The ROCK 3.0: Progress Report Last Few Days

As mentioned the other day, I have been pondering where to locate the scale at Belrose Silica.  Originally, I was going to weigh the sand at Ottawa Yard, but it was going to be too much of a disturbance to the yardmaster at Ottawa plus too many round trips between Utica and the yard.

When looking at options of where to place the scale in the current track configuration at Utica, I wasn't pleased with the arrangement.  This got me thinking of how to change it and how it would be switched.  That provoked me to pull up the industry tracks at Belrose Silica, and change the track configuration.

Here is the revised plan.

The new plan has two tracks accessed by trailing switches when coming from Ottawa Yard. Empties are spotted on the tail track, cars are loaded under the loader on the far track (from the mainline).  They are then weighed on the scale track closest to the mainline.  Any cars over tonnage are set off to the right of the scale to be reduced if need be.

I then worked on pulling up the old tracks, cut and shaped the new tracks.  I repaired and glued the mainline trackage where I removed one of the turnouts accessing the plant.

The next day, I glued the new track arrangement at Belrose Silica.  I also repaired five more turnout points that had popped loose.  I believe that is 30 now.

This evening, I installed the Boulder Creek Engineering scale for Belrose Silica.  Wow!  I had a time with it tonight.  It took me two hours to get that thing right.  The first one at Ottawa Silica installed super easy.  Either I was extremely lucky the first time or I'm just having a bad day today.  Either way, I got 'er done!

I was hoping to get more done tonight, but I guess I will finish wiring up the new industry tracks tomorrow.

Only 10 days until my first op session of the Rebirth of the ROCK!