Building and operating the Atlantic Inland

 We signed up for Three River Ops in Ft. Wayne, IN. We drove out from home on Friday. The drive was easy. I enjoyed the drive from Winchester to Ft. Wayne, Indiana. Roughly 7 hours. Because of a lack of interest, only 24 people signed up, the organizers dropped the Friday layouts. We used the Friday as a travel day. There was not much to choose from meal-wise near my hotel, i settled for a nearby  Italian restaurant and ate average pasta. I would not go back, but it was far better than the Doritos I had on Sunday night! The first op session was Saturday Morning. This layout was the Northern Michigan. I was Grand Rapids YM, and had a rolling chair. These days I love sit down YM jobs, and in fact plan my Littlerock Yard job to be sit-down. Here Fred Paepke, the Layout owner, uses “Ship-It” switch lists. I’m not a huge fan of this because of the “Cherry picking” it forces on you, but Fred had this organized well, and from my perspective it was workable and I had a good time. Even...

 Re-railers are pieces of track the majority of us find far too toy-like to place on our layouts. I just ordered 72 of them. In my hidden trackage I’m placing a re-railer on each side of a yard ladder. So in a staging yard of four tracks, I’d have five re-railers. In East and West Staging there are  nine re-railers.  The idea is that if a train derails on the yard ladder of a hidden staging yard, either while departing or entering, the re-railer MIGHT catch the dragging equipment and re-rail it. Additionally I have several swing gates or lift outs. On each side of these sections gaps in the tracks I’m placing a re-railer. In West staging there is a lift out in front of the egress window. There are 8 tracks and that 16 re-railers. The idea s to keep the trains on the tracks when they pass through these areas. I’ll also have re-railers in the Helix. Finally, after speaking with a coupler modelers, I’m considering placing re-railers in the middle of each staging yard to help...

 Limestone is a key ingredient in a multitude of products. Where I live limestone products are a major source of car loading from Winchester, especially in the steam era. Limestone itself, in dimensional form is made into blocks, tiles, shingles,  and slabs for building. In powdered form it’s an ingredient in cement. As aggregate it’s used in producing concrete. It’s used in Steel making. Glass making. Paper and pulp Plastics and paint It’s heated to make quick-lime and hydrated lime for various industrial uses. It’s used as a soil treatment Animal feed Water treatment And various consumer products. Plants processing limestone produce several different lime stone products,  -SO- On your layout one industry can generate multiple carloadings. If you know John King, he models the B&O Shenandoah Valley Branch. His layout is set in 1949. On his layout Winchester, VA., is the major town on his layout. The lime stone industry is a major part of John's operation. I’m lucky en...

 I enjoy this hobby, for the most part. I’ve had, what I consider, a difficult time adapting to this “new” environment. I say new, it’s been eleven (11) years since we moved to Virginia. I’ve struggled to make new friends. To be honest it’s mostly been my fault. I’m an acquired taste, and like me everyone else is set in their ways. I mean I’m nearly always the youngest guy at any session, and I’m 65. THAT says a lot about this hobby. I think keeping my head down and just build this thing is my best option. It’s the keeping my head down that’s the toughest part. I’m too extroverted. THAT says a lot. As I’m building I’m sharing progress pictures. As I share, I’m getting a lot of comments. For the most part they are fairly much of a muchness, “Looking Good”. I think that is one of the canned responses provided by one’s telephone in response to incoming text photos, and no one wants to take the time to THINK and reply. The reply’s that are not canned vary, but generally are not all tha...

The construction is slowing.  I have too much to do. I’m rebuilding my front porch.  I’m building a dog wash in the garage. I’ve got dance lessons, yes, dancing. I should have done this years ago. But it takes time. Finally there’s day to day life

 The name “Metropolitan Team Tracks” is not a prototype name I am giving these “industries”*, it’s just a convenient name I’m using. Large cities had small yards organized with tracks spaced, usually, far enough apart to have paved roads between. Pairs of tracks, with paving on each side. Something like that. These Metro Team Tracks accommodated a lot of cars. Eric Hansmann sent me a photo of a large team track, in Pittsburgh, PA., from the 1920’s. It had several groups of paired tracks with paving between, with enough room for over 20 cars. Along one side was a covered loading dock, and in the middle of the yard was an overhead traveling crane. Behind the loading dock, paralleling the entire length of the team track was a scrap yard. The scrap yard had one track with room enough to hold ten gondolas. It loaded these gons with a crawler steam crane.  On the tracks of this team facility were spotted primarily boxcars, but there was a flat car of lumber, a tank car, and a gondol...

 Framing of benchwork in the area where I’ve painted the floor is WELL along. The entrance to the Pettigrew Yard Operators Pit needs to be a swing gate. As I built the benchwork I realized that the top deck is high enough off the ground to be a duck under. The first two levels have to be included in the gate. The duck under is 63” in the clear, while I have already hit my head, it is an easy duck. I’m running buss wire as I go, and some runs need to be connected together. I am connecting the 12 gauge wire with wire nuts. I recently picked up a tool, a “Wire Twisting Tool”, that’s what it’s called. I have to say, this is a great tool. You chuck it into your drill motor, I use my battery powered Makita, and follow the simple directions. Really makes the job easy. I’m not sure if it would work on the smaller gauge wire I’m using for drops, it’s made primarily for house hold 110v wiring. I’ll let you know how it works on 20 gauge wire when I get there.

 Well, I’m building like a fiend. I cannot believe the amount of lumber going into the construction of this layout. It’s a lumber yard. As per the design, the track surrounds the operators “pit” of Pettigrew Yard on all sides. On one side each track level has some sort of attachment to the benchwork below it.  -BUT-  On the other side the upper most level floats. This poses some interesting problems. I want to support the benchwork, obviously, but I also want it to be restrained from moving laterally. I’m supporting the aisle side with threaded rods coming down from the joists above. I had to build a “trick bag” support, that extends down and around some inconveniently placed air conditioning duct work, to not only hold up the third deck, but hold it in place laterally.  A long time ago I got a blue print from an Art Director depicting what she wanted for her set. There was no engineering showing how this was going to be accomplished. When I inquired about how I was ...

 This blog is titled “Building and operating the Atlantic Inland Railway”, and for the most part it has been a lot of editorial comment. Finally the building has begun. I’d sincerely like to post a photo but I cannot figure out how. In any case here goes the story… I want to paint the floor of the basement before I begin construction of the layout. The basement has a lot of “Stuff” in it. We all have stuff. Aside from the nearly 100 cubic storage boxes full of the old AIR, there are boxes of my mementos from childhood, my wife’s, our life together, my Mother’s, Sister’s, the dog. What else? So in order to paint the floor all the stuff needs to move out of the way. It’s a Chinese checkers game. Move some here, paint, move some there, paint, etc… A chunk of the basement devoted to the layout, about 1/3 of the layout space, has been painted and I’ve begun benchwork.  As you may know I’m building a Monstrosity. It’s a long, LONG, triple deck edifice. Mainline length measures, off ...