Progress in Sundance Yard and Siding

I made small progress on my lower level yard project. I removed the most of the old track and roadbed without major damage...cleaned the wood and made the cuts for the new pieces.After that I put some new old roadbed down and layed some tracks on it for test fitting. Looking good to me

The end of the stagingtrack will be hidden under a roadbridge and the there will be some trees and bushes between the main and the yard...I´ll soon run some trains on the new layed tracks.

Started the last changes on the lower level.

During my OP sessions I found out that I have to add two turnouts in the Dawson Creek yard as a runaround...This will be changed,soon...and the other thing is the change of the location of the yard for the lower level.It will be no more on a shelf around the corner with another liftout piece of wood.Instead it will be part of the sundance siding and will sit between the wall and main with 3 tracks...one for departure and two for arrival...Here´s my Anyrail plan for that as you have seen it on my last post.

There are from left to right: two arrival tracks, departure track, main and siding.

And first tests laying down some track...I`ll cut the wood for the three yardtracks and install it in three pieces...the longest track is as long as the longest yard track on the upper level. So this seems to be the last change for now....maybe one idea I have for the upper level but that´s another story and not worth to talk about...


So that´s for now....you may think I´m crazy and you may be right....but that´s okay for me....

Cheers Chris

Atlas Alco RS 11 HO with Tsunami & iPhone4 speaker

I started converting some of my engines to DCC. One of them was my Atlas Alco RS-11. It has the wrong livery for my railroad but it will be rebuild as an MLW RS-18 or RS18u someday. For now I´ll go with the NYC livery.

I removed the Atlas board inside and installed a Tsunami TSU At-1000 with Alco 251 12 V sound and an iPhone 4 speaker to it.I made no changes to the lights and with that small speaker I don´t have to remove parts of the weights.

Here is a short video of the RS-11 in action.I have to program the decoder later but for some test it´s ok with the factory settings.

Atlas Gold Dash 8-40B BC-Rail with short train #2

A short train running west on the street crossing in Cold Creek,BC on the lower level of my layout on it´s way to Chetwynd,BC (staging)

Atlas Gold Dash 8-40B BC-Rail with short train

Short train heading west from Dawson creek on the curve around the Farm on the upper level of my layout.

Final Layoutplans

I made some small operating sessions during the last weeks.All worked fine but there are two parts of the layout where I have to do some changes.One is to add a runaround on the upper level in the dawson creek yard.
The other part is the new arranged sundance siding area.First I wanted to build the staging off scene around the corner of the next room with a liftout/fold down section but I don´t want another liftout.So I made some new plans and found a solution for that problem.Here is the trackplan of the lower level.

I think this will work fine and there is enough space to place the trains for an op session.Next plans showing an overview of my layout.

Lower Level Trackplan

Upper Level Trackplan

Extra Trackplan of the Industrial District (far left room in the plan)

Next step is to remove the track and turnouts on the lower level and reinstall it following the new design...I´ll also finish the backdrops and paint them skyblue.

Structures for the industrial distircts.

I finished some basic structures for the layout.They are scratchbuild
First spot will be Diamond Fertilizer plant & storage with 2 carspots for hoppers and boxcars.

Next will be the big G.E.R.N. Industries Limited complex with it´s truck loading/unloading facility ( non railserved) and the mill and elevator complex with max 6 spots for hoppers at the elevator and 2 spots for boxcars at the millbuilding

You´ll leaving the west downtown district going around the curve over the liftout and you´ll enter a small yard where are two elevators in the background and the interchange track with the NAR/CN in front.
The wooden elevator will be an Alberta Wheat pool elevator and the other will be United Grain Growers elevator.On the elevator track can be spotted max.7 cars (Hoppers and Boxcars) and on the interchange track when finished about 4 to 5 cars max.

Around the last corner there is Prarie-Coast Farm Supply & Equipment in the rear corner right to the street.This company once was railserved.You´ll see the remains of the track lurking out of the concrete in front of the building if you´ll look closely....okay,not really now but when it´s finished you´ll see it....

Last two spots at the end of my layout world are Wrights Food Service LTD. with to tracks in the background and a teamtrack in the foreground.I´ll mount a backdrop on the left edge of the layout.The teamtrack is served by a gravel road coming from the street on the right.
Inside Wrights you can spot 4 ´40 Boxcars or 3 ´50 Boxcars.The track in the front is for switching and storage,the Teamtrack could hold 3 cars max.

The building with the windows is only a mockup,I´ll scratchbuild another structure for Wrights with some truckdoors (maybe 2 or3)at an angle...

I think this whole area will be a lot of fun to be switched....Here is my trackplan of this last part of the layout....

Next step will be gluing track down to the kork and finishing the wires.Than the backdrop will be painted and mounted and a lot of other things before I start with the basic scenery.

Thanks for following my blog.
Cheers,Chris

Small changes....

So,wiedereinmal gibts ne Kleinigkeit zu berichten.Ich habe im Bereich des Stationsgebäudes in Dawson Creek eine kleine Änderung der Gleisführung vorgenommen.Dort war alles immer sehr gedrängt und das gefiel mir nicht wirklich.Hier mal ein Bild wie es vorher aussah mit dem Station Gebäude und Freighthouse daneben und links davon noch Scott National Food Warehouse.

So here are some news about my layout.I made a small change at Dawson Creek in front of the stationbuilding.I reworked the trackwork so now there is more space between the tracks and I could also add a small concrete pad right to the RDC you´ll see in the last two pictures.

Trackwork before changes. From Front to back : Main,Spur to Scott´s, Passenger track fro RDC and freighthouse track

Die ganzen Gebäude wurden etwas zurück versetzt was mir davor natürlich mehr Platz gab.Ausserdem konnte ich mich so etwas mehr am Vorbild Orientieren und einen kleinen "Bahnsteig" vor der Station platzieren.Ausserdem wurde das Gleis vor dem Freighthouse etwas eingekürzt. Durch den gewonnen Platz kann auch Scott´s National Food Warehouhouse besser dargestellt werden....

All the structures moved to the back and I could add some more space between the tracks.

Jetzt werde ich mich den nächsten Bereichen widmen und diese testen.Wenn alles einwandfrei funktioniert kann es ans schottern der Gleise gehen