I did encounter two issues this morning. One was fixed quickly as it was another ground throw too close to the rail. A little filing and that was resolved.
The second was more involved. It was the ground throw for the south end of the gauntlet track. I knew all along this would probably require some attention, but I had been avoiding it as the fix didn't look pleasant. I unsoldered the turnout's throw bar and drilled the hole for a new one. By this time, I had to go to work...
This evening, I immediately returned to the gauntlet track. I had been thinking about it all day. I soldered the replacement throw bar to the switch points. I tested and all is good now! It runs flawlessly. Most excellent! I was concerned it would be worse to fix.
With that off my mind, I relaxed after a long day at work.
Later this evening I returned to the layout room. I had to turn my focus to the creek that runs under Ottawa Yard. With the last shipment of turnouts possibly shipping soon, I need to complete the creek so I can lay the yard tracks. I had most of it done already, but needed to touch up the paint and add some more ground cover. I did that and decided to bite the bullet and pour the "water". I'm using Liquitex Gloss Medium & Varnish for the water. I think it will work well.
Helicopter view over the creek.
The bridges aren't glued in place yet. I need to paint them as well.
They are pretty basic just built out of some styrene pieces.
I'll go back and add some handrails and other details later.
The bridges aren't glued in place yet. I need to paint them as well.
They are pretty basic just built out of some styrene pieces.
I'll go back and add some handrails and other details later.
Looking west. You can see a few of the telephone poles that I temporarily installed along the mainline. This creek was covered up with a lot of bushes and such. More will go into place once the water dries.
Here's what I used for the water.
Another view from the aisle.
In other news, I had been looking for quite some time in the past for a good track cleaning car. I hate cleaning track. It would be nice to run a quality track cleaning car and have it do the work for you. Back in the day, when I was in HO scale, I had a centerline car. It worked ok, but I wasn't overly impressed. The other day, I was watching a video on applying static grass that my friend Allen sent over to me. I checked out some of the other user videos to learn about the CMX Clean Machine car. I was very intrigued and thought this might be the answer to my laziness of cleaning track! So, I decided to go ahead and get one. If it didn't work, I would unload it on eBay.
I received it today and checked it out briefly this evening. So far, I'm very impressed! It is one solid car weighing in at 3.7oz. My Bachmann GP7 couldn't pull it alone. I had to pair up to Kato SD40-2s to pull the car. Not only do you have the weight, but the spring pushing down on the pad creating additional friction. I ran it up and down the layout from LOF to Ottawa Silica and back. I flipped it over to look at the pad to find it quite dirty. Wow! Very nice! I continued playing with it some more later cleaning all the yard tracks. It seems to really clean off the dirt! Here are some photos of the unit. I saw one person on YouTube painted his unit black and decaled it for Maintenance-of-Way (MOW). I might have to do something similar, but in ROCK paint.
Heavy brass construction on the CMX Clean Machine. The end screw plug is for filling the tank with the cleaning fluid of your choice (I have seen many different types used). The middle screw plug is to adjust the drip on to the pad.
The pad after one round trip up a 12 foot section of track. The spring clips secure the pad in place.
You can see here the spring the holds the pad securely down on the rails. It never once got caught on a switch point or any other rail.
And last, but not least, the ROCK: Ottawa Sands will have signals on the layout! Wahoo! I love anything that lights up! I ordered searchlight signals for the double crossover at Utica. If all goes well as planned, I will look at ordering more for the CB&Q Junction as well. I hope to work on some of the wiring over my Christmas break.
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