered from Micro-Mark. Ordered February 8, 2023 from Micro-Mark at 7:17 a.m.
The Micro-Mark package arrived in the mail on Friday, February 10, 2023. All four packages of ground throws arrived. Unfortunately, only two Tichy Hayes-Built Bumper Stops (Set of 2) HO Scale arrived and the other was noted as on backorder.  At this point, ten days later, the track-work and roadbed were considered successfully completed. |